A/N: I haven't written anything in a while and this is my first Portal fic. Please forgive me if it is horrible. I'd like to thank Suihanki for the support.

Wheatley hated this. Every time he had to do it he was a nervous wreck. Whether it be from the fear of being discovered or the dread of what he might find, it was enough to almost turn around and forget about that room. But when her saw the circles under her eyes again he knew that wasn't an option. He had to know what he did to her. How did he kill her this time?

August 12

I was getting tired. My legs ached, my arms were tired from holding the ASHPD. Not that I cared about that. I held onto it for dear life because it could mean my life. At least the metal eyball wasn't heavy in the anti-gravitation field. Wheatley was asking me something... Was I alright? Yes. SHE is dead. She is dead and I am leaving. Not only was I going to escape the facility but the fact I was't going to be alone in doing so was just icing on the metaphoric cake. I can't quit remember what he was saying for most of the duration but I do remember him turning to me, his blue optic shining in my face.

"Are you sure you're not tired?" His voice was such a welcome distraction from the other slight noises in the facility. It was the first voice I heard that didn't sound as if it belonged to a machine. I never realised how starved I was for companionship. Perhaps it was that craving that led me to drop my guard, even just subconsciously.

"Tell you wot. See that door over there? That's the break room. I believed that's what those lying humans called it. Not that they ever invited me in while they drank their coffee. But..." He took on a sly tone, "I can still hack in. Can't stop Old Wheatley."

I suppressed a smile, my lips still twitching from it. He seemed to catch it anyway as he began to coax me, "C'mon. You can rest up a bit, maybe you can even find coffee. We're almost to her chamber and who knows wot will happen after that. I mean, SHE is dead but you could still use the rest."

Sighing, I nodded. He was right. In Aperture no luxury is to be taken for granted. No can of old beans you might come across, no weed to break through the dull grey world. And sleep is as luxurious as they come. I'd be a fool not to take it.

I placed him into the core recepticle and turned around as he... did whatever it was he did. After a minute I heard the door swoosh open and he called out to me, "There we go! Oi, it's dark in there. Here, let me get my flashlight and... oh."

I looked at him as he voiced his problem, "Well, it seems as though I can't access my flashlight AND be plugged in at the same time. Mad, I know!"

It was indeed dark beyond the door. I took a hesitant step forward.

"Yes, brilliant. You can find the light switch. You're really good at that, finding things. You found the portal gun. I think it's straight ahead and then a bit to your left."

I walked forward slowly. I lowered the ASHPD so my other hand can feel ahead of me.

"Uh, okay forward.. closer to the left. More..."

My hand hit something cold. Was this it? I waited for Wheatley's next instruction. He began to chuckle, "I was just remembering something funny. Remember when we joked around about me pretending to capture you and turn you over to HER?"

I cold chill ran down my spine. Yes, I did. I wasn't very amused. I struggled to find the switch. What I was holding was cold metal. no... My hand dropped and I started to back away but something, a cold claw grasped my waist painfully.

I dug my heel springs into the metal under my boots, squirming to get free. The grip tightened, forcing the air out of my lungs. It hurt. I felt my ribs break. All I could do was thrash. Not that it helped any but I had to do something. False hope.

Wheatley's chuckling continued. He made a sound as if he took a breath in before speaking again, "Let there be light."

And light there was. Not the cold, sterile fluorescent light that was almost constant. But a wrathful, yellow optic. And it was over.

Wheatley recognized the entry and began to flip through the pages of the journal. He often got confused and would lose his place. It wasn't as if he could place a bookmark in it. As he drew closer to the latest entry, his paranoid ears picked up a sound. He closed the journal and placed it back in the nightstand. He heard the dog in the apartment downstairs greet it's master and relaxed.

Breathing a sigh of relief he sat back down on Chell's bed and looked out the window it was against. It wasn't much of a view really. All you could see was the back of a brick building across the street and a bit of graffiti. Graffiti gave Wheatley an uneasy feeling. He had seen the mysterious paintings back in the facility. Made by some human that She hadn't been able to kill. Some of the cores had told him there were done by the human that took her down. But after actually meeting the human responsible for that he knew the rumor was false. But that left only more questions, more things he didn't know. He felt it was a strange reaction as he's seen Chell smile it before. She almost seemed comforted by it.

He glanced away from the window and readjusted to blinds to where Chell had them. She likes to keep this room dark for some reason. He decided not to read anymore today. It was bad enough he was in her room without her permission but reading her dream journal always put him on edge.

Not that he felt guilty, he mused as he closed the door. It wasn't as if she would tell him about her nightmares. She hardly talks to him at all. She might explain something once in awhile, such as how to turn on the faucets or how to work a microwave. But other than that she seems to not want to acknowledge him. It wasn't like she avoided him necessarily. She had at first but.

When he first caught her writing in that notebook he felt... well, a little angry. He hid it well but he was too focused on apologizing as she was livid about him entering her room unannounced. But he was a little hurt. There she was telling all her little secrets to a bloody diary when he was practically begging for some form of conversation. He knew she trusted it. She trusted a stack of paper bound by carboard and some metal coils than she did him.

Wheatley knew it was a bit silly but he was jealous of it. He didn't even hate the companion cube as much as he hated that bloody book. Chell never talked to it either. But in the end it wasn't as trustworthy as Chell thought. It had told him all of what she had confided in it's pages.

When Chell had left for her morning jog the next day, Wheatley rushed to her room looking for it. He had to know what was so special, so secret. He wasn't too surprised to see she had written about Aperture. He was even positive she had written about him. He dreaded the confirmation. But something was off. Some of these things hadn't happened. She couldn't be writing it if it had. It wasn't two entries later did he realize these were her nightmares. And they were all of him.

It made him sick. Literally. He had immediately dropped the offending journal and rushed to the toilet to empty his stomach. Whatever guilt he felt before was now crushing him. Wheatley knew he had hurt her. He knew he was a monster. But he was not prepared to learn how deeply he had affected her.

He had seen the scars. The ones he knew he gave her. The ones that weren't there when he first met her. But she wore them with such grace. They were battle scars and proof of her tenacity. But this was different. Her psyche was scarred. She was afraid... of him. Chell still has nightmares about him just as he still did about GLaDOS.

That thought produced another wave of bile. He was no better than Her. No. He had been worse. Chell had trusted him.

After he had flushed the commode and washed the bile out of his mouth he went back to her room and placed the journal where she left it. He took a deep breath of the air to calm himself. It was heavy with her scent. It calmed him just a bit. She was alive.

But he was still shaking a bit later when she came home. He was quiet that evening but she didn't seem to notice. After she had left for bed, Wheatley had a sinking feeling. She was going to dream again. And he felt obligated to know what horror he had bestowed her.