Work Text:
The surface is big.
Obviously. Chell doesn’t know what she was expecting, to even have that thought. But she thinks it anyway, looking out over the vast field of gold that extends in all directions, shadows rolling gently along from beneath fluffy clouds in a clear sky. She’s never known the warmth of the sun on her skin, or the fresh scent of the breeze that sways the stalks of wheat.
She doesn’t try to heft the Companion Cube that was tossed out of the door behind her. She thinks it was a gesture– almost sweet –on GLaDOS’s part, but a sore misunderstanding if so. It can offer her neither company nor comfort.
Free is an awful funny word. She always wanted to be free, but she’s not sure that’s the same as leaving. GLaDOS didn’t want her to leave, either. Maybe she knows the same thing.
Free entails one’s heart in one’s body, she thinks. Going where one wants, all the way. Her heart isn’t going with her.
A few slow steps forward into the grass.
Has GLaDOS ever actually seen a deer? Will she? What does a deer even look like? Chell can remember precious little about her life prior to becoming a test subject, which seems oddly telling. Most words have visuals attached in her mind, plain meanings, but that one comes up blank. She makes the sign for it thoughtfully; it forms a pair of antlers, which gives her a clue.
She’s thinking about GLaDOS an awful lot, isn’t she? For having left her behind? It feels like leaving home, in a way.
A glance back at the shed. At the Cube.
This isn’t quite what she wanted. She really just wanted to be pushed around a little less. Now she’s been unceremoniously expelled just when GLaDOS finally understood her as an equal. Is this freedom? Is this what she wants freedom to be?
She is far too tired for philosophy. She is outside now, and alone.
She lays down on the ground and looks up at the sky.