Just a flue:

He hadn't moved. Not in two days.

Rain drops burst as the wind beat them against the bedroom window. The House wasn't just cold, it was freezing. No one had relit the furnace. She'd have been annoyed about that, he knew. She never was much for the cold...

The whole building seamed to moan as the weather pitched a fit outside, but he didn't have the energy to worry about it falling down around him. Not anymore.

It almost seemed that he'd used up all his reserves in the initial panic. After he'd walked in with the stupid bowl of soup. He'd been feeling good, playful even. Oh, he knew she was sick, which was terrible, but he also knew she'd get better. She always did. And, if he had to be totally, brutally honest, he did enjoy those times he could play nurse. He was taking care of her, she needed him.

It felt so much better to be needed, rather than tolerated.

"G'morning bright eyes! You've been out a solid twelve hours, bit excessive, if you ask me, but you are ill, so I'll cut you some slack. Anyway, point being you've had plenty of time to work of those crackers you ate. Or threw up anyway." The form under the blanket didn't stir. She had her back to him and her arm outstretched, leaning over the side of the bed.

He'd strolled to the bedside table and set the warm bowl down.

"C'mon, rise and shine! I've got some soup here. Very good for the Flue, soup. Or so they say, anyway." She still hadn't moved.

Man alive, she was good and out, wasn't she? He reached out to shake her by the arm.

"Hey c'mon now, I put a lot of work into warming this can of soup up for y-" He cut himself short. She was stiff, and ice cold. This wasn't right. She was always soft and warm to the touch. And with the flue, she'd been positively burning up the night before.

"Ch-Chell?" For something built from wires, metals and plastics, the sensations running through him were incredibly human, as the truth slowly started to assert it's shape.

Cold, stiff, not breathing she's not breathing...

A wave of lightheadedness passed through him, the artificial skin on his face seemed to sag and tighten at the same time, some sort of fan went into overdrive in his chest, producing a terrible hot tight feeling.

After that had come a frantic few hours, filled with failed attempts to bring her back. He'd shaken her, screamed at her, tried to force medicine down a throat which would no longer swallow, attempted CPR, which he'd never learned how to do in the first place, but which looked easy enough in films.

Finally, he'd been forced to realize that she was gone for good. Nothing he did would ever bring her back.

He was a Moron and he'd let her die and he didn't know how but it was all his fault.

"It's too soon, it's too bloody soon!" He moaned, leaning his back against the wall and slowly sliding to the floor.

It wasn't even as if she was old. She had a few wrinkles, true, but she'd had a hard life. It was enough to put a few creases in anyone's skin. Her hair was graying a bit, but only at the roots near her ears. He wouldn't have even noticed if she hadn't put her hair up to work every day.

She'd always seemed so healthy, working away, fixing things in the house, growing crops, walking for miles to scavenge things in the city. And now she was Just...

The little red wind up clock, which he'd perched on the companion cube months ago, ticked away softly. He didn't pay attention to the time. He barely noticed when the sun had set, and then came back up again.

She wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing. Not so much as a cough in what felt like years.

It wasn't fair. She'd told him she was fine! It was just a flue! It wasn't as if she hadn't had them before. They'd always managed to weather them, and in a week, maybe two, she'd be back to work like nothing had happened.

But she should have known, shouldn't she? It was her bloody body! Surely she should have realized that something was wrong! That this flue, this one was actually killing her! She could have given him some warning. Should have warned him! But no, she'd had to be all quite and mysterious about it. No, why tell ol' Wheatley I'm going to die? He'll figure it out on his own. Bloody selfish, so bloody her. She just loved to watch him twist, didn't she? To put him on notice and just make him feel so, so...

"What do I do?" He choked, lost, small, helpless. "What do I do without you?"

He so very desperately wanted to cry, and felt disgusted that he couldn't.

Slowly, he became aware of a soft, continual sound. Gentle, warm, a little melancholy to his ear. Reluctantly he tore his gaze away from the unmoving mass on the bed and settled a good, furious glair on the Companion cube.

It sat loyally by her bedside and played a quiet tune.

She'd been touching it when he'd found her. Gripping one of the boarder peaces as if it were the hand of a friend.

"It should have been my hand she was holding. Not you. You're not even alive, are you? No, you're not."

The cube continued to sing, for lack of a better word. The only song it seemed to know and which only came when it thought he was out of earshot. Probably thought it was comforting her right now.

"Oh for gods- She's dead you idiot! She can't hear you! Shut up! Just shut up!"

He grabbed the nearest object in reach, the bowl of soup, and threw it over arm at the cube. It shattered, spraying broth, congealed fat and chunks of ceramic in every direction. The cube wasn't damaged, though he was glad to hear the song instantly silenced.

That brief shock of anger was enough to bring him back to the present. He shook his head, turned back to the bed, and stood, slowly. "I... I guess I shouldn't just leave you here. Humans burry their dead, right? I think that's it. Burry them and leave a sort of plaque or something so people know who you were and... I... I guess I should do that then..."

He moved forward, dreamlike, and sat on the edge of the bed. As he ran his fingers through her hair, the sensors in his hands told him her skin was cold. And that was it. Just a word in his head. Skin: Cold. It was like after everything, he just couldn't process things properly anymore.

"I... Well I guess I could maybe burry you out by the garden. That's where you did spend most of your time. I, think you were just working though. I mean, it's not really, not very scenic is it? Just a lot of corn and potatoes and beans and things."

He ran another strand of hair between his fingers. It was frazzled and greasy.

"Oh! Hang on! What about that hill with the tree on? You know, the one on the way to town? Now that's scenic. Very evocative of... Well something. Anyway, how about that? Could burry you at the top, maybe carve your name in the tree or something, not having access to much in the way of gravestones. Sound good? Feel free to weigh in with your two cents any time."

She didn't respond. Of course she didn't respond. What was he hoping to do by talking? Catch her out at faking?

It took another half an hour. Finally, he leaned forward and kissed her fondly on the forehead.

"I did love you, you know. And I'm... Well, I miss you already..."

Then he stood, left the room, wandered downstairs, dug in the shed until he found the shovel, and started walking. He didn't bother thinking, just let his legs carry him down the gravel drive, out onto the winding, overgrown road that would lead him where he needed to go.

The storm swallowed him whole, and it wasn't long before he was lost to the sight of the cottage he'd called home.

In the cold bedroom, only the ticking clock gave the place an illusion of life.

Tick, Tock,

Tick, Tock,

Tick, Click, Tock,

Hiss, Tick, Slide, Clatter, Tock.

Like a sigh, the Cube peeled open, blooming like a flower in the sun. Each petal a stark white.

Had either the human or the Android been witness to this, it would have prompted immediate action. He might have tried to run away from it, she might have tried to smash it. As it was, no one was there to react. Not when the cube opened. Not when the portal formed. Not when the claw, large and clumsy seeming in the small bedroom, slipped through the hole in space and grabbed the dead woman. Not when it carefully pulled her, and the hand quilted throw her legs were still tangled in through the portal. Not when the white petals folded back into a cube, sealing itself as if it had never opened.

A/N

So, since NaNoWriMo is right around the corner and I haven't written much of anything in ages, I thought it was about time to get back into the swing of things. So I'm going to be working on a little fanfic project.

Basically, I'm going to write AND POST at least 1,000 words of this fic every day (Barring a few at the end of the month when I'll be out of town with my mom.)

I'm pretty much making it up as I go along, so I can't promise it'll be any sort of good, or that it'll survive long enough to see the end of its arc, but I've got some ideas for things that will happen and characters I'll use, so I'm hoping it'll at least be, you know, decent. :\

I'll be using my own headcanon version of post game Wheatley, so you might notice that his moods will be a bit unstable. This is because he's still slightly corrupted. If you want a few more details, please ask and I'll send you a link to some outlines and artwork I've done on the subject, since FF doesn't like them in stories, understandably.

Erm... Let me know what you think? ^_^;;