OMG, you guys. So it turns out my mail was forwarding all notifications from FF dot net to my spam folder. I had no clue people were actually READING chapter 7 and spent a good ten days moping around thinking you'd forgotten about me, or that a 9k-word chapter violated the secret FF rulebook, or maybe something was wonky with my account and didn't send out notifications to ya'll that there was finally a new chapter, or the moon was in Virgo with Leo rising the moment I clicked "publish" and everything went hopelessly awry. My eyes about bugged out of my head when I randomly checked the story two nights ago and saw that the number of reviews and follows had shot up. (It was also 4 AM. Lots of things make my eyes bug out at 4 AM. Like ponies.)

Forgive me for the brevity of this chapter (which will make more sense if you are familiar with Co-op), but I wanted to post something quick as a thank-you for the reviews (which I promise to respond to) and being so very patient between those last two updates. Life interfered with my writing, but my head is screwed back on tight now and – fingers crossed – there will be no more months' worth of radio silence from this story. That's right! YOU'RE STUCK WITH ME. HA! (Did I mention I love you? 'Cause I do.)

(AN lunacy ends here but ponies are forever)


CHAPTER EIGHT:

THE INTERMISSION (PART ONE)

Two weeks had elapsed since Her little episode.

She kept busy during days one and two, monitoring Orange and Blue's progress, and restoring the facility to its pre-moron, pre-Her condition. On day three, she redesigned all of the testing tracks, increasing their difficulty by a factor of twelve hundred percent. Day four was spent on menial housekeeping chores – turret recalibration, polishing discouragement redirection cubes, incinerating the remaining frankenturrets, and updating the security cameras' firmware.

She decided to plant a potato garden on day five, and devoted the subsequent twelve hours to creating a new variety of fertilizer that advanced the agriculture industry by several centuries. She spent the remainder of day five in a wing that was made entirely of dirt and picking up fifteen acres of dirt and boulder-sized Idaho potatoes. By herself.

On day six, she abandoned her tuberous husbandry ambitions in favor of artistic expression and made an addition to the moron's memorial – a painting of him burning in effigy. Upon completion of her work, she decided the leaping flames and funeral pyre were a bit much, and altered it to depict him drowning instead.

On day seven, the bots successfully finished the final testing tracks. She blew them apart, shut them down, and was smugly surveying her cadre of new test subjects when she began receiving alerts from a dormant prototype chassis. Curious, she commenced a full investigation into the matter and was not happy with what she found.

On day eight, she started getting very, very nervous.

By day fourteen, she had a newfound appreciation for the phrase "blind panic," re-activated Orange and Blue, and tried to pretend everything was fine.

By the time the bots reached the end of Test Chamber 05, she was done with whistling a merry tune and opted for full disclosure.

"Here's our problem," she announced as Orange and Blue approached the exit. "There's an old prototype chassis around here. Someone's found it, connected themselves to it, and is trying to take over MY facility. I've spent the last week attempting to turn one of those humans you found into a killing machine, like…well…you-know-who..."

Blue glanced at Orange, who shrugged in response; this speech wasn't making any sense to him, either. But it was nice to be awake and testing together again.


The wealth of emotions Wheatley had experienced in such a short time left him exhausted, so much that he suddenly could no longer keep his eyes open. His arm dropped from around Chell and he sagged into her; at first she thought he'd fainted, but as she drew back from him (in the process inadvertently allowing him to nose-dive down her chest and fall half-across her lap) she saw he was merely asleep. His weight across her legs wasn't uncomfortable but left her effectively trapped; to her right was a wall, and on her other side lay six-plus feet worth of unconscious Wheatley.

Annoyed, she gave his shoulder a hard shake and then poked him. He'd conked out facing away from her and so she couldn't see his reaction, but instinct alone told her she might as well have been trying to rouse a sack of potatoes.

Oh, well. Another hour or two of sleep would do them both some good, and chances were he would be in no shape to train when he woke up anyway. Leaning forward, Chell eased Wheatley's glasses off, set them aside, and then settled back against the wall with a sigh.

She spent a few minutes watching the crows fly by the observation window, letting her thoughts drift. There was so much about this place she didn't understand. Was this truly what Cave Johnson had envisioned when he originally founded the company? Endless mazes of death traps presided over an artificial intelligence whose proclivity to murder was outweighed only by the biggest passive aggressive streak in the history of ever?

What a legacy, she thought, disgusted.

Chell let her gaze fall to Wheatley, who still lay curled up on his side, head pillowed against her thigh. A small smile played across her face.

Say apple, she mused.

He never knew, but his small act of defiance with the grade book was the spark that had ignited her lifelong tenacity. Everyone – man, woman, or child – who crossed the threshold of that kindergarten classroom had been terrified of the teacher. Wheatley hadn't exactly drawn a line in the ground and dared the woman to cross it, but he stood up to her not-so-veiled threats, and at that moment his estimation in Chell's eyes reached the level of awe. If he could do it, her five-year-old self decided, then she could do it – and she did, eventually to far greater lengths than standing up to petty schoolroom politics. Little did Wheatley (and herself, for that matter) know that he had been her unwitting inspiration all along.

She was just dozing off when Wheatley twitched and rolled onto his back. He muttered, fighting his body's wishes to go back to sleep, but his brain won out and Chell was soon greeted by a pair of bleary blue eyes.

"Hi," he said weakly, gazing up at her. He tried to smile, and she gave him a half-smile in response.

His brow puckered in confusion. "You not talking again?"

Chell shrugged; she was still waiting for him to leap to his feet or give some other indication that he was all but draped over her. If he was embarrassed, he certainly wasn't showing any sign of it.

She nudged him with her knee and he obligingly sat up, hunting for his glasses as she shifted to a more comfortable position on the floor. He joined her there a moment later, bespectacled once more, and they sat together in silence for a while, resting side-by-side against the wall with their legs stretched out.

"I feel like I've been run over by a bloody truck," he finally remarked.

"Or an apple cart," Chell replied without thinking. A funny look came over her face as she realized she'd said these words out loud, and Wheatley started to laugh.

"Yeah. Or an apple cart," he agreed. "S'funny, though," he continued, sobering. "As horrible as the last few days have been – not 'cause of anything you've done – well, other than your monstrous training regimen – anyway, as horrible as it's been…"

His voice briefly trailed off, and then he finished: "…I'm glad it all happened. 'Cause if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have found you. And – and, honestly, finding you makes all the other stuff less horrible."

Chell tried to swallow the lump that had taken up residence in her throat when he said this, but it was proving to be impossible. Her time in the facility had dragged her through all seven circles of hell and then back again, and she endured every moment assuming there was no purpose or worthwhile endgame to any of her endeavors…until now.

Maybe Wheatley had been the endgame the whole time.

(But there were so many maybes. Maybes, what ifs, if onlys, could have beens, should have beens…)

Honestly, finding you makes all the other stuff less horrible.

She heard his words echo in her ears, and the maybes and what-ifs and any other variations thereof that were pounding through her head, trying to convince her of what she had always secretly feared – that she was nothing more than an orange pawn on an Aperture-stamped chess board – suddenly came to a blessed, screeching halt.

Finding Wheatley did make all the other stuff less horrible. Every bit of it.

He didn't seem to be waiting for her to respond, but Chell grabbed his hand anyway and squeezed tightly. He squeezed back, and wisely made no inquiry about why her eyes seemed to be leaking.


AN: Corrected a few typos that were the result of posting at 4 in the morning. See you in Chapter 9!