Chapter Text
Gordon Freeman, a physicist 27 years old with a theoretical physics PhD already under his belt, a man who had caused and survived the Resonance Cascade by his own grit and self improvisation never figured he would be unfamiliar when confronted by the door to his own apartment. Maybe it was from all the teleporting he'd been doing in the past 24 hours, but it was only beginning to register in bits and pieces. The scuffed copper doorknob; the tiny shoe print barely visible on the lower outside corner from when Joshua had covered his sneakers in finger paint; the fisheye peephole on the outside of faded wood, it had to be his apartment.
Only it hardly felt like it at all; Gordon didn't know how long he'd spent traversing the underbelly of Black Mesa, but the journey had practically felt like months; maybe that's why it'd taken a whole minute and a half to recall just where exactly he was. Gordon didn't know why Gman would have dropped him off here otherwise.
Numbly, he reached out to open the door. His prosthesis, oh so graciously given to him by Gman before Tommy's birthday party, fumbled with the knob before securing its grip. Opening it was a whole other monster altogether, but after spinning his hand in a 360 a few times too many, he managed to open the door.
Gordon didn't know what he was expecting after having been to hell and back; to him, at least, all options were on the table after having to fight a man twenty stories tall with passports in an alien sewage puddle. So Gordon mentally prepared himself for any outcome in relation to the state of his apartment. But as the light from the hall spilled inside, everything was just how it had been before he'd left for work. However many days ago that had been now.
Caution still ate away at his hindbrain as Gordon flicked the lights on before closing the door behind himself. And it was partially an amazement that the electricity worked at all, given his landlord's capricious nature and the fact he didn't know when his next rent was due. Stumbling forward and tripping over the HEV suit's clunky boots, Gordon found himself glancing over every possible entry or exit, still half-convinced a headcrab or some other alien was prowling around. But when no attack came, he let out a breath he hadn't consciously realized he'd been holding and let himself sink into the luxurious cushions of his eons-old couch.
And despite his body begging for rest at finally being able to rest, Gordon's mind was still alive with unresolved anxieties; sleep still felt years off. Because despite Gman sending him off in an unlabeled vehicle with a very stern and very silent driver, and a promise of money for his 'troubles' coming his way, it still left a lot of questions in his mind. Questions like what was he supposed to do now? Black Mesa was gone, and regardless of whether the money would be enough to last him a good while or not, he was unemployed for the first time in many years. What was he supposed to do anymore without Black Mesa? And he had his doubts about Gman's claims that all of the Xen monsters had been eradicated. There had been hundreds released inside the complex; how could a single man, otherworldly powers or no, 'take care of' every single one?
More than anything, Gordon wanted to lie in his bed and finally sleep. He had another headache mounting, and questions be damned, he could think through them better with a rational, well-rested mind. But he couldn't shake the unpleasant mash of adrenaline and confusion still whipping through him at high enough velocities enough to realize that, no, a golem ape was not going to be hiding in his room. He knew there would be nothing there if he managed to peel himself from the couch to check, but his body felt rooted in place. It was humiliating.
Maybe it was better if he stayed out in the living room anyway; he wouldn't be ruining his bed with alien viscera and minerals that were no doubt covering the HEV suit. He was too exhausted to figure out the puzzle of removing it, so this was fine. He was not rationalizing his current irrational fears. He was fine.
Forcibly leaning himself back into the most comfortable sleeping position manageable inside a metal carapace on the world's most cramped couch, Gordon closed his eyes. He did not focus on the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat or every twitch and shift of the world around him. Instead, he was just going to close his eyes and remind himself that he was alive and safe in his home and he was going to be okay.
Somehow, the shitty mantra he repeated managed to ease him into enough of a lull that his mind finally took pity on his half-dead form and let him sleep. Not for nearly long enough, but after days on end of abruptly waking to a variety of dangerous situations, it was a hard habit to break.
Creaking upright, the familiar sight of his apartment doubled down on how disgusting he'd been feeling, and trying to ignore for the past however long it had been now. In definite need of a shower, Gordon managed to roll himself off the couch and toward his bathroom. The aches and pains from his back from sleeping on the couch were nothing compared to the raw spots around his joints that he was only starting to feel. The HEV suit was not meant to be worn for extensive periods of time, and Gordon had a feeling he wasn't going to be pleased with whatever he found beneath the exoskeleton.
So he began the arduous process of removing the HEV suit. Under ordinary circumstances, Gordon would have taken it off carefully, as was company procedure. But the company that owned the suit no longer existed, and Gordon had lost his patience after spending twenty minutes working the chest plate off. The feeling of being dirty and aching heavily outweighing Black Mesa protocol for expensive pieces of equipment.
And once everything was said and done, the armor scattered around his feet like snake-shed, Gordon found his clothes almost as bad as the HEV suit itself. In terms of being wrought with stains of unknown origins and full of rips and tears. He had no particular attachment to the threadbare, ruined clothes, so Gordon opted for throwing them out rather than looking up 'how to remove alien slime stains from clothing.'
Turning on the slowly warming water of his shower, Gordon slipped away to grab another set of thankfully clean clothes from his closet and to puzzle over removing his new arm. His arm was beginning to ache from the unfamiliar sort of pressure it put on his limb, and it was a relief when he managed to get it off in a few clicks. He even found a compartment on the underside of the forearm with a convenient charger tucked away inside. However, what was not a relief was the visual of his scarred stump beneath, pale scar tissue adorning the end of a too perfectly healed injury.
Gordon forced his eyes away and stepped into the shower, which had finally heated up in his absence. Cleaning himself off was an uphill learning process without the aid of his dominant hand, but standing under the hot water was starting to make him feel like a human again. The sting of newly revealed injuries under the water was annoying, but nothing seemed like he would have to keep a heavy eye on it. And watching the grime and blood slide down the drain was cathartic in a way he hadn't been expecting.
He was finally back home. No more aliens; no more deadly battles; no more fearing for his life in every waking moment. But there were things he was going to have to be dealing with again. Like his only son, whom he'd left with his brother a state over under the assumption that the experiment that caused the Resonance Cascade would have only taken a day or two. But Gordon had a feeling it had been a lot longer than that with no contact from him. Not that his brother wouldn't tell him just how much time he'd been absent when he called, but it'd be nice to know ahead of time.
Now under a different kind of stress, Gordon rapidly slipped out of the shower and into his clothes. He had to hold the prosthesis down against the countertop to reattach it to his arm, but he hurried out of the bathroom once in place. Wet and ungroomed hair pricked at the back of his neck as he scoured his apartment for where his phone could be. A part of him was reasonably sure that he'd left it in his locker at Black Mesa, but just maybe the world could take some pity on him just this once. And something out there seemed to be listening and still working wonders, because upon pulling open his bedside drawer, there his phone blessedly sat.
Almost hesitant to open it, Gordon's eyes flicked over the date, working backward from when he knew he'd left for the day of the test. It'd been a Monday, but today was a Friday. And upon opening his calendar app to more efficiently backtrack, he realized it wasn't even the Friday of the same week. Eleven whole days he'd been gone. Stuck beneath the rapidly collapsing surface of the compound around him and fighting every living thing he came across for eleven days.
This was not going to go well for him.
Calling his brother faster than Gordon thought possible, he barely had to wait a second before a familiar voice met his ears, "Gordon?" His brother's tone was almost nervous.
Shuffling the device in his grip, Gordon nodded, belatedly realizing that he wasn't visible, "Uh, yeah. Hey John."
There was a long silence on the other end, and Gordon was halfway to reaching his hand up to end the call because maybe this was a trick- the military had not all been killed, and they were going to burst through his doorway and kill him once and for all. But an outburst of angry shouting caught him off guard enough to pull him out of his worries.
"Yeah, hey? Gordon, you've been missing for nearly two weeks now. What the hell happened? I thought you were dead! There was something on the news about Black Mesa going up in flames, but I didn't- I thought you were still inside that place."
Giving up on trying to hold the phone comfortably, Gordon placed it on the counter, "I know, I barely got out alive. But they put Black Mesa on the news?"
John huffed a resigned sound, "I don't see how they could not; it's a bit of a shock when a multi-million dollar company suddenly starts imploding from the inside. What happened to you? How'd you escape? Are you okay?"
Biting his lip, Gordon mulled over the proper response to any of those things, because two out of the three were definitely classified, and he was very much not okay, but that was probably not what his brother wanted to hear.
"I messed up the experiment," He would have to be careful with his wording, as Gordon was pretty sure mentioning aliens was out of the question, "And it was supposed to be low risk, but there was this whole accident inside the compound and… Not a lot of people lived. I only did because of the gear I had to wear. I think only me and a few other scientists survive, and I ah… I lost my hand, in an accident while we were trying to escape. It slowed down our group's progress, and I think we only barely managed to escape in time."
He was lying by the skin of his teeth, but enough of the story was true to be acceptable.
John was quiet for another long moment, and Gordon almost thought he was going to come back with a rebuttal of disbelief before he caught the sound of sniffling, "I'm so glad you're alive Gordon; I was kind of thinking this would be a call from paramedics or security or whatever to tell me you were dead but… Fucking hell, your hand? Are you okay?"
Gordon tentatively looked down to where his flesh and blood arm met the beginning of his prosthetic, "It's sore for sure, but I'm not… Bleeding or anything." John waited silently for Gordon to finish his question, and he felt the answer was obvious, but he decided to give in rather than argue. He'd been doing too much of that recently anyway; Gordon was just tired, "I'm alright. All things considered, I'm fine. Is Josh okay? I'm sorry for practically dumping him on you, but…"
John hummed distractedly, which Gordon figured was reasonable given the new information, "He's good. He was sad your whole experiment was taking longer than expected, but we kept busy. I didn't tell him about Black Mesa blowing up or anything yet. He's asleep in the other room right now."
Sagging with relief, Gordon leaned over the counter, "That's really good to hear. Thank you for taking care of him, John."
"It's not a big deal," John's tone was dismissive, but there was still an undercurrent of anxiety, "I don't want to keep you from him, especially after all of that but… Are you going to be alright having him back so soon? I know kids are a lot to handle, and I couldn't… I don't want to pin this on you right now but I could take care of him for a while longer if you needed."
Gordon's instinct was to immediately say that he was fine and completely capable of taking Joshua back. He was a parent, and he could handle his own kid, thank you, but Gordon knew on some level that he might not be in the best place to have a whole nother person in his home yet. The HEV suit was still on the floor of his bathroom, and he still wasn't entirely convinced that the events of Black Mesa were really over.
Conceding felt like failure as a parent, but Gordon didn't know what else to do, "I might… Need a few days. I don't want to impose but I just… Need to process or whatever. Are you sure you can take him for a while longer?"
"Your family, of course I can. I've still got plenty of vacation days to use anyway. I'm just… Really glad you're alive Gordon. I can go wake Josh up if you want to talk to him?"
He shook his head, "No, it's fine; let him sleep."
There was a bit more mindless chatter, mostly on Gordon's end, trying to get back into the normality of life, but the call had to come to an end eventually. They were both hesitant to hang up, but Gordon let himself be the one to end the call.
He stared down at his home screen blankly, tears pricking his eyes that he was quick to rub away. He only came back to reality after a ping from his phone jerked him upright from the sound alone. It was a text, from someone Gordon knew he hadn't originally programmed in. Luckily, Gman was not back to drop any more bombshells in his life and instead was just informing him of the new contacts he had added to his device. Gordon didn't know how he could have gotten ahold of his phone for long enough to program the Science Team's numbers in, but he sent a bland thank you message in response anyway.
He wasn't going to think about it. Too much bullshit had happened today already, he didn't need to add another concern to his plate. Turning his phone face over, Gordon meandered to his fridge, immediately assaulted by the overpowering smell of just about everything inside being past its expiration date. Gagging, Gordon threw the door closed, wrinkling his nose and shaking his head to try and rid himself of the scent. He could deal with all of that later. For now, he just needed food, and Gordon was pretty sure there were non-perishables in his cabinets.
Eating soup heated by an actual microwave was yet another wonder Gordon had almost thought he would never get to experience again. After surviving on whatever scarce food was scrounged from vending machines on occasion, it was practically heavenly by comparison. The closest thing he could recall as a filling meal was the trail mix and water he'd rapidly downed hours before his arm was cut off.
And after the empty dish was in the sink, Gordon wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for another day or so. But wellness never came about by excess rest, and Gordon was going to be better; for Joshua. So he forced himself back to the bathroom to pick up the broken parts of the HEV littering the faux tile in the bathroom. He couldn't just throw it away, given the viscera practically fused to its shell, so Gordon opted for throwing everything into a few plastic bags to abandon at the bottom of his closet.
Closing the closet doors, Gordon prayed he'd never have to look at the faded orange pieces of metal ever again. But, as he turned around in his otherwise dark room, it was easy to spot the bright glow of his monitor, having turned on for no apparent reason. And creeping closer, he could feel ice growing in his belly at the application placed center screen.
Gordon wasn't a neat freak by any means, but all of his files were purposefully pushed to either the right or left side of his desktop for organization purposes. So seeing an app smack in the center of his screen set off immediate alarms in his mind.
Edging around his bed, closer to the computer, Gordon scrutinized everything else. And as far as he could tell, nothing was out of place beside the newest addition to his home screen. Stooping overtop his chair, Gordon's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he squinted at the anomaly.
"Is that fucking Minecraft?"