She woke up to it sitting on her bedside table.
At first glance, it looked like a crumpled piece of paper. Chell reached towards it and picked it up. Lying against her pillow, she held it up and turned it in her hand.
It began to take form. She could make out a head; a tiny, crooked beak; pointed wings; and a triangular tail. The creases in the paper were shaky and uneven, and the paper seemed to have been crumpled up and smoothed out beforehand.
A paper crane.
A smile tugged on her lips. She threw off the covers and went downstairs.
Wheatley was on the couch, surrounded by crumpled paper. His back was turned to her, and he was hunched over a book.
She leaned over his shoulder and dangled the paper crane in front of his face. He screamed and slammed the book shut.
"I was, uh…" He turned red when she gestured towards the paper on the floor and couch. "Just…counting how many sheets we had left! Wouldn't do for you to run out. Then we'd be in trouble. Because you couldn't, uh, speak."
She cupped the paper crane in her hands and looked down at it, smiling to herself. She'd spare him the embarrassment for now.
The next morning, she woke up to another crane. This one was the same quality as the first, but its beak was a little straighter. She set the two birds next to each other on the chest of drawers in her room and ignored the wrinkles in her paper when she wrote to him that day.
It became habit. Every morning, Chell would instinctively turn to her right and find a new crane. They became better and better, and eventually she woke up to other animals. Once, a frog accompanied the crane, and the two faced each other as if deep in conversation; another day, she woke up to two foxes. At one point, Wheatley figured out how to make a cootie-catcher and drew crooked eyes and a tongue on it, making it into a lizard's head.
On their scavenging trips, he found paper and smuggled it in. If he went to bed with her during the night, he'd be gone the next morning, replaced by a paper animal on her bedside table.
The origami began to pile up on the chest of drawers. He tried to hide it from her, but if he came into the room, he would glance at the animals and smile.
One day, she fought with him.
She had lost her patience and snapped at him (on paper), and Wheatley had snapped back. She went to bed furious, and he stayed downstairs; before she left, she saw him glaring at his reflection in the window.
She cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, something brushed her shoulder, and she sat upright in bed, immediately looking to her bedside table.
Nothing there.
She turned and saw Wheatley standing near her, looking tearful and exhausted. He was holding something; he held it out to her.
Encased in his trembling hands was another paper crane. Its wings were smooth, and the folds in the paper were crisp. Its head was raised high, its beak pointed and straight.
After trying for so long, he had made a perfect crane.
Chell examined it before slowly reaching out and taking it from him. She held it in her lap, staring at it while Wheatley wrung his hands and watched her.
She smiled at it, then looked up to him. He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
She put the crane aside and took his head in her hands.
"Sorry," he mumbled against her mouth, and kissed her.
The paper crane, unlike the other animals, was placed on her bedside table, facing her.