Chapter Text
Gordon Freeman barely registered his own door in front of him. Of course he knew it was the door to his apartment, but the actual details of everything around him seemed to be registering in bits and pieces. Maybe it was from all the teleporting he'd been doing in the past twenty-four hours. Numbly reaching out to open the door, he found his hand missing yet again. The gun arm had almost been preferable to the scarred stump that was there now, at least he could do things with a gun arm. Reaching out with his non-dominant hand, Gordon opened the door.
He didn't know what he was expecting after having been to hell and back, all options were on the table here. He could have stood outside his apartment for an eternity and anything could have been plausible for the state it could be in. Alas, everything was just as he'd left it before going to work... How many days ago was it now? Gordon couldn't remember. The Science Teams sleep schedule hadn't exactly aligned with the days passing outside, and it didn't help that they couldn't see the sky for most of their journey.
But after everything Gordon had lived through at the now very exploded Black Mesa, it felt as if he was being thrown into the abyss. Gordon was unemployed for the first time in years, but Gman had promised a hefty sum coming his way soon enough, so that wasn't one of his main concerns just yet. Instead he was honed in on the feeling of his body begging for rest, but with how fast his mind kept whirring, oblivious to his own exhaustion, sleep felt years off. Closing the door behind himself, he stumbled to the couch and gingerly sat down, still half convinced a headcrab or some bullshit was going to round a corner and try to attack him.
Letting out a nervous chuckle, Gordon undid his ponytail, coursing his fingers through greasy, curled hair. At least he'd get to shower again. But taking the HEV suit off would be a whole nother' issue that he was sure he wasn't equipped to deal with right now. What Gordon was equipped to deal with was backtracking and rationalizing. He was a man of science after all.
After Xen, The Science Team had been teleported to Tommy's party at a Chuck E Cheese restaurant. Gman hadn't bothered explaining too much aside from the few facts Gordon was now clinging to.
They all, excluding Benrey, had indeed survived. Whoopee. After the party, they would all be sent to their respective homes as a reward for defeating the Final Boss. Nobody would be having to worry about money for a long while, but Gman still had recommended trying to find another job to help everyone get back into 'the swing of things', whatever that meant after having lived through everything that The Science Team had. And finally, that they all were safe; all the monsters and aliens had been destroyed along with the Black Mesa complex.
So knowing that, Gordon was safe here, rationality told him that there wouldn't be a golem ape waiting for him in his bedroom down the darkened hallway. But with all the horror he'd seen, he couldn't boot the 'what if' out of his head. It felt humiliating, knowing there was nothing there, but being unable to move from his spot on the couch.
It was probably better this way anyways, he reasoned, he wouldn't be getting his bed dirty with all the gunk that was bound to be covering the HEV suit that he was currently too exhausted to remove. This was fine.
Gordon forcibly leaned himself back in the most comfortable sleeping position you could achieve on a couch and in the HEV suit, which was definitely not built for sleeping in. Closing his eyes, he focused on the rhythm of his quick heartbeat. Silently, reminding himself that he was alive. That this wasn't all a trick. That he was going to be okay.
Somehow his shitty mantra he had kept repeating eased him enough that his body finally pulled the plug and knocked him out. Not for nearly long enough, but after days on end of waking up abruptly to various dangerous situations, it was a hard habit to break.
Creaking upright, the familiar sight of his apartment renewed the early morning grossness feel he'd been ignoring for the past however many days it'd been now. Definitely needing to shower, Gordon hurried into the bathroom, ignoring the pains in his back from sleeping on the couch, he began the arduous process of removing the HEV suit.
He would have liked to have said that he took it off carefully, as was company procedure, but after getting the chest-plate removed he lost his patience with it. The feeling of being dirty heavily outweighing a dead companies protocol for expensive machinery.
His clothes underneath were almost as bad as the HEV suit itself, wrought with stains, most of with from unknown origins. Instead of trying to Google how to remove alien slime stains out of clothing, he opted for throwing them in the trash. Grabbing a quick outfit out of his closet, he hopped into the shower which had warmed up in his brief absence. Showering after not having been able to do so for so long, felt like a gift on its own. Sure it was a pain to awkwardly maneuver around his body with only one hand, but finally getting clean trumped that bad feeling. Plus, it helped him clear his head, as showers tended to do.
He was finally back. No more aliens, no more deadly battles, no more limb trauma. Hopefully. As Gordon reveled in the things he would no longer be having to do, he momentarily forgot the things he would be having to do again.
Oh shit. Joshua. His son. He'd left him with his sister a state over, knowing this project would take a day or two to finish, up, so he wouldn't have time to watch over him. But shit it'd been way more than a day or two. In fact, he needed to figure out how long it'd been as soon as possible. Not that his sister wouldn't tell him when he called, but he needed to know, at the very least to prep himself.
Finishing up his shower as quickly as possible, Gordon slipped into the clothes he'd set out, immediately regretting the hobo-esque outfit he'd chosen. Shuffling into the surprisingly still comfortable outfit, Gordon hurried out of the bathroom. He'd got it back when he was still at MIT and had no care whatsoever for whatever he appeared like. Luckily Gordon had evolved out of that phase, but with a quick glance at the in the hallway mirror, he was back to rocking it again, sporting dark eye-bags for days, wet, un-groomed hair, and that trademark dead eyed stare with a hint of underlying terror. Awesome. His eyes almost immediately caught sight of his phone on the coffee table in front of the couch.
Gordon was pretty sure he'd left his phone in his locker at Black Mesa, so it'd probably been destroyed along with the whole building, but apparently Gman was still working his wonders.
Hesitantly he opened his phone, finding when he'd last opened it, he worked out how long he'd been gone from looking at the date today. And, shit, he'd been gone eleven whole days. Eleven days .This was not going to turn out well for him. Immediately dialing his sister, Gordon barely had to wait a second before she picked up, "Gordon?" She asked almost hesitantly.
Shuffling the phone in his grip, Gordon nodded, moving into the kitchen, and abruptly remembering she couldn't see him, he coughed, "Uh, yeah, hey Sara."
There was silence on her end for a long moment, before she burst into a spiel of yelling which Gordon definitely deserved, "Yeah, hey? Gordon you've been missing for nearly two weeks! I thought you were dead when I saw the news yesterday! Black Mesa exploded and I thought you were inside!"
Giving up on trying to hold the phone comfortably, Gordon set the phone on the counter and put Sara on speaker, immediately lowering the volume so not to wake the neighbors, "I know, and I'm more sorry than I could ever tell you right now. There was this whole accident..." Gordon trailed off, debating wether or not she'd call him insane for claiming aliens were the reason he hadn't been able to go home, "There... Was a lot I had to deal with there. I messed up the experiment and a lot of stuff broke. I only barely managed to survive along with a few other scientists working there... I ah, I lost my hand from an accident while we were trying to escape. It slowed down our groups progress and... We barely managed to get out in time."
The explanation was a lot of lying by the skin of his teeth, but enough of it was true to pass as a decent answer.
Sara was silent for a long moment before Gordon caught the sound of quiet sobs, "Are you okay?" She asked shakily, "I mean, your alive which is great because I was thinking that this would be a call from your phone from like, medics or something to tell me that you were dead, but... Are you okay? Your hand?..."
Gordon tentatively felt at the end of the stump of his arm, "I... Its sore for sure, but its not jetting blood all over the place so I think I'm fine for now. It feels strange though," Sara waited in silence for Gordon to finish her question, which its glaringly obvious answer was a no he was not okay, but he couldn't give her a full answer anyway, so why not pull a trick out of the middle schooler guide book, "I'm okay. I'll- I'm doing okay all things considered. Is... Is Joshua okay? I'm sorry for practically dumping him on you but..."
Sara was quiet for another worryingly long moment before sighing, "Joshuas fine. He was sad your whole experiment or whatever was taking longer than expected but we've kept busy. I hadn't told him about the complex exploding either so he won't think your back from the dead or anything either. He's asleep in the other room right now."
Shoulders sagging with relief, Gordon leaned over on the counter, "Thats... Really good to hear."
"Gordon... Will you...Be alright with having Joshua back so soon? I don't want to keep him from you but, after all of that I couldn't imagine trying to deal with that leftover stress along with a kid to take care of."
And to that, he didn't know what to say. The strong parental instinct to immediately say yes was definitely there but... Sara was right. He could barely glance up without expecting bloodshed. Had he really spent so much time facing the sight of so much gore that it'd become his new normal?
"I- I might need a few days. I don't want to impose or anything but... I don't think I could handle that right now," emotion threatened to overtake him as he leaned over so his forehead was resting on the counter. God, he felt like such a shitty parent. Not even able to face his own son because he was imagining shit in his apartment.
"Its alright Gordon, I have plenty of vacation days to use still, its not going to be hurting my schedule or anything... And Gordon?"
"Yeah?" he asked raggedly, forcing himself back upright.
"I'm really glad you're alive."
"So am I."
The both of them were hesitant to hang up, but Gordon let his sister end the call.
Staring blankly down at his home screen, Gordon felt tears pricking his eyes. Furiously rubbing them away he let out a sharp breath, only glancing up when a notification from his phone jerked him upright on instinct. It was a text, from someone he knew he hadn't programmed in there originally. It made sense though. Gman had given him the phone. Luckily he wasn't back to drop any more bombshells in Gordons life, instead, it was just to inform him that he'd programmed The Science Teams numbers into the phone as well so he could get in contact with them if need be.
Sending a bland thank you message in response, he flipped the phone over so its screen was facing the counter. Opening the fridge, he was assaulted by the overpowering smell of just about everything in there being past its expiration date. Wrinkling his nose, he got to work at throwing everything away. He only ended up having to take one trip down to the dumpsters behind his apartment complex, so he called it a success. The only problem now was that he didn't have anything else in his fridge. And having only one arm, he was pretty sure it was illegal for him to drive. Whatever, he could download some app that could get groceries delivered to his apartment. Either way, there was still stuff in his cabinets that he could eat, not that he was really hungry anyway.
Trudging back up the steps to his apartment rather than using the elevator, Gordon felt the heaviness in his chest returning. He wouldn't mope around while there were things to be done, but the want to do so was definitely there. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep till he felt better about everything, but wellness never came around like that. He was going to be better; for Joshua.
First things first, the HEV suit was still sitting on the floor of his bathroom from where he'd discarded it earlier, it'd need to be put away. Somewhere where he didn't have to look at it anymore. Re-entering his apartment, he padded to the bathroom and collected all the separate pieces of it, and carried them into his bedroom. Opening up his closet, he kicked aside various piles of junk he'd accumulated over the years and never found a place for, before finding what he'd come for. An empty plastic tote he hadn't used since moving in here. He'd never gotten around to getting rid of it, but at least it'd be put to use now. If only to hide something he never wanted to have to see again.
Opening it up, Gordon dumped the pieces of the HEV suit inside, then closed the closet doors. As he turned around, he noticed that the screen of his computer had been turned on. The mouse had to be jostled a bit for it to power on, but he hadn't been in here since getting his clothes for the day. His blood ran cold as he caught sight of the application in the middle of the screen.
Gordon wasn't a neat freak by any means, but he did keep all of his files on the right side of his computer. He really only used it for work, so it was good to keep the important stuff organized. So seeing an app smack in the center of the screen set off alarm bells in his head.
Softly, Gordon creeped forwards, around his bed to where his computer was set on his desk. Nothing else that he could tell was out of place, aside from the newest app on his desktop. Stooping overtop of his chair, Gordons eyebrows knitted together in abject confusion as he stared at the screen.
"Minecraft?"