Title: Jealousy In Digital

Rating: M (As a fic overall)

Warnings/Pairings: Wheatley/Chell, Pregnancy, one-sided GLaDOS/Chell

Summary: This was done as an off-shoot fill for the kinkmeme. The fic in question was "The Punishment" by conquerorwurm – an companion plot that they and another author came up with, which I offered to fill. Theoriginal story is excellent and it should be read both because it's excellent but it's easily viewed as a standalone.

Subsequently this story is written primarily from GLaDOS' point of view, where she attempts to repopulate the test center using Wheatley and Chell, however it has drifted between the three more heavily as the plot's progressed.

…Yes this is the final chapter but yes, there is an epilogue.

Part 10 – The Escape

Wheatley woke up with his head pounding something fierce. His first instinct once the fogginess had cleared was to reach for his Portal gun but just as he laid hands on the now familiar weight of the holster on his back, he remembered where he was and why he was there.

"Chell?" he jumped up, sending a rush of blood to his head and wavering a bit on his feet as a spell of dizziness hit him from the sudden progression from horizontal to vertical. His head gave a slight pound but he had slept through the majority of the headache resulting from cracking his head on the floor. He spotted GLaDOS, hovering over Chell whose legs and lower half were now draped with a grey, Aperture Science stamped blanket. Her stomach had deflated and it was a focus on this that managed to abate Wheatley's second worry: that she was in fact dead. He watched her chest rise and fall with the easy breath intake associated with sleep.

The two co-operative testing bots were standing together, warbling in whatever tonal robotic language they communicated to eachother with. GLaDOS too seemed to be quite engrossed in whatever they were looking at. Atlas swiveled and caught sight of Wheatley taking stock of his surroundings. He shoved P-Body who toppled over.

"Do not make me blow you both up." GLaDOS all but muttered. Even her generally acerbic voice was lowered and Wheatley was surprised in that he felt the threat was somewhat empty.

Meantime, Atlas had scooped up what appeared to be a bundle of more grey blankets and was approaching the tall man slowly and carefully. Wheatley watched the deliberate gait with mounting curiosity.

His eyes drifted to Chell. "She's…alright?"

The large personality core-like body of Atlas tilted forward and then back in an affirmative gesture and he held out the bundle to Wheatley. P-Body meanwhile had managed to right herself and had charged past her co-test subject to tug at and position Wheatley's arms in the same fashion that Atlas was holding his.

Wheatley was just confused enough to allow this to happen but he understood when the round-bodied robot placed the lump of blankets in his arms and he looked down into the face of what really could only be described as a little human. He staggered back a step and could feel P-Body's hands supporting his back so he didn't in fact topple over.

"So, ah, Wow. Uh…he…or…she…" he couldn't rightly tell. "…is Perfect."

"It's a female and since it's yours I doubt very highly it's good at…"

"Shut. Up." Wheatley hissed as loud as he dared. He didn't rightly know why he wasn't yelling at the massive A.I. but the situation seemed to call for silence. "What's her name?"

"Test Subjec—"

"She needs a real name." Wheatley looked at her. "Um…did Chell…?"

GLaDOS slipped back into her comfort zone. "How is the MUTE supposed to tell me some kind of stupid sentimental attachment to the test subject?"

"Then um…" Wheatley himself didn't have a very expansive understanding of naming procedures, much less what it meant to differentiate a typically female name from a typically male name or that some names were gender neutral.

"Her name is…" he paused. He knew of only two names of which he was certain were appropriate for a human female, and one of them was Chell. He couldn't very well call her 'Chell 2'. "…Caroline."

GLaDOS didn't seem to have a retort to that right away. Through a very lengthy moment of silence, Wheatley wondered if she had shorted herself out. If she was intending on responding, it was stymied by a thin wail from the bundle he held in his arms and Chell sitting up rubbing her eyes with exhaustion.

"Chell?" Wheatley once again turned his back on the A.I.

She looked up at him, all the anger gone from her face and raised her hand to beckon him closer. He stepped forward nervously, mimicking Atlas' careful steps. "Chell…I named her. I named her Caroline. I didn't really know any other names and I know you were really mad at me before and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever harm I caused you again…"

He cut off when Chell put a hand on his arm, reaching to take the baby from him. One hand fumbled with the front of her top, but as she did she gave him a smirk and looked up at the looming form of GLaDOS and back to him with a smile.

"Caroline isn't a bad name?" he guessed.

She nodded, leaning up to kiss him. He smiled and obliged, noting that the baby stopped sobbing as it started eating. Little humans were not so very different from big humans, he decided. "So that's what those are for."

Chell suppressed silent giggles as he looked down the front of his jumpsuit at himself and patted his hand and shook her head.

"Only the women then? Well then what are…?"

Chell's self-restraint dissolved and her mute laughter only intensified as Wheatley's expression became indignant.

For a few moments, things were silent. It seemed as though everything would remain peaceful but the increasing hum of GLaDOS servos powering up in her simulated rage proved that she had now worked through the indignity of having this child named after her, or, an exceptionally despised part of her.

"You've outlived your purpose for now Male Test Subect." She said decisively, her artificial voice thrumming with derision. "Male Test Subject, prepare for Cryo sleep."

It took a moment for Wheatley to process that she was speaking to him, another half a second to recognize he was in a great deal of trouble. A claw reached out and plucked the unwary former personality core off the ground, dangling him in mid air. Chell looked up in shock but there was nothing she could do with her child still clinging to her breast.

"We'll wake you up in a year or so for further testing. That is, provided I do not find a more suitable mate for Female Test Subject."

"You won't…" he twisted in the confines of the claw, working an arm free and clumsily retrieving his ASHPD. He continued to writhe, firing one orange portal on the wall and barely managing to slip the blue one underneath him as he fell from GLaDOS' grip.

For the three robotic constructs and the three humans in the room, everything happened in a single blur of motion. Wheatley scooped up Chell and his daughter, precariously balancing them in one arm alone, hefting his portal gun with his free hand and running for the door which was rapidly closing in. The first vestiges of a lethal haze of deadly Neurotoxin started manifesting around GLaDOS.

Atlas and P-Body managed to wedge themselves under the door and Wheatley had to slow to carefully duck out. He knocked Chell's head rather hard against the top of the door straining to lower itself and his own elbow against P-Body's hull, but he pressed on. There was a crunching noise a moment after he was free as the two testing robots were crushed and tumbled to disassembled pieces under the weight of the door.

Wheatley wasn't sure where he was headed, but he knew he had to find a lift. A lift that went up. He shifted Chell in his arms. She struggled feebly against him but was far too exhausted. Wheatley was on his own, GLaDOS knew where he was. Chell could not help him. They were doomed.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, the corridor he was standing in began to shake. He put a hand out and leaned against the wall to steady himself as the corridors shifted like a labyrinth.

Once the tremors subsided, Wheatley struck out again, but he was interrupted by a hard poke to his chest. Chell looked up at him from under tired, drooping eyelids and shook her head, pointing over his shoulder.

It seemed strange but Wheatley recognized something from his own tactics in rearranging the facility. GLaDOS was trying to wrong-foot them. He spun a 180 and headed for the now dead-end wall. He paused, placing a portal onto the back south wall and then slowly backing up the corridor attacking the walls with orange portals. He placed seven before he hit pay dirt: a corridor with a northern facing passage way. He repositioned the orange portal as far down the hall as he could and swiftly slipped through it, running as fast as his long legs would carry him.

Another two turns and a dead end later, he paused for breath, only to startle when something tugged at his pant leg. Another frankenturret, nuzzling fondly against his leg.

The same feeling of desperate panic flared in him and he bent to scoop it up, wedging it beneath his armpit and swinging Chell's head dangerously close to the wall. He felt his grip slipping on her and the walls began to shift once more.

With one particularly violent lurch, he lost his precarious balance and toppled down, the sharp edges of the hybrid turret-cube's claws digging into his backside as he struggled to take the brunt of the fall. He hissed in pain, a blossom of ruby staining the side of his jumpsuit, almost a dark brown against the orange. He was hit with a second stab of pain as Chell's elbow slammed into his solar plexus and he let out a whoosh of air, his vision swimming with spots as he laboriously sucked air back into his lungs and struggled to his feet.

He noticed it a second too late, a Turret gun in front of the lift GLaDOS was so desperately trying to keep them from reaching. He whirled out of the way, a bullet grazing his kneecap and ripping a hole in his jumpsuit but not fast enough to draw blood.

Without a moment to rest he stumbled blindly towards the only exit left, the walls spinning and his vision blackening around the edges. He felt as though he were walking backwards, that there was infinitely greater distance between him and his destination. He strained his whole body towards it, watching in detached helplessness as the walls closed in around him, almost as if the world was in slow motion. He doggedly dragged one foot in front of the other

…and the other

…and one more before the blackness overtook his entire line of sight and his mind started to slip into a blissfully blank numbness. A sharp striking pain blossomed in his brain and something almost pleasantly boiling warm and sticky against his forehead was the last sensation he knew.

Chell's hand shot out as she barely managed to wedge the Frankenturret between Wheatley and the sliding wall. The cube's legs flailed pathetically but it immediately shorted out of course. Wheatley's creations had not been built professionally enough to last under duress. Chell squeezed herself and Caroline through the small space first, placing her child gently on the ground and watching in horror as Wheatley's blood oozed down the side of the turret-cube, rapidly congealing in the dry facility air.

She raced to his side, realizing her window of time was very small. He was unimaginably heavy in his dead weight. She couldn't tell if he was breathing or not but it was all she could do to pull his lengthy body through the small gap and not a moment too soon as the sliding wall suddenly cut through the cube like a hot knife through butter. The half on the opposite side of the now solid wall toppled over to reveal pathetically sparking circuitry.

All at once, the baby started up a thin mournful wail that given the dire nature of the situation gave Chell chills and invariably drew her gaze to the boneless and unmoving form of her partner. At the same time, the elevator door slid open. Chell dragged Wheatley's body towards the door of the lift and then hurried back for her child. She barely felt the bulk of the man as she managed to haul his body one-handed inside the small enclosure.

She was sure she heard a soft voice say 'Killing you is hard', but she later figured that she might have imagined it.

The platform shot upwards and Chell barely heard or feared the singing operatic turrets that accompanied the journey any more than if they had open fired on her. She bravely turned her back to them to protect the bundle in her arms and the body at her feet. She felt no emotion she could name: not sadness or anger or even mild curiosity as to where she was headed.

Her first coherent thought after what seemed like hours was that the music had stopped and the whole real world was spread out in front of her. She couldn't care less.

She stepped through into the sunlight, sinking to her knees holding her daughter and letting her partner's head rest in her lap as she took in her surroundings of a large field of golden wheat. The irony was lost on her, as was the sensation of real wind ruffling her hair and his as Wheatley lay prone and cradled in her arms.

The door opened a second time, ejecting a burned and blackened companion cube with it and she let it roll to a stop next to her.

There was a long horrible choking noise and miraculously, Wheatley's head rolled to the side and he spat out a wad of blood into the dust.

"I told you, we'd leave together."