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Alyx Vance is back in the Bar, sipping a milkshake and tinkering with her Lego robot. This is nothing unusual, for her.

The "I ♥ NY" T-shirt, on the other hand, is a new addition.

[tinytag: Alyx Vance, Captain Viscen, Gordon Freeman, Jennifer Landers]

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"B--what??" she almost shrieks.

Gordon shrugs. "That's what the social science types at MIT used to say about it," he says. "A lot of social justifications got tacked onto it along the way. But basically, that's probably why. Don't look at me, I didn't come up with it."

"But why is it his household??" Alyx protests. "She lives there too!"

"Because during most of human evolution and societal development, the male was physically more capable of fending off competitors for resources than the female," Gordon says.

"Since when?!"

"The Stone Age," Gordon says. "It made a lot of difference, back when a sharp piece of flint on a stick was the height of human technology."

Then he pauses, considering Alyx's situation. A little more carefully he says, "How much do you know about human evolution, anyway? Has that ever come up?"

"Um... I know the basic progression, I think," she says after a few seconds' thought. She's dusting off some very little-used memories. "You have the early hominids, then Homo habilis, then Homo erectus, then Neanderthals, then Cro-Magnons. Right?"

"About right. Although the Neanderthals were a side branch, not part of the main progression." Gordon rubs at his face with one hand. "Our early ancestors were very sexually dimorphic. It wasn't until intelligence became a primary factor in human survival, as opposed to physical prowess, that the tendency towards larger, stronger males and smaller, slighter females started to decrease. And even after most of that difference was gone, humanity as a species still had its old habits. Males had always been the fighters and defenders, so of course they were supposed to be that way."

He places both hands palm-down on the table.

"It's crap, you understand. If evolutionary history was the sole arbiter of right and wrong, humans wouldn't be living in groups of more than about two hundred, and nobody would particularly care about the welfare of anybody outside their immediate genetic relatives. But people had a lot of emotional and psychological investment in the old power and property structures, so they spent their time and effort reinforcing and justifying them rather than give up and admit that things that favored them personally weren't necessarily right."

Alyx is silent as she processes this.

( "I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is Instinct. Instinct was our mother when we were an infant species. Instinct coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked our first meals above a meager fire and started at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls..." )

It's more than a little unnerving to think that Dr. Breen might be right about something.

Gordon knows a thoughtful silence when he hears one; he's had plenty of them himself. He'll let this one go on a while.

Eventually, though, he notes, "When it's all over, and the Combine are gone, the human race is going to have to put itself together again. Not everything in the past is worth throwing out, just like not everything is worth keeping. But people have to understand where we've come from if we're ever going to be able to move forward again."

Alyx nods. "That makes sense. I think."

"Science is built on centuries' worth of discoveries and study," Gordon points out. "Some of it's worth incorporating into new theories and study, and some of it's just the detritus of theories that used to work. It's the same thing, really."

Now, that's an analogy Alyx can understand. She nods again, in satisfaction this time. "I guess the only tricky part is knowing which bits to keep and which to get rid of."

"That's why they used to teach history in the schools," Gordon says. "And anthropology, which is the study of human customs and behavior. You might want to make use of the library here. They've got some books along those lines."

Alyx has never given a great deal of thought to the 'reconstruction' aspect of the Resistance. Oh, sure, she knew it would have to happen eventually, but it was always off in the far distance.

Now... it's not. At least, she fervently hopes it's not.

"I'll do that. Thanks."

"You're welcome," says Gordon. "Glad I could help, even if it was only a little bit."

She leans halfway out of her chair to give him a hug. "You help a lot more than that, Gordon."

He doesn't lean so much as scootch his chair even closer to her to reciprocate. "Good. For you, I always wish I could do more."

"Me too. --I mean, I wish I could do more for you, not--"

"I knew what you meant."

"Oh good."

It's generally not a wise idea to attempt to kiss somebody too soon after a discussion of gender issues, but Alyx seems to have recovered from that particular shock, so Gordon's willing to take the chance.

They seem to be doing this a lot lately.

Not that you'll hear Alyx complain.

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