Chell had been trapped in that facility for so long.

Not anymore. She wouldn't have to live in the threat of a homicidal robot any longer. She would not be trapped in some secret building lost where no one could ever find her. She could see the sky again, breathe real air again.

And it was all thanks to him.

She didn't hide her smile. Wheatley chuckled excitedly as the lift rose higher to their freedom.

The air was crisper than Chell remembered air could be. Being stuck down in Aperture for so long made her forget what fresh air was even like. Back down there she was never cold. Maybe it was the fact that she never got the chance to stay still, or maybe it was GlaDOS's doing. Either way, up here, things where different. She untied the filthy jumpsuit at her waist and pulled it up over her shoulders.

Snow crunched underneath her long fall boots as she stepped away from the lone shed that she'd come from. The weather wasn't like she imagined, but it was still a beauty she could truly appreciate. What looked like miles of wheat stretched out before her like a white-capped sea. The sky above was dark, quite opposite to the constant lighting in Aperture, and speckled with stars. Every exhalation of breath came with a cloud of white.

It was more than she could ever imagine.

"Wow... isn't it gorgeous?" Wheatley strode out of the doors of the shed behind her, lanky arms dangling at his sides and head tilted up into the sky. His wide blue eyes were fixed on the stars.

Chell didn't think he'd ever seen them before. Not like this.

"Beautiful night! Perfect for our escape, eh?" He glanced back at his friend, sporting a silly lopsided grin and pushed up the glasses beginning to tilt off of his face. "Everything went as smoothly as planned- we really make a team, don't we?"

Chell didn't smile, but she did offer him a nod. He was right. They'd managed to get out of there just as planned, as soon as he could raise the lift, he exited from the mainframe and they moved straight to freedom.

The android stepped forward to follow after the tracks Chell made in the snow, smiling a little to himself as he heard the crunch of the snow just as she had. "Quite pretty, too. The snow, I mean. I've seen it before. Not in person, though, but close enough. Well, this is better, don't you think? Colder than I imagined, but, ah, I suppose I should've assumed it would be. It is made of ice after all..."

She wasn't sure how much longer Wheatley rambled on about the cold and the ice. The bot tended to ramble a lot, and Chell was used to tuning him out when he went overboard. Instead, she focused on the world around her and the prints her boots made in the snow, and the inky sprinkled sky. She focused on the feeling in her chest behind her ribs, expanding through her body, thinking that she was free. She was finally free.

"Ah!-"

Chell paused and turned to look over her shoulder at Wheatley's shout. A thud sounded in the silent atmosphere. Of course, the android had slipped. Chell rolled her eyes in amusement and drifted over to him.

He sat up, brushing snow off of his uniform and out of his once-neat ginger hair. "Hell," he cursed, furrowing his brows. "That's bloody col—c-c-c..."

He twitched and shook his head, looking confused. It seemed that he'd glitched for a second there, and he laughed a little nervously. A fear somehow even more frigid than the air gnawed into Chell's heart. What the hell was that?

"Weird," Wheatley mused, and he shifted to rise to his feet. His legs gave out under him and he landed on his backside with a grunt. Although he seemed to be trying to control his emotions, Chell could easily read the terror that was growing on his face.

Her heart began to race and she swept over and grabbed one of his arms to help him up. He struggled, but even with her help, his attempts were fruitless. His legs just were not working.

"What was that?" Wheatley's eyes were bright in the darkness of the night, but they were fading. They had certainly lost a lot of the brilliance they'd had when he flashed her a grin earlier. He wiped his glasses off on his uniform. Once the light in his eyes flicked out. He paused. They sputtered back to life. He looked up at Chell, twitching and jerking in a manner that could only be bad news.

Breathing was getting harder for Chell. Her hold on his arm tightened and she dropped to her knees.

"I-I think some of the snow got i-i-into-to my system, l-luv," he told her, his malfunctioning audio systems acting like a stutter from the cold. "I m-might..."

And suddenly, his voice was gone, as if at the press of a button, and he was making no sound. Mute. Chell could feel her throat closing.

Wheatley looked more panicked than ever, dropping his glasses in the snow and grasping at her jumpsuit with twitching fingers, mouthing out desperate pleas for help that even Chell couldn't read.

Chell was never one to panic. Her body kicked into autopilot, just as it did in every situation that risked a life so dangerously. She slung his arm over her shoulder.

His eyes flickered, going black, and staying that way. His arms went limp and slipped off of her shoulder.

She tried to catch him before his back hit the snow but he'd moved too quickly. Eyes shut, the robot was still as he laid in the whiteness of the freezing snow.

Chell was never one to panic. She leaped to her feet and swiped his glasses off of the ground, placing them in her mouth and moved over to Wheatley. She stopped behind him, hoisting him up by his underarms to make him sit up in her hold.

She looked around desperately. Nothing. Nothing but white snow and black sky and nothing at all and it was no longer soothing, it was terrifying. She pulled him towards the shed and tried to push the doors open to no avail. Coldness was seeping through her clothes. Of all times, why now? She pulled him away and back into the snow.

Dragging tracks through with his legs, she trekked in the snow into that great big black-white nothing. Every step felt like miles with the weight of Wheatley's body straining her every movement and as fatigue fell over her with so much momentum she nearly lurched. Without the air that supplemented her and kept her alive in Aperture, she was weakened. She could feel it in her body.

But she kept going. She needed to get him out. Somewhere safe.

And Chell was never one to panic.