Chapter 4

"Chell? Chell? Wake up. Cheeeell?" His voice penetrated her dream, dragging out the 'e' in her name for all it was worth.

Chell grunted, still half asleep, and grabbed the duvet cover, yanking it over her head.

She heard a muffled chuckle.

"I'm sorry I really can't help it. It's fun to say."

Why had she brought him into her room again?

"Oh, and thanks for letting me come in here. It's really quiet in there. And you said to wake you up at 7."

Ah.

Chell rolled onto her back, rubbed her eyes and then cast a bleary glance at the laptop perched on her night stand. Now that she thought about it, it was quite disconcerting to have Wheatley's voice coming from her laptop. He had no visible way of expressing himself and had a small dark camera to address. This was the only similarity between it and the core sitting on her desk in the other room, the fact that they both only had one 'eye' but at least the core blinked and didn't stay unnervingly still. It felt like she was being stared at.

Chell sat up, placing one hand over her mouth as she yawned widely. She really hadn't thought this through. She had heard Wheatley crash at about 10pm and by the time she had found him, ran back home and began to download his program (which she still had no clue what the long-term implications of that were) it had been 12am at least. And the transfer had taken ages. It had been about 5am when he had first screamed directly into her ear, jerking her out of sleep and sending her thumping to the floor. By the time she had eventually stumbled into her room after Wheatley's little fit, carrying the excitable ex-core in her arms, it had been 6am or more.

To put it plainly, she was tired.

But she had a job to do and the bills had to be paid.

She could remember being able to push through the exhaustion and carry on as if nothing had happened. Nightmares had plagued her for a good few months after she began to settle onto her neighbourhood. It was only when she crashed out at work and woke up screaming and disoriented had she sought out a psychiatrist under the direct instruction of her boss.

She hated it at first, feeling patronised and not wanting to tell Andrew anything, but she became used to their Thursday afternoon meetings and eventually opened up. Not about Aperture or Her or a certain physics warping weapon that was the reason she had such an itchy trigger finger- that would have been dangerous for all parties involved- but about the way she felt before, during and after her nightmares, how she had been trapped and almost completely helpless at one point and how the feeling returned whenever she had a nightmare and lingered for at least three or four days afterward.

Andrew had listened carefully to everything Chell said and suggested that whenever she felt uneasy or nervous she should go for a walk somewhere she felt calm and think though those feelings, try to pinpoint where they originated from.

Chell had follow his instructions to the letter and that's how her forest walks started. And surprisingly they worked. Soon she returning to the forest because she wanted to not because she needed to, the nightmares few and far between. She didn't need to push through exhaustion anymore. Her nights were restful and undisturbed.

Chell's thoughts snapped back to the present when she realised that her room was silent.

She turned to look at Wheatley, puzzled. Why had he stopped talking?

The laptop made a small relieved sigh.

"Oh thank god you're moving again. You zoned out there. Wouldn't stop staring at that wall. Are you... are you okay?"

Chell nodded quickly, then remembered that he knew she could talk. In fact, her voice seemed to have a tremendous choke hold on his vocal processor. All she needed to do was clear her throat and Wheatley was silent, hanging on her every word.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Great, that's great. Brilliant even. So... what're we doing today?"

She could practically hear the smile in his voice.

"I," Chell said, scooping him up and walking into the living room. "am going to work."

"Ah... and I take it I'm staying here."

She nodded again. He seemed to understand that long-winded explanations weren't really easy for her. Setting him on her desk, she went to get ready.

The lady could speak! She was actually talking to him! Wheatley was sure he had almost shut down with shock when she said her first words to him. The lady, no, Chell, she had specifically said to call her Chell not lady. He would have to remember that. It sounded so weird to him. He'd been calling her 'lady' ever since he had met her and she had never said a word to correct him. Even Mrs Bossy Boots Herself only ever referred to Chell as 'she'. And that had been during a time he'd rather not dwell on. The fact that she was talking to him in full sentences was what really surprised him. When the backup power in the relaxation centre had run out and left him with thousands of vegetables, Chell had literally been Wheatley's last hope and, due to his multiple failures with subduing the other surviving test subjects, one of which had gotten very angry with him and tried to bash him with a lamp, he was feeling slightly pessimistic about the last one.

The fact that she'd been able to open the door under her own power had been a good sign. The blank looks and jumping hadn't.

He quickly learnt that she was a lot more intelligent than he'd first given her credit for but he still thought that if she ever did speak, it would be very small words and phrases. She had been is suspension for a VERY long time after all.

The door to Chell's room had been shut for quite a while. Wheatley coughed quietly.

"So how long are you going to be gone exactly?" he called. "Because if it's going to be ages then what am I supposed to do all day? It's not like I can move or anything, you've stopped that from happening. Not, not that I blame you or anything! No, of course not, without you and your clever human brain I'd be a pile of scrap forming rust lying god knows where. It's just that it is going to be a bit boring on my own. At least up there I had spacey, you know. Not much of a conversationalist, definitely not good at actual conversation but I could rely on him for a little background noise. Running commentary... Anyway, anyway, any ideas? On what I should do I mean. Can you even hear me though that door?" Wheatley raised his voice, just in case. "Any of this getting through!?"

There was a quiet sigh.

"Yes." answered a weary voice.

The bedroom door opened and Chell walked out, looking a lot more... dynamic was the first word that sprung to Wheatley's mind. Hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, jeans and t-shirt replaced with a spotless white blouse and dressed pants. She was fiddling with a watch on her left wrist, yanking it to the very last hole. It was still loose, however, travelling down her arm of its own accord when she lowered it. She frowned at her wrist.

"I can turn on the TV if you want some background noise." she said, glancing at the front door, clearly wanting to get going.

"That would be appreciated, thanks." he answered. Wheatley could actually feel the awkwardness settling in the air. He cleared his throat. "If you want to go? I'll try and entertain myself. No problem, honest. I used to do it all the time."

Chell smiled gratefully at him, switched on the news and went to leave. She paused briefly at the door, turned to look at the laptop perched on her desk.

"I'll see you later."

"Bye."

The door shut with at faint click, there was a jingle of keys and Wheatley was alone.

Wheatley snorted.

"Okay, this is starting to get boring."

He'd been watching the news for the best part of an hour. At first it had been really interesting, learning all about the humany world up on the surface. But after a while the smartly dressed people on the screen started to repeat themselves. He had heard the 'Celebrities raise money for starving children' story at least three times. The same with the 'Shooting star crashes in local forest.' story. He was the bloody star of that one!

Wheatley turned his attention to his new hard drive. He hadn't really explored it yet. There was his own bundle of files, strangely organised into alphabetical order. He didn't really want to mess with any of his own things. He knew what most of them did and the ones with scary looking names -'Aperture Science Virus Scan Software.' for example- he just steered clear of.

He reached out of his program and began to nose around the other software on the hard drive. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he really should respect Chell's privacy but he disregarded it. He was just curious. There was no harm in having a quick look about. It was his body now after all.

Law documents, work documents, a Powerpoint on the 'Importance of safe Internet banking'. At quick flick through that and Wheatley opened the Internet Browser. It immediately opened Chell's emails.

Scrolling down, Wheatley saw that Chell was a lot more intelligent than he'd thought. Half the stuff in the email he didn't understand at all. They were definitely in English, he was sure, but they sounded so complicated. Whoever Chell was talking to clearly needed medical help. What the hell was an 'ordinance'?

One email about two pages in caught his eye.

'THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR COMPUTER' it yelled.

Wheatley felt his internal workings freeze.

"What?! Why would she put me in here if there's something wrong with it?!" he yelped.

He frantically clicked the email. Then he began to scream.

AN: Hi again! I'm so sorry this took so long. I sort of ran out of steam half way through and then last week was my busiest week ever so I honestly didn't have time.

I'm really surprised by how my people actually followed and favourite not only the fic but also me! And I'm loving the reviews. Thanks again for even bothering to read in the first place.