Forgive the sappiness of this chapter - actually, forgive the sappiness of this whole story so far. I'm trying to stray away from writing ridiculous lulzy fanfics all the time - this is a product of that attempt.
The next chapter will be sweet, but it won't be quite as sappy as these first two chapters. The Rattmann and Chell relationship in this story will be purely platonic unless you want me to keep writing past three chapters. If people are interested in that, I will turn this story into a slow-moving romance.

Please give me your thoughts!
-Kirsten


'You're being too hard on yourself... Maybe you need to calm down.'

Cube was right, but that didn't make his situation any harder to bear. Doug clutched a fist to his eye, rubbing away the tears, and then slammed it against the wall. He slumped his head in between his legs.

"It doesn't... It doesn't... There's too many deaths on my head - they're all so angry at me," He let out a choking sob, shuddering, "And the have a right to be. Why do you think they haven't killed me yet?"

Cube was silent for a moment, and the tension increased tenfold in his shoulders.

'please speak'

Cube's voice made itself known in a whisper, 'Maybe they don't think that you deserve to die.'

Doug looked up at Cube, eyes red and puffy from salty tears, "I do deserve to die. Sacrifices have stained blood into my hands for so many years since that fateful day, and now... Today can't be any different. She's still... because of me..."

'You can't change the past.'

"You can't erase the past."

'You can change the future - and now, you are doing your best to make amends.'

Doug lapsed into silence. He looked out at the wreckage spread out before him and leaned an elbow on a knee, curling rough fingers in graying hair. He sat in silence with Cube for a few minutes.

Then, he turned back to his friend, amusement by irony showing on his face, "These were the left-wing offices - one of the only places that her cameras never reached," He laughed, "Look at them now - she reached them. Look what her destruction has done."

'Hey, well, to be fair... Technically this is Chell's destruction.'

But, Doug didn't think too hard on Cube's comment. He instead looked at the ruins distantly, a reminiscent smile on his lips, "Yeah, alright..." He turned to Cube, "Do you remember Susan? She brought me a dried out doughnut every Tuesday when she passed rounds through our sector of Aperture... She didn't know I was psychotic of course. It's a good thing she didn't figure that out before she died, right?"

Cube snorted, ignoring the more depressing, self-hating parts of Doug's statement, 'You expect me to remember that? Have you gone even more insane? I didn't even know you then.'

"Of course you did," Dough hissed, "You're just a figment of my imagination, aren't you? You've always known me."

Cube quieted for a second, and then let out a hurt response, '...Don't speak nonsense.'

With a deep, tired breath, Doug leaned back, relaxing his arms to his sides and looking up at the ceiling. Up above was the room he had spent weeks in. Half of the things he did in there he couldn't remember - in fact, half of the things he did now-a-days were tossed away by his memory.

It was probably for the best he supposed.

He continued to stare at the ceiling above him, the hum of the fan a few steps and a reach away buzzing away in the background. Images began blurring through his head, and then everything became a dream, and it was hard to focus but at the same time, everything seemed so clear.

His last thought was that he could see again, and then he lived only in experience and remembered nothing.

When he reawakened from this state, he realised that his position had changed. He was standing up against the wall beneath the fan, and Cube was screaming at him from across the room in the corner where he had last left him.

'It's her it's Chell! She's there, above you! She's in the fan, she's in the den! Looklooklooklooklook!"

Doug looked up blearily at the spinning machinery above him. He saw the bottoms of her legs and the orange color of the legs of her jumpsuit.

He nearly collapsed.