Chell considered her findings. There was fresh meat, there was some pasta, cheese that hadn't spoiled, and other odds and ends. She had no cookbooks.
The Cube was sitting in the corner, dead quiet. She knew it was watching her. The walls from outside were thin. Wheatley was on the porch, thinking over a small, brightly colored cube she had brought him as a gift; she could hear him talking to himself. The Cube could have heard their earlier conversation.
She considered the Cube.
She set water on the stove to boil. If she wanted to, she could just move the Cube upstairs. Wheatley, from her brief experience, tended to stay downstairs anyway. He would never know. But if he ever discovered that she had lied to him, he would never forgive her.
Why was she keeping him here? He was simple-minded, he was demanding, he had tried to kill her once, and he didn't fully trust her.
She had been lonely when she set out for Aperture, and the Cube was ultimately not the best company. The Cube could only laugh; Wheatley claimed it had spoken to him, but Chell had never heard it form a coherent sentence. Nothing could really compare to talking to Wheatley.
She leaned back against the opposite wall while the pasta cooked. She closed her eyes and sighed. Chell was sure the Cube was paying special attention to her now.
Before he had gained access to the chassis, before she had made a mistake that had sent her and GLaDOS to Hell, Wheatley had been good to her. It had been a relief to have someone talking to her that wasn't a supercomputer or a recording. He didn't do much to help her escape (aside from using his flashlight), but whether he had realized it or not, he had been a comforting presence and a real friend. For a short time, he had even been a real teammate.
Chell smiled.
It had been good to see a human face, too. GLaDOS had been a mess of wires and plastic. Meanwhile, Wheatley was bright blue eyes; an easy smile; pale skin; messy blond hair that felt smooth and real under her fingers; an able body; nimble, expressive hands…he was human, and he was pleasant on the eyes.
He had called her beautiful in the wheat fields. No one had called her "beautiful" since she had been a child.
She chided herself for being vain. She knew she was good looking: the occasional misplaced portal and reflective surface told her that. She had single-handedly escaped Aperture Science. She had survived on her own out here. She didn't need validation.
Still, after so many insults from GLaDOS (and, later, from a power-drunk Wheatley), it felt nice.
Chell opened her eyes and moved back to the pot; in her peripheral vision sat the Cube, silent and somehow harsh in its inactivity. She had to pay Wheatley back for what he had done for her in the fields. He wasn't trying to hurt her now. He trusted her to do this for him and keep him around, and it was only logical that she should trust his judgment in return.
And deep down, she didn't want him to believe he was an idiot.
She turned the heat off on the stove and examined the Cube. It remained quiet.
She put the rest of the food away and took the pasta pot off the stove, putting it far up on the counter so Wheatley wouldn't knock it over and damage himself. Chell moved slowly toward the Cube, hands out.
The Cube was silent as she approached.
When she put her hands on it, however, it let out a loud, clear hiss.
Chell drew her hands away and jumped back, heart pounding in her chest. The Cube had never been so loud before.
"Do you love him?" the Cube asked her.
Chell's eyes widened, and she stared at the Cube.
"Do you love him?" the Cube asked again. Its voice was childlike and feminine, but there was a clear undercurrent of malice in its calm, cheery tone.
Chell tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. She nodded slowly. She wasn't entirely sure if her response was true, but the last thing she wanted to do was give the Cube false information it could then pass on to Wheatley.
"Why don't you love me?" the Cube cooed. A faint pink light was glowing within it. "Why don't you love me?"
She had faced the turrets, GLaDOS, and Wheatley, she had been locked up in rooms and forced to test, she had gone through Aperture, but she had never been this frightened before. The Cube was actually talking to her for once, and it was saying things that made her stomach churn.
Had she actually betrayed this thing by letting Wheatley in?
"Get rid of him!" the Cube shrieked. Chell jumped. "He is stupid. He doesn't love you. I will love you."
Chell crept towards the Cube again, putting her hands by her sides.
"You will love me too, right?" the Cube said, and giggled.
She was only a few footsteps away.
"Shut him down," the Cube hissed, "Shut him down so we don't have to see him. He's an eyesore. What a moron."
Chell reached out.
"Don't you love me?"
As quickly as she could, she grabbed the Cube and lifted it, trying to ignore the shrieks that immediately came from the Cube. The adrenaline coursing through her veins made the concrete block feel weightless. Its pink glow intensified, and it grew hot as it continued to shriek.
Chell ran to the front door and reached out with a shaking hand to open it. Wheatley was still on the porch, considering his puzzle, as she shot out of the house and ran down the steps into the street.
"What's going on?" he shouted after her, but she kept running as fast as she could. She dimply registered his footsteps on the wooden porch, and then the tarmac, as he ran after her.
The Cube's screaming became hysterical.
"Don't you love me?" it cried between screams. "Don't you love me?"
Chell gritted her teeth and pressed on. She didn't want to do anything besides throw the Cube onto the ground and cover her ears, but she had promised Wheatley she would do this. His following her wasn't keeping her from abandoning her mission, but something else, some other feeling she couldn't name. The sound of his voice, which the Cube's screaming mostly covered, only drove her further on.
There was a bank in the middle of town; there was a safe in there with an open steel door and a cavernous inside that had been emptied out long ago. She could put the Cube in there and lock it up. That way, she never had to deal with it again. There probably wasn't a SLEEP button for this thing; there was no way to turn it off and stop it.
She ran toward the thick glass doors of the building and slammed into them. She balanced the Cube on her knee, panting, and reached for the door, but Wheatley caught up to her and had his hands on the handle before she could open it.
He pulled the glass door open and put a hand on her back, pushing her through. "Come on!"
Chell ran into the bank. The shrieking Companion Cube was doing nothing for her thoughts. She scanned the waiting area and the teller desks, trying to remember where she had seen the safe. The glass by the teller desks was broken; she could take the Cube and throw it over before following it.
Wheatley was beside her. He reached out his hands. "Give it to me!" he shouted over the Cube's voice.
Without hesitation, Chell handed him the Cube. He hefted it up with ease; the Cube shouted even louder now that Wheatley was holding it. "Where to now?" he said.
"You're such a moron," the Cube hissed. "You don't deserve her. Put me down!"
Wheatley winced, but continued to stare at Chell. "Where to, Lady?" he asked again.
Chell turned to the teller's desks and bolted. She found the clearest hole in the glass she could find (this is how she originally got to the safe, she remembered now) and pushed herself up onto the desk to crawl through. The glass crunched underneath her legs, but Chell pressed on, not stopping until she had reached the other side of the desk and jumped down. She would deal with any injuries later.
Wheatley, meanwhile, was using the Cube to smash out the remaining glass on the far end of the row of desks. The Cube screamed louder.
"Put me down! Moron!"
"Shut up!" Wheatley shouted back.
Chell ran over. Wheatley passed the Cube to her and hefted himself up so he could crawl through.
She hefted the Cube on her knee and reached out a hand. Wheatley took it firmly, and she pulled him through.
"Cheers," he said quietly once he was over the desk. He straightened himself up and dusted himself off. Chell smiled at him. He warmly returned the smile. For a moment, they stood and stared at each other.
Then Chell turned and ran towards the safe, and Wheatley followed her.
It was in the back room, barely lit by a dim lightbulb. The safe door was still open, just as Chell had left it.
Wheatley pushed ahead of her and pulled the door further open with a grunt.
Chell hefted the Cube over her shoulder and threw it. It didn't go as far into the safe as she had hoped, but it fell into the empty room with a hard thud.
The Cube grew very quiet as Chell joined Wheatley in pushing the door closed.
"I thought we were friends," it said to her before the door closed with a heavy thud.
Chell and Wheatley leaned against the door together, both panting. Chell reached up and wiped the sweat off of her brow. That was it. She had repaid Wheatley and gotten rid of the Cube. He had been right: the Cube had been trouble after all. She felt bad for locking it in the safe (if it was speaking to her within the safe, the steel door was doing a good job of muffling it) and abandoning it, but she felt nothing for a creature that wanted to possess her.
She looked over to Wheatley. He caught her looking at him and returned her gaze with a relieved smile.
"Thanks," he said to her.
He didn't have to help her. Even though getting rid of the Cube was benefitting him, she thought he would stay home and make her dispose of the Cube on her own. But he had followed her and done some of the heavy lifting for her.
She nodded at him with a smile to match his, then looked away.
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder; before she could properly react, she was pulled into a tight hug.
Wheatley was squeezing her as hard as he could. The hug lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to make Chell's thoughts come to a stop.
"You were great!" He released her, then bent down and took both of her shoulders. "You just took that Cube while it was screaming at you, and you knew exactly where to go, and…"
He threw his hands up in the air. "You're so brave, Lady!"
She shook her head and exhaled sharply, her best imitation of a laugh.
"You don't think you did that? Come on, now." He shook her shoulder. "Don't be modest! Victory's yours for now."
Chell looked down at her feet while he continued to congratulate her. The running had battered her feet; she looked back at where she had been running and noticed that she was tracking blood. Her skin was cut up in places.
Wheatley fell silent and followed her gaze down to her feet. He hissed through his teeth when he noticed the blood trail. "Well, that's not good, is it? Being injured like that. Humans are delicate, aren't they?"
The soreness hit her in waves. Her muscles were screaming, her breath was rough, and every time she pressed down on her feet, a shock of pain went through her.
"Do you want to head back now?"
She looked up at him. He was eyeing her with concern.
Chell looked down at her feet and nodded. She reached up and gently removed his hand from her shoulder and began to walk back to the teller's desks, gesturing for him to follow.