Hiya folks! BabyCharmander here with another Portal fic. Bit different from the last one, but I hope you folks like it nonetheless.
I was hoping to get this done by Christmas, but I guess that didn't happen. It's not explicitly a Christmas fic, though, so you should be able to enjoy it no matter what part of the year it is. So…
Disclaimer: Wheatley and Chell are not mine. They belong to Valve!
On with the fic!
Had Chell known just how expensive it would be to take in Wheatley after forgiving him, she might have reconsidered the whole thing. But the alternative to taking him home would be leaving him lying outside in the dirt until he rusted, and that wouldn't work so well with the "forgiving him" part, so it's not like she had much of a choice.
Not that it made things any easier.
For one, she found that she couldn't just let him sit around in her house. He was all right with it at first, just grateful to be forgiven and out of space, but she noticed that after the first few weeks of making sure she really had forgiven him and making sure he wasn't dreaming—even though she was pretty sure robots couldn't dream in the first place—he began to get very bored. To fend off this boredom, he would talk or drift off into sleep mode, which was fine, but sometimes when she wasn't there, he would decide to try exploring… by rolling erratically around the house. She had discovered this one afternoon when she'd come home after grocery shopping and tripped over him.
He'd apologized as he rolled past a few dented cans, only to cry out in disgust when he rolled into a puddle of tomato soup.
After carefully setting him aside, she had assessed the damage to her groceries (three busted cans, five bruised apples, a dozen smashed eggs, and a five pound bag of flour added to the mix) and herself (bruises on both her knees and one on her right shin), and decided that it might be a good idea to find some way to keep Wheatley entertained.
Her first idea was to get him reading books. Before she set off to work the next day, she set a book in front of him where he sat on the couch—though it didn't occur to her until after she left that Wheatley had no means to turn the pages. Fortunately, after spending most of the day fighting with the worn paperback, he'd figured out how to use his lower handle to turn the pages and hold the book in place while he read.
So for a while, things were well and good. Wheatley would read the books Chell would leave out for him, effectively keeping him entertained while she was gone, and giving them—or, well, him—something else to talk about when they were together. It was an enjoyable time, with Chell coming home from work to find Wheatley happily chattering about the book he was currently reading. Wheatley was happy to have something to do, and Chell was happy to not have to worry about injuring herself and her groceries due to tripping over the core.
But one day, Chell made the mistake of leaving Wheatley a book he'd already read, rendering him rather bored. And a bored Wheatley was not a good Wheatley, because it usually meant he would come up with a really stupid idea to entertain himself—such as trying to explore the house and forgetting what had happened last time.
One bruised shin and a nasty headache later, Chell set Wheatley back on the couch and began a serious discussion—as serious of a discussion as they could get with only one of them doing the talking—on just what she was supposed to do to keep the core entertained.
"Ah, well, those books are great, lady! Quite nice, actually, but—but I'm not exactly, er, used to sitting around and doing nothing for hours, you know? …Well, no, actually I have, er, quite a lot of experience with that—not sitting of course, but uh, floating around and doing nothing for hours, and days… and weeks… and months… and—oh, right. Well, I'd just like to move around a bit, you know? It'd really be nice. Just sitting here all day—I think my casing's been getting sort-of stiff, you know? And I'm pretty sure I'm going to get cramps in my handles from—from lack of exercise, and all that, you get what I'm saying? …No? Ah, hm. Well, what I'm saying is, it's bloody boring sitting on the couch all day! Can't you just let me explore? Just a little? E-even just around the house, is all—not, not asking you to let me roll around outside, ha, no, don't really want to get dirt in my casing. Or bugs. That happened once before you found me, and…"
Chell had stopped listening some time ago, glancing away and biting her lip. She knew it must be awful just sitting around in one place all day, even if one didn't have muscles or bones that could get sore from lack of exercise. But there was absolutely no way for him to move around unless she were to carry him—and while he had handles, his weight rendered carrying him for extended periods of time no easy task—or let him roll around, which wasn't a good idea for either of them. That meant he was stuck sitting around, unless…
"…but what were we talking about again? Oh! Right. Well, I was thinking, back when I was back—uh, there, you know the place—I had a management rail! Good ol' management rail, carried me all around the facility, let me explore the whole place—or well, most of it—and, and come to think of it I did get lost a lot of the time, but hey, better than just sitting around, you know? Got to move! And charge myself! It was great! So… You know what would be a great idea? If you could build me a management rail! Yeah! That would be perfect! Hah, and they said I couldn't come up with good ideas. Bloody brilliant idea, that one. A management rail! In the house!"
Yes. A management rail.
Chell buried her face in her hands. What did she look like, a mechanic? She couldn't build him one. She knew someone that could, and she knew it wouldn't be cheap. But…
She turned to look at Wheatley again, glancing at the spot on the couch where he sat. The fabric was worn and she was pretty sure there was a permanent dent in the cushion where he usually sat. Just letting him sit there for ages…
Heaving a sigh, she went to count up her savings. She'd been saving for some Christmas presents to herself—maybe a vacation somewhere away from the cold—but it wouldn't kill her to put that off for a while. Reluctantly she put on her jacket and walked out the door.
"Wait—wait, where are you going? Are you—oh, you've got a plan, don't you? Great! Can't wait to see what it is."
And she couldn't wait to see how much it would cost.
Sure enough, it was expensive. While it didn't eat up all of her savings, it had eaten a significant chunk—delaying her vacation plans for half a year, at least—and it took several weeks to get the thing installed. She was not thrilled with the mechanic's constant visits to her house to work on the rail, and the mechanic, after getting over his initial surprise, was not thrilled with Wheatley's never-ending monologues.
"Good to see you again! The rail's looking brilliant so far—but do you think you could move that part a little closer to the window? It'd be nice to be able to see out of there better! Oh, but, uh, not so close that if I were to, ah, fall off, I would crash through, or something. Yeah. Oh! And don't forget to extend it to that far room over there—I've always wanted to see what's in there! The lady says—or well, not says, she doesn't really speak much, er, not at all, if I'm honest—but in any case according to her it's nothing very interesting, but hey, anything's better than just sitting here all day, you know what I mean? Oh man alive, thanks for doing this! I can't wait to be able to move around!"
At least someone was happy.
The installation took what felt like ages, but finally the rail was finished. It extended in several paths around the general living room/dining room area, around the kitchen, into the storage rooms, into the laundry room—everywhere but the bathroom and bedroom, for obvious reasons. Wheatley was disappointed to not be able to explore those places, but a glare and a reminder of just how much the rail cost without being extended to reach those rooms was enough to shut him up on that point.
But at least he could move, now, and he had something else to do. He spent the next week or so constantly zooming around on his new rail, exploring every little place he could find and examining every nook and cranny of the house he was allowed. He was in brighter spirits, he was out of Chell's way, and it finally looked like life would be better for the both of them.
So it came as a surprise when Chell came home one day to find Wheatley hanging dejectedly in the middle of the living room, staring down at the couch. Why on earth would he be doing that? He couldn't possibly miss sitting there all day, unless…
Wheatley looked up at her, and her face blanched in realization just before he emitted a whining sob from his vocal processor:
"I can't reach my book!"
Chell promptly flopped onto the couch, smacking both palms into her face.
Things were never going to be easy, were they?
Her first attempt at a solution involved creating a stack of objects with a book on top so Wheatley could reach it from his rail. It seemed to work all right until she came home from work just in time to hear a resounding CRASH, and see scattered objects, a broken window, and a very stunned personality core, among other things.
"Er… whoops?"
How she had even thought that had been a good idea to start with, she had no clue. Maybe he was rubbing off on her.
She could always detach him from his rail so he could sit on the couch and read while she was gone, but that defeated the purpose of his even having a rail in the first place. So it was in defeat that she tramped back to the mechanic with the last of her savings to purchase an extension for Wheatley's rail.
The extension in question was a single claw on a long, jointed arm, which attached to the side of the rail. Wheatley had full control over the claw and was able to open and close it, extend it, and move it around. It worked pretty well for him, aside from the time he accidentally pulled himself off his rail, lost his connection to the claw, and wound up suspended in the laundry room for six hours. Chell came home to find him tallying the number of cracks in the wall, ceiling, and floor—about 73.4, give or take, though he did lose count a few times.
Chell had to roll her eyes at the predicament, but it was far from the worst one he'd gotten himself into. Neither of them were hurt, so she figured that the claw and rail combination was a good one and that there would be no further issues.
Then again, this was Wheatley.
While the main purpose of the claw had been to enable him to reach his books from his management rail, Wheatley very quickly found other uses for the new appendage. He'd already thoroughly examined what he could of the house with his optic, but now he could examine it further by picking things up—an exciting thing for someone who had never been in possession of a limb for more than a few days before. Often she would find him in the storage rooms or the kitchen, shuffling through her things and generally making a mess. But as those things were already pretty disorganized anyway, she let it slide—until he accidentally let her favorite coffee mug slide out of his claw.
After scolding him as firmly as a mute could, she made it clear to him to not pick up anything fragile, to which he begrudgingly agreed.
But, seeing he was still eager to find more uses for his claw, Chell occasionally gave him the task of doing the laundry. It would be nice to have some help around the house, and doing the laundry was a pretty hard job to screw up. But Chell remembered who she was dealing with, and was thus unsurprised one day to find him flailing around in panic and squawking about going blind after somehow managing to get himself stuck in one of her turtlenecks.
Otherwise, he did a decent job with that chore and managed to avoid doing something stupid like bleaching her colored clothes. Perhaps he was learning.
But some things still came slow to him. For example, he had the worst time opening doors; his claw was ill-suited for turning a door knob, but he couldn't even figure out that he had to turn the knob in the first place. More than once she'd returned from work to find him stuck in a room and had to let him out. Finally she resorted to just leaving most of the doors in the house open—except for the ones to the bedroom and bathroom.
Wheatley still wasn't thrilled about not being able to enter those rooms, and it upset him even more that Chell would go into the bedroom every night, all night, and leave him out there by himself. If she was in the house, why couldn't he be with her? He could still sleep and read through the night, but usually around five or six in the morning he would wait by her door, whining like an impatient dog.
"C'mon, mate, you've been in there for, what, six hours? Isn't that the normal human sleep cycle? You're not in cryosleep anymore, y'know! Don't want to get brain damage again, do you?"
He whined at her door so often that it eventually became background noise, and Chell was able to sleep through it and ignore it in the morning while she got ready for the day.
She had to admit, he wasn't as bad at learning things as she had once thought, but sometimes she wished he was. Because one day, he finally did figure out how to turn doorknobs and open doors, and it happened to be her door that he learned to open just as she was getting ready for work.
Chell was pretty impressed with her ability to chuck an eleven hundred page hardcover book across her room and into the doorway, nailing Wheatley square in the optic. Less so when she saw it knocked him clean off his management rail and into the coffee table, breaking one of its legs.
"Wh… was that necessary, luv?"
No, but neither was his opening her door while she was getting dressed.
Fortunately, that was the last real incident that happened for some time. Wheatley became more skillful at using his claw for various tasks, and a little more independent now that he could move around the house. Not that he ever really yearned for independence, though; he yearned more for companionship, for ways to spend time with Chell. Reading books and exploring the house was fun and all, but it wasn't the same as talking with—or rather, to—her. Though hearing someone else's voice would be nice, too.
So it was to his delight and her mild surprise when Wheatley uncovered the remote to Chell's rarely-used TV, and quickly figured out how to use it. Chell never much liked the TV herself, but she let him watch it so long as he did so while she wasn't around. He enjoyed watching the shows and listening to all the different people that appeared on the screen, and it gave him a bit of a broader view of the world around him.
It was through this medium that he learned of something she'd been hesitant to explain to him. She stepped through the door one day, only to jump back in surprise when Wheatley looped around her head in excited circles.
"Lady, lady! You'll never believe this! Every channel on the telly's been talking about this—this thing, with some big man riding around on this thing like a management rail around the sky, except it's being pulled by—uh—not sure what they are, exactly, big animals with trees on their heads—and, and there's snow—well there's been snow already but it's really important now for some reason—and these great big trees—already got those outside too, I know, but these ones grow inside the house, and they're covered in all these shiny lights and things, and, and the man breaks into everyone's houses and leaves these big shiny boxes with gifts inside—and everyone else does, too! Well, er, not the 'breaking into people's houses' part, but the giving presents part, and—and there was also something about some weird humans with wings and some tiny Human with all these smelly animals, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, and…"
He apparently never noticed when Chell had stopped listening and begun fishing around in one of the storage rooms. But he did notice when she came back out, caring a large box with a picture of a pine tree on it.
"…and there was something about these people bringing gold, Frankenstein, and—oh. OH! That's one of those trees, innit? Brilliant! You do have one! But, uh, how do we plant it in the house? Since we have carpet, and all, not dirt, though I guess I could reach outside and shovel in some—"
She shoved the assembly instructions into his claw, and he blinked.
"Oh. Well then. That works, too."
Soon the house was decorated for Christmas, and Chell had to admit, it was nice to have someone around who was so enthusiastic about the holiday. The previous years, she'd celebrated the holiday alone, buying a few gifts for herself and only putting up the tree once. It was hard to truly enjoy the holiday without anyone to celebrate it with, and Wheatley made good company. There was just one problem:
"So, r'you gonna get me anything?"
Chell looked up at the core, whose blue optic was bright in an excited smile, and knew that smile wouldn't be staying for long. Heaving a sigh, she stood on her toes and reached up, brushing her fingers against his management rail, then reached down to tug on his claw.
"Er, what?" he asked, blinking a few times as he looked from the rail to his claw. "What are you… oh." And promptly his optic went dull as he hung limp in his rail and stared down dejectedly at the floor. "Right, I understand. Money, and all that. Well, guess I should be thankful for this stuff—er, thanks. And—"
He looked up suddenly, optic brightening into a grin once more. "And it's all right, 'cause that fat man'll come and break into the house and give me something! So don't worry about it, mate."
Chell's stomach sank. Now what was she going to do?
It was still a few weeks before Christmas, but she knew she wouldn't be able to earn enough money to get him a present of any significance. The rail and claw had been enough, hadn't it? It had cost her nearly all of her savings, and there was barely enough for her to buy maybe one or two very cheap gifts for herself. But every day, she would hear Wheatley rambling about how Santa was going to bring him a gift, and he would wait all night to meet him, and maybe tell him not to break through the window or something when he broke in, because it had already gotten broken once this year—
As much trouble as he'd caused her, Chell knew he meant well, and she didn't want to disappoint him. But with her miniscule funds, what on earth could she get him for Christmas?
She went to the used paperback bin at the library, picking out a few books and reasoning that she could share them with Wheatley, but it still seemed like a cheap Christmas gift. She'd almost given up hope when she went to the grocery store to pick up her groceries for the week—
And there she saw it.
It was the perfect gift for him, and it didn't cost much at all. So it was in much lighter spirits that she added one little item to her grocery basket and trekked through the snow to her house. She easily sneaked the object into her room where she could wrap it up without the core's noticing, and kept it there until Christmas Eve.
Wheatley had nearly knocked himself off his management rail several times out of sheer excitement, bouncing around and looping around the living room in circles until he made himself dizzy. "Can you believe it, mate?" he called as his optic spun around in its socket. "Night before Christmas! That ol' fat man's gonna be here soon with presents for us! I can't wait! Haha—AGH!"
He finally dropped off his management rail with a weighty CLUNK, and Chell laughed silently as she reconnected him.
"Ha, but no, really, I can't wait, so I'm gonna stay up all night and see him myself! Don't worry, lady, I'll keep him from breaking the window, like I said. And I won't let him come into your room either, unless he wants some bloody massive book chucked into his eye. Heh! Yep, aaaall night."
Chell cocked an eyebrow at him and grinned. All night? Sure.
"I mean it!" he cried, a little offended. "I'll stay up all night!"
And Wheatley made a valiant effort, to be sure. But staring out the window all night long proved to be too boring to handle, and she woke up on Christmas morning to find him deep in sleep mode. With a grin, she carefully set a few presents down under the tree and walked over to tap the sleeping core on the side.
"Wuh—WAGH! Where is he?" Wheatley cried, flailing his claw around as he gradually woke from sleep mode. "Where's th' things with trees, and, and the fat man, and…" He blinked a few times, optic adjusting itself as he slowly became aware of the daylight pouring down through the window. "Awww bloody heck, I missed him, didn't I?!"
Chell rolled her eyes and gave him a consoling pat before turning him toward the Christmas tree.
"Bet he forgot me, didn't he?" Wheatley moaned. "Never'd think to bring presents over… to… a…" His optic locked on the three objects wrapped in bright paper under the tree. "Are those…?"
Chell nodded, picking up one of the gifts and tearing off the bright wrapping paper, revealing a worn paperback book.
"Oh—brilliant, brilliant, he did bring us presents!" Wheatley took a few moments to zoom around in circles on his management rail before coming to a stop next to Chell. "So that one's for you, right?"
She nodded again, picking up another present and unwrapping yet another book.
"And that one, too," Wheatley mumbled before glancing down at the unopened gift. "So that one…"
Chell stooped down, picking up the final present and holding it up to him.
Wheatley stared at the brightly-wrapped object for a moment before breaking into as much of a grin as his single optic could muster. He reached out and ripped through the wrapping paper to reveal a very small box with fancy letters:
"Bicycle… playing cards," he read, tilting his optic and blinking. "Hmm. Never actually played cards; been meaning to—" Immediately he perked up, brightening. "How did he know? Oh, this is great! Wish I could thank the guy—though I guess this'll work just as well."
Chell gave him a confused look for a moment before she realized what he meant, and tried to step back—too late to stop him from wrapping her in his mechanical arm and nuzzling into her shoulder in some odd, one-armed form of a hug.
"There! I guess that works, doesn't it? Show my appreciation to someone, anyway."
She gave a silent laugh, carefully working herself free of his arm and grabbing his claw in her free hand. She guided him over to the dining room table and set the box of cards there, looking up at him.
"What's—oh, can you teach me?" he asked, looking from the box to her. "Great! Brilliant! Teach on, then."
Chell dumped the cards out of the box, picking out the joker cards and the poker instructions. Truth be told, she didn't know many card games herself, but she figured she could teach him a simple one before they moved on to more complex games. Grabbing part of the deck, she showed Wheatley how there were four of each card in the box, and tried to show him to match the four cards together. It wasn't easy to do without the aid of a voice, but Chell eventually managed to convey to him the basic rules of "go fish."
She also found she had to get a little creative, since Wheatley couldn't hold a hand of cards in one claw, and she eventually sat a book on the table for him to prop his cards against, leaving his claw free to pick them up.
Even then, it took him a little while to understand how the game worked. A couple times she had to stop him from retrieving cans of white albacore tuna from the pantry, and more than once he had slapped down some odd mix of fours and aces, crying, "Ace of fours!" triumphantly. And each time she'd smacked her hand against her face as he asked, "You're sure there's no ace of fours in this game?"
But after a lot of time and a lot of patience on Chell's part, Wheatley finally managed to grasp the game, and they played their first successful round. Or semi-successful, for by either some odd miracle, dumb luck, or sheer idiocy on Wheatley's part, Chell managed to beat him eleven pairs to two.
"Ah," Wheatley mumbled, blinking at all the matching sets on Chell's side of the table. "Well, there. Merry Christmas."
When she gave him a look, his optic contracted a little, darting around nervously. "Er, well, it's—it's my present to you. Letting you win. Right."
Chell just laughed and re-shuffled the cards.
Wheatley gave her several other Christmas presents before he finally managed to win a game, and after that, gained several other victories. It was only when Wheatley won his sixth game that Chell realized it was already well past noon.
As she stopped to make herself lunch, she looked back to watch Wheatley attempting to read the poker rule card and wondering why it never mentioned an ace of fours. Shaking her head and laughing, she went back to making her meal.
It had been quite the year, to be sure—the smashed windows and broken furniture, the re-re-organized storage rooms and scrambled laundry, and all the savings that had gone down the drain just to enable Wheatley to move from his spot on the couch.
But none of that seemed to matter anymore. When she thought back to that day she'd found him lying in the dirt, even though it wound up costing her a lot in the long run, it had been worth everything she'd endured to bring Wheatley home.