Chapter 47, everybody! In which Willow makes a fire and Maxwell has a moment….

Chi-Chi's Poptart, thanks for the review! Eh, don't let him hear you say that….But yes, I was laughing at that scene when I typed it. :D

Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Portal © 2007 Valve

He was aware of warmth when he woke up. So worded because he was cold again, but could feel warmth on his legs. He wondered if one of the experiments down here had found him and was planning on roasting him on a spit. Granted, he'd be more use as the spit, but….

He didn't move. He was vaguely aware that time had passed as he had been inoperable, but he felt no compulsion to get up or even open his eyes. If the girl had any brains in her head, she'd be long gone, probably to the service elevator by now, considering she didn't have him slowing her down.

He wanted to go back. He wanted to go back and yet at the same time he didn't. Sure, he was being assailed by all sorts of strange thoughts and visuals and voices, but it wasn't the never-ending torrent from them. He wasn't the eye of Hurricane KVAS Facility #2013 anymore, and he kind of…liked it. Granted, he probably wouldn't for much longer, but it was nice not to have five-million angry voices assaulting him every second of every day. This was…dare he say it? Peaceful.

He really should have been roasted by now. Maybe they were going to use him as tinder.

Someone was humming. She used to hum. Except…he didn't know who she was.

He was going to have to open his eyes.

He did so, not entirely surprised to see that yes, there was a fire in front of him. Not too close, thank goodness—that bonfire was huge. And throwing some broken frames and chairs on it—her. Of course. He should have known. Unhealthy obsession with fire had been on her record ever since she had shown such enthusiasm for the Companion Cube Euthanizing. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have been surprised when she had started tossing bits of him down into the incinerator—

Things that had been clinging to him like ticks ever since he had woken up, that he had never been able to remove on his own because they wouldn't let him take it off—violent reaction every time he lost that extra stream of data, gaining equal parts clarity and anger because eventually he'd run out and they'd start hitting him—

—Although he had been a little disappointed when she had escaped that final test—to be honest, he had thought she'd do a swan dive into the incinerator.

Especially now, what with the way her face lit up with glee at the sight of the flames.

"I recall saying you had issues," he muttered, causing her to look over.

"Oh, you're up," she observed.

"Disappointed?"

"A little bit."

"Uh huh. I suppose that was my funeral pyre."

"I'm not sure I'd give you a funeral."

"At least I was going to be nice enough to throw you in the incinerator instead of leaving you lying around."

"Don't do me any favors."

"It was more for me than you—test subjects tend to underperform when they smell decay."

She waved him off, a scowl on her face. "Thank you for reminding me just who I'm dealing with here."

"Don't mention it. Ever."

And with that he dropped his head back down. Maybe if he ignored her long enough, she'd go away.

Except….

He realized the discrepancy with what he was looking at.

Bandages, wrapped around his arms and his legs and his chest…and he didn't doubt taped on the back of his head, either. Several discarded first-aid kits were scattered about, from KVAS' meager attempt to comply with OSHA requirements. They were soaked with gray and had obviously been wrapped several times by someone who knew what they were doing.

And there was unfortunately only one person who could have done it.

"What is this?" he asked, managing to half-lift one arm for a proper indication.

"You're no use to me all bled out," she replied. "And besides, it was getting kind of gross."

He'd give her that—it was what his reason would have been, to be honest.

And to be honest, he didn't think her answer was honest—but he wasn't about to push it. The idea that she was being nice to him period was enough to make him uncomfortable; best to believe her reasoning aligned with his own: use a person as long as they have use, and then get rid of them.

He went back to focusing on recharging—right now, that was the most pressing matter. Get enough energy going, and then he could get back to getting back. Forget those errant emotions earlier—he needed to get back. He needed to be back in charge.

He needed to be in a position where he knew what was going on and what he was doing.

Deep shuddering breath—ow, broken bone that the nanites hadn't set properly. Why was that even a thing? Should have had titanium alloy or something instead of whatever easily broken whatever he was made out of. Put it on his to-do list when he got back. Not that he really had a plan for when he got back….It sort of hinged on the moron being too busy with the girl to pay him any attention, which was pretty flimsy now that he thought of it….

"I don't suppose you've given any thought to what you're going to do when you get back up there," he posed, startling her—well, at least there was that.

"I'm going to talk to him," she declared, pulling her hair out of its pigtails and running her fingers through it to rid it of tangles—a decidedly lost cause.

"Uh-huh. For the record, you'll just be one voice out of millions—you can talk, but will he listen? How are you going to pull that off?"

The set of her mouth told him that she hadn't figured that part out yet. Yay, the both of them had flimsy plans. Why, together, think how very nearly competent they could be! Or don't, considering it was a terribly depressing thought.

So, more for him than her, he half-lifted his arm again. "Where'd you learn this?" It was obviously learned—there was something approaching competence in the wrapping and tying.

"Girl scouts," she said briskly, tying her hair back up and poking the fire with a long piece of metal. "I got all the badges."

He wondered if she thought that would impress him, then decided that it must just be habit—after all, in her position, he wouldn't be trying to impress him. No, wait, yes he would—he'd be trying to force an admission of his obvious intelligence and superiority; so that was her angle: make him feel obligated to help her. Oi.

Truth be told, he had every intention of dumping her straight into the incinerator along with the yutz boyfriend as soon as he was back in charge. That he had promised otherwise was of no concern to him; promises were just hot air used to convince test subjects to continue testing. It held no more weight than the cake that was supposedly at the end of the tracks.

And as he thought that, some twinge deep in his chest told him off for doing so.

He smothered it quickly. He had gotten this far by being ruthless—going soft wasn't going to help now.

She seemed to have been waiting for something, realized she wasn't getting it, and went back to the fire. From the side, she looked vaguely like someone he might have known. Maybe she was related to someone else on the testing tracks….No, probably not—they all ran together after a while.

So he shook it off and tried to go back to sleep—standby. Sleep was for test subjects.

He had to get out of here. At this rate…he might start thinking…at this rate, he might start thinking twice about….

He drifted into unconsciousness once more.