AN: For those of you who have been oh-so-patiently waiting for some Chelley moments…a bit of payoff awaits you!


CHAPTER ELEVEN:

THE MARKER


"But it doesn't make any sense," Chell protested as Wheatley strode ahead of her across the catwalk. They'd spent most of their time in Enrichment Sphere Six arguing with one another and were now almost at the end of the course. "Why would the woman who convinced you to upload your brain into a machine suddenly start trying to help us?"

"Dunno," Wheatley answered, distracted. "Guilty conscience, maybe?"

He continued walking forward, concentrating so hard on searching for the exit door that he stepped too close to an adjacent pipe; repulsion gel splashed onto him, dotting his clothes and the lenses of his glasses in blue. With a finicky huff, he yanked them off and polished them on the hem his sweater, leaving behind blue blotches on the material. He went to put them back on, reconsidered, and then shoved the glasses into his pants pocket.

"Nothing like a bad case of myopia to make things a little more interesting," he announced with forced cheer. He squinted at Chell and smiled sheepishly, misinterpreting her worried frown for one of irritation. "Sorry – sorry, I should've been letting you take the lead. Wasn't trying to get, ah, too big for my britches, as it were."

Chell gave him a quick once-over and tried not to shake her head. She was happy to know Wheatley's confidence was ebbing its way back to the range of normal, but appearance-wise, he looked like anything but a leader. His pockets still bulged with treasures, he persisted in wearing his sneakers around his neck, and he had looped his old core around one shoulder like a purse.

He noticed her looking at him and squinted again. "What?"

"You're going to need as much freedom as movement as possible when we get to the newer testing tracks," Chell explained soberly. "Ducking out of sight from turrets is going to be a lot harder with all of that weighing you down –"

Wheatley's face fell. "But –"

"And you almost strangled yourself on your shoelaces when you did that high-velocity jump yesterday," she reminded him.

"But can't we put everything in the rucksack?" he protested. He gestured to the carryall she had slung tightly on her back.

"No." Chell shook her head. She still hadn't decided whether the backpack was coming with them. "And your core wouldn't fit in here, anyway. I'm sorry, Wheatley," she added sincerely. "But it's not just your life on the line. It's mine, too."

He had been prepping another argument for why his runners were essential to their escape, but his mouth shut with an audible click as he considered Chell's last point. It was her life on the line. They were, after all, partners. She had his back (always had, really) and he had hers. And he certainly wasn't going to risk her life or limbs just for a pair of bloody shoes.

"You're right," he agreed, surprising Chell with how quickly he dropped the issue.

He shrugged his shoulder; the core slid down his arm and he deftly caught it by the handle.

"Sorry, Caroline," he remarked as he bent down to set the chassis on the floor. "Any other clues you decide to send our way need to be more portable. Or – " He let out a quick laugh and smiled up at Chell. "Portal-able. Ha, get it?"

His shoes were next, followed by the ceremonial emptying of both pockets. Her old school bus nametag also reappeared, but this was in the 'keep' category by unspoken agreement. She took it from him and went to tuck it into one of the Velcro leg pockets on her jumpsuit, then paused.

"Why don't you put the sticker on it?" she suggested, motioning to the orange-and-blue sticker that, miraculously, was still glued fast to the toe of Wheatley's runner.

"Brilliant!" he agreed.

The sticker duly was peeled off and handed to Chell, who attached to the nametag. As she folded it away, she noticed Wheatley stealthily abscond his marker from the pile, but chose not to mention it, as it was blunt-ended and fit easily into his own trouser pocket.

"Ready?" Chell asked him when he was done.

Wheatley managed a tight nod and tried to remind himself that the butterflies he felt in his stomach were not actual insects, but rather a figure of speech. It was time to put his pedal to the metal – another figure of speech. He wondered at what point in his previous life he'd become so fond of metaphors.

Together, they climbed up the final set of stairs and headed in the direction of the elevator that Chell knew would take them back into the Enrichment Center. It was just as she remembered - down a long hallway, around a corner, and through the Emancipation Grill. The elevator opened on their approach, and they stepped inside, the door closing smoothly shut behind them. The sound of gears shifting could be heard, followed by the hum of motors powering up, and then Wheatley felt the stomach-dropping sensation as the elevator began to glide upward.

"And away we go," he murmured as they waited for it to reach its destination.

"She's probably changed all the testing tracks from when I went through before," Chell warned him. "Don't move forward until I tell you to. It might take me a second or two to figure out where we need to go."

Wheatley's laugh was shaky at best. "I'm not going to do anything until you tell me. Except, um, breathe. That's okay, right? Breathing?" He smiled at her to let her know he was joking, but nerves kept Chell from being able to return it.

The hum of the elevator motor changed in pitch, a sign that it was approaching the top floor. Wheatley went to grip his ASHPD more tightly, but his hands were sweaty and kept slipping off the triggers. He quickly scrubbed his palms, left hand, then right hand, on the legs of his trousers and re-gripped the portal device again.

The elevator came to a shuddering halt, and the doors slid open.

Another hallway lay beyond, but it was not the same one Chell had traversed before - the one that had led her to one of Wheatley's test chambers. She had been busy in their absence, rearranging testing tracks and no doubt making them as lethal as possible. Frankenturrets did not await them, of this Chell was certain.

With Wheatley at her heels, she slowly walked towards the circular door with the glowing blue stick figure. She was waiting to hear Her voice, but She remained silent. The scarlet-lensed camera on the wall, however, swung in their direction, a silent signal that although She was not providing them with a steady supply of sarcasm, She was watching.

The lock twisted on the circular door, and the panels swept apart to reveal a room filled with row upon row of -

Sentry turrets.

A sea of red lasers swept over Chell and Wheatley, bouncing slightly as they trained in on their targets.

"There you are."

"Could you come over here?"

"Dispensing product."

The echoes of the turret brigade were had barely registered for either of them when Chell threw herself to the left, tackling Wheatley to the floor and taking them both out of harm's way as turrets began to fire.

The entryway panels slid shut, buckling slightly from the turrets' resultant spray of bullets. The muffled chorus fell silent a few seconds later as they dropped back into standby mode, dutifully waiting for their targets to appear once more.

"That was…close," Wheatley breathed after a long minute. He let out a weak laugh, adding, "Might've even seen my life flash before my eyes. Not much to see, I'll admit. God, that was the worst welcome wagon ever, honestly. Think She's glad to see us?"

When Chell didn't answer, Wheatley squinted up at her and then reached into his pocket for his glasses. He shoved them on; the world came into focus, and it was then that he noticed the undeniable awkwardness of their positioning: Chell had landed straddled across his hips, both hands planted on his chest.

"Chell?" He waited a few seconds, then tried again. "Chell!"

She wasn't wearing her usual I'm-ignoring-you face, he realized. She was white-faced and staring.

Worried, Wheatley reached up and grasped her by both arms, giving her a quick shake, but she continued to stare blankly into space.

Oh, God.

For once, his mind didn't immediately go straight to explanations involving brain damage or paralysis. He hastily sat up and hunched over to try and get a better look at her (because even with the boost of his lap, Chell still was a good head shorter than him), then attempted to snap his fingers in front of her nose. His dexterity was poor, however, and he couldn't manage a snap so much as a fumbled thumb-and-pointer swoosh, but again, nothing.

Her lips were starting to turn an alarming shade of blue.

"Hey," he said urgently. He gave up on snapping his fingers and took her face in both of her hands, forcing her to look at him. Raising his voice, he said, "Listen to me. We're okay – I promise! But, just say something. Let me know you're in there. Chell?"

Wide, unseeing grey eyes met his, and she gave an adamant shake of her head, her lips clamped tightly together.

"Oh, no," Wheatley breathed, finally realizing the awful truth.

She couldn't say something.

She couldn't say anything.


You need to talk. You need to talk. You need to talk if you're going to get out of here. So talk! You're not going to die if you talk, dummy.

(She's weird. She doesn't talk to anyone. She doesn't like anybody.)

Open your mouth and say something.

(This is what happens when you don't follow rules.)

We're going to die. We're going to die. Oh, God, we're going to die. I can't get us out of here and we're going to die because I just can't talk.

Hysterical thought after hysterical thought clamored into Chell's mind, each screaming for her undivided attention. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She could not let any air escape from her throat, because if she did, she might make a sound, and if she made a sound, something horrible might happen.

Another irrational thought flitted into her head – that blood no longer ran through her veins, but liquid panic. Silencing, liquid panic.

Distantly, she felt a pair of long, skinny arms come around her, bringing her into a tight hug that pressed her face into a warm shoulder. Her vision had been starting to tunnel, but now her world went completely, blessedly dark.

"I get it," she heard a familiar voice say. Male. He sounded frantic, but strangely upbeat, as if he were trying to stay cheerful in the face of horror. "No need for an explanation. You don't need to talk. Do you hear me? Chell? You don't need to talk. We'll – we'll figure out how to do this without you talking, I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die – ummm, no. On second thought, scratch that, scratch that right out. Cross my heart, hope to live! And then, cherry-on-top and all that other nonsense. If you like cherries. Maybe you like canapés. Dunno. We'll figure it out. But, Chell, please – breathe. All you need to do right now is breathe."

His voice cracked, and the heartfelt desperation in his words made Chell's throat unlock the tiniest bit. She gave a strangled gasp, and exhaled.

"That's it," the voice said encouragingly. "Keep breathing. That's all you have to do. We beat Her the first time without you talking, remember? We can do it again. I promise we can do it again."

She was able to take another breath, then another, and slowly, her mind seemed to shift right-side up. The thoughts reverberating in her brain gradually quieted, until she was eventually able to ignore them completely. Her voice was still stuck, but she didn't need to explain why anymore, because somehow Wheatley had picked up on what triggered her panic attack, and knew exactly how to guide her out of it.

He continued to hold her, and she decided to let him, because he felt safe and familiar and the dull thud-thud of his heartbeat against her cheek helped to block out the ever-present hum of the facility. She found herself feeling grateful they'd both had quasi-baths within the last few hours, courtesy of the valve of cleansing gel they encountered in an earlier Sphere.

Idiot, she chastised herself. She should have known this was going to happen. Her time with Wheatley in Old Aperture had not been real testing – not for her, anyway. She'd cut her eyeteeth in the Enrichment Center, where a misstep meant getting doused with bullets, not repulsion gel. The times when she had talked – when she saved Wheatley, and after their fall into Old Aperture – were all when she'd been able to let her guard down. There would be no letting her guard down from here on out, which meant that her voice was effectively lost to them until they made their escape.

How is it that I'm our biggest asset, and also our biggest liability? she wondered grimly.

"Better?" she heard Wheatley ask after a while. She felt him pull away, and opened her eyes to see him looking at her, head cocked to one side wearing a worried expression.

Chell nodded wearily and shifted off of him to sit on the floor.

"I, um, figured this might be an issue," he said as she dragged her ASHPD over from where she had dropped it.

She glanced up and saw he was digging around in his pocket.

"Not the most efficient method of communication," he continued, pulling a marker out of his pocket and offering it to her. "But it's better than nothing. Better than Morse Code, anyway."

When she made no move for it, he uncapped it and put it into her hand, rearranging her limp fingers so she held it properly. She looked down at the marker, then at him, and then reached up for the wall to use it as a writing surface.

Thank you, she scribbled after a moment. She swallowed, and then underlined the two words for emphasis.

Wheatley flashed a quick smile. "No problem."

Give me a second to think, she wrote.

"Take as much time as you want," he told her fervently. He had no desire to cross the threshold of that door anytime soon, preferably ever. But he was glad Chell was back to normal - as normal as any slightly brain-damaged, clever-like-a-fox person ever was, anyway.

As Wheatley contemplated his own mortality and other cheerful subjects, Chell's mind went into overdrive, piecing together the split-second glimpse she'd caught of the room that lay beyond the door. She had seen at least a hundred turrets, rows upon rows of them, and not a single portalable surface in sight. Walking into that room was akin to suicide.

Except it wasn't. Because Chell knew the one thing She could not, and would never be able to resist.

Testing.

Not a single test in Her production line was truly impossible, contrary to what She'd once claimed. There was always a solution, because for it to be otherwise, Testing would be over, defeating Her purpose for existence.

A nervous, "Um," broke through her abstraction, and she turned to look at Wheatley, who was staring apprehensively at the elevator. She frowned, turning to see why he looked as though he'd just spotted a three-week dead lark, and scowled when she saw what had caught his attention.

An Edgeless Safety Cube sat on the floor in front of the elevator. She had seen this sort of cube only once before but paid it no mind, mainly because it had been thrown in with a variety of garbage.

Wheatley gave her a sidelong glance. "Another clue from Caroline?" he suggested.

Chell shook her head to indicate I don't know. She had no idea, but was starting to get used to the sight of things appearing out of nowhere - and wasn't at all certain if she liked this fact or not.

Wheatley clambered to his feet and walked over to pick up the Cube. Chell left him to it and began to draw a diagram of the chamber, using circles to represent the turrets. They were easily knocked over, she knew, and therein lay one of their few vulnerabilities.

Hmm...How many cans of food were in their backpack?

Getting an idea, she violently tore the backpack off her shoulders and began going through its contents. Ten...fifteen...twenty-two tins of food. It would take careful aiming, but a series of well-placed throws, a few toppled turrets firing blindly, and they would eventually render each other useless.

Although it would have to be series of very, very well-placed throws. Chell winced, remembering her father's dogged attempts to teach her how to pitch the year she tried out for the Aperture Little League Team. She spent that entire season on the bench, and something told her Wheatley's throwing arm was about as accurate as her own.

"Umm...could I have another ball?" she heard Wheatley say behind her.

Chell threw him an odd look over her shoulder. What was he up to now?

As if on cue, a second Edgeless Safety Cube appeared at his feet, and his eyes took on a hopeful gleam.

"Could we, uh, also have a map with an escape route?" he promptly asked the ceiling. "Please?"

Chell told herself that she would swallow her ASHPD whole if it turned out it really had been that easy all along - that all they had to do was ask their invisible benefactor if they could leave.

Nothing happened.

"Hmph." Wheatley made a face and shrugged. "Well, it was worth a try. Guess she can only help us a little."

That's assuming she's even helping us at all, Chell thought darkly as he came over to her.

"Is that our game plan?" he asked, kneeling down beside her. He motioned the diagram she'd drawn on the wall.

She nodded and stacked up several of the flat tins of sardines in a row, standing them on end. Wheatley watched she as took another tin in hand and stood, walking back several metres. She measured up the distance, aimed, and lobbed the tin.

She might as well have missed it by a mile; it didn't even come close. Why could she aim with the ASHPD but couldn't throw a damn can of beans?

"Wait, wait," Wheatley spoke up, seeing the frustration that came into her face. "I get it. You're trying to start a domino effect with the turrets, right? So they'll fire at each other? We chuck some tins at them and hope they eventually do each other all in?"

Chell nodded again.

"Do you know how much a sentry turret weighs?" Wheatley asked.

She blinked, thinking the question over for a moment, and then shook her head. She'd never had the occasion to lift a turret, having always used energy field manipulator on the ASHPD.

"About fifty kilos, fully loaded," he answered grimly. "Built like bloody tanks. One tin can isn't going to knock it over, even if you did hit it. But..." He rose to his feet and walked back to the Edgeless Safety Cube. It was similar in size to a Companion Cube and came up to about the height of Wheatley's knee. "This, on the other hand," he said, lifting one knee and putting his foot against the Cube, "is another story."

With a grunt, he shoved the Cube with his foot and sent it rolling towards Chell. The rumbling sound it made as it rolled across the floor told her there was substantial weight to it - enough to topple over, say, one fifty-kilogram turret.

Wheatley beamed at her. "How good are you at bowling?"


AN again: Two updates in less than a month? You guys are getting spoiled. Truth is, I've had most of CDaSH's final chapter written for quite some time, and am super eager to post it. But that means getting the remaining bits written and uploaded. So between you lovely people, and eager anticipation of indulging in my own self-gratification, I am feeling a little more motivated to write these days.

Oh, and latest blood work results: Boring! Boo-yah! :) Haven't had to stick myself with a needle since February. Is four months too soon to declare it a record? 'Cause if not, I'm totally calling it.

I'll be checking in over the next few days editing any typos I missed. Sorry in advance! I promise I really do proof-read!

Also, some of you may have noticed I changed the genre of the fic to "Adventure" instead of "Adventure/Romance." This is because the OMGTEHFEELS stuff doesn't really start until late in the story, and I was afraid people might feel gypped. What do you think? Yes? No? Am I over thinking it? I'm over thinking it, aren't I? Hmm...