Chapter 3

The next morning Chell woke up in her bed, Rick was still snoring next to her. She remembered what happened yesterday, the sadness she had felt until he came to sit next to her. She also remembered kissing and feeling safe with him.

It was her first kiss she had and she loved it, but she couldn't help but feel guilty, as if she betrayed someone. Sighing she sat up, quietly, without waking up Rick and looked at his sleeping form.

Is this real love I feel for you Rick? It doesn't feel right, not how real love is supposed to feel, the love couples feel when they're together...

She started to cry softly, tears falling from her eyes: she never wanted did this to happen! She wanted to live a happy life, away from all the troubles of the past, the past at Aperture.

At that moment Rick started to wake up, moving his body around under the covers and groaning.

"G'morning pretty lady, seems dreams do come true!"

He winked tiredly at her, while she wiped away her tears fast. He had noticed her wiping away her tears but said nothing about it, only wanted to see her pretty smile.

He sat up aswell, hugged Chell and gave her a kiss on the forehead, earning said smile.

"Goodmorning Rick! Did you sleep well?"

"Like a rose!"

He answered happily, seeing Chell happy made him happy too.

After a few minutes they both got out of bed and went downstairs, to the others and eat breakfast.

"Goodmorning!"

Rochelle, Nick and Zoey were already awake and were packing stuff, they were going their own way after a few days rest. Chell hated saying goodbye to people she liked, especially since they were the first humans she encountered after 3 long years of solitude but understood their decision.

"Don't you want something to eat before you go?"

She asked them, Rochelle and Zoey nodded but Nick scoffed.

"We're already late, don't want to arrive in the next city in the dark!"

Rick decided to step in when he saw that Chell was shocked to hear that sudden outburst:

"Hey dude, is that any way to treat the lady? She offered you and your family shelter for a couple days, gave you food, medical supplies and clothes and right now you're being a dick to her. Better that you apologise to her!"

Nick just shrugged at him and grabbed his bag with stuff, all the while watching Rick warily, because he was getting angrier by the minute. Chell noticed this aswell and went to stand next to him, holding his arm still.

"Don't be angry, he just wants you to get angry and punch him, to give himself a reason to get into a fight!" She whispered at him, giving a slight pull to make him move a step back.

Rochelle and Zoey were looking back and forth between the two men in fear, hoping it would not turn to violence.

"Ro , Zoey, let's go! It's too dangerous to stay here any longer with this woman and her watchdog..." Nick finally said to them, grabbing their bags aswell and walking to the front door.

"Chell, Rick, thanks for having us stay a few days and I'm sorry for Nick's behaviour. He never did trust people so don't feel bad about it okay?"

Rochelle apologised to them and gave them both a warm hug goodbye. Zoey hugged them goodbye aswell and with tears in their eyes they stepped out into the world again.

Chell watched them walk towards a road leading to the other city and stayed there till they were specks in the distance. Tears were running from her eyes aswell, goodbyes were never easy, feeling the same pain she felt when she'd lost her grip on Wheatley before he was sucked into the cold dark space. She then turned her head up to the sky:

"Wheatley, I'm sorry for letting you go...I never wanted to...forgive me...come back to me again...I miss you..."

With Wheatley...

With refound hope and happiness he walked away from GLaDOS, silently hoping aswell she wouldn't come out of her dumbfounded "trance" to kill him. He, in a way, felt stronger than ever and finally had the courage to speak up his mind against her and he liked that feeling, it felt like he was encouraging Chell, back when GLaDOS took control of the facility again and was harassing Chell, to hold on.

He walked towards the elevator that went to the surface, got in and pressed the button to go up. He sighed, feeling uneasy without a plan of how to search for Chell, but he knew he would find her.

GLaDOS gave a mechanical sigh, watching him go.

"Well, that takes care of one problem, now for the other..."

She turned around and noticed he was already awake, looking at his hands in confusion.

He glanced up at her:

"Wh...what happened to me?"

"I've performed an experiment on your unsignificant twin and noticed your presence so I've put you in your own body, separate from that moron."

He looked around, feeling somewhat uneasy in this physical form. Before he was just nothing, just a voice in Wheatley's mind (and beforehand GLaDOS's mind)

It felt weird to him, to have a body of his own and to be able to walk.

"You have to stay here for a few months though, to help testing and to forward our cause in science."

She told him that it was necessarily for science but didn't go deeper into that subject. She also asked him to decide what his name should be.

"This doesn't feel right somehow, why can't she give me more details?"

"Have you decided on a name yet?" GLaDOS interrupted his thoughts

"A name?"

"I can tell you haven't got a clue what you want to be called, here's a list of all male names for you to look at."

It was by alphabetical order and had to name meaning behind every name to make the choice perhaps a little bit better, which it did.

"Ethan sounds like a name that fits me, it means strong." He boasted to her.

"Very well then, Ethan it is. You may want to get dressed before I introduce you to your new friend, she'll show you around this facility."

Ethan nodded, grabbing the clothes that GLaDOS had put on the bed.

While Ethan went and got changed, the woman he was to befriend had come over, having been brought over by one of GLaDOS's snazzy robot arms.

"Hello Rachel, you're going to meet our new testing subject Ethan, he's going be your cooperative partner from now on."

GLaDOS stated bluntly to her, ignoring the fact Rachel was annoyed by that sudden news.

Rachel was about to remark but noticed a guy slowly walking towards them, looking quite shy. He had brown messy hair and his eyes were light brown and glinted happily.

"Oh my God, this makes the sudden news from GLaDOS all better now! He is cute!"

They both shook hands and introduced themselves and GLaDOS asked Rachel to show Ethan around the facility, which she happily wanted to do.

Ethan looked at Rachel while they walked to the test chambers and noticed she had beautiful blue-greyish eyes. He wanted to talk to her, but he didn't know what he would talk about or what he wanted to ask and just continued looking at the places they visited.

Eventually they came across the relaxation centre, where the testers took a rest and relax.

"Here's where we rest and relax, we can get food and drinks here aswell. There are also books if you like reading them but for those who don't like reading we have arcade games."

Rachel explained, silently wondering what he would like to do.

"Well, I do like reading but I like games aswell. What do you like?" He asked her back, wanting to know her better.

She told him that she was just the same as he was, that she loved reading from time to time but could enjoy a few games aswell.

So they decided to challenge eachother to a round of Pacman and whoever had the highest score would win. They both, however, were very good at this game and always got the same highscore.

When the round was over, they noticed eachother's score and laughed:

"Seems like we are evenly matched! Nobody ever came close to my highscore." Rachel smirked at Ethan.

Rachel offered Ethan something to drink and to talk some more about their interests.

It seemed like Ethan didn't knew what he liked but he did listened to what Rachel liked. He could learn a thing or two about being a human and asked her questions about the things she liked.

In the meantime GLaDOS was watching the two partners socialize and noticed that Rachel was behaving different, more open towards Ethan and made a note about that.

"Seems like they get along just fine and I've learned something new about humans aswell. Apparently when humans like eachother they behave more openly, laughing and talking more about things humans like to talk about."

She noticed Rachel and Ethan getting closer to eachother everytime and was about to stop them but stopped.

"What are they doing now? It can't be painful, Rachel seems to like it and Ethan aswell..."

Back with Rachel and Ethan, the two noticed that they felt something between them, feeling something stir in their stomach. Ethan was about to ask her what that feeling was when suddenly she grabbed his face and kissed his lips, the feeling in his stomach growing stronger and more pleasant.

Rachel stopped kissing and looked him in the eyes:

"S..sorry...I..." But before she could finish Ethan kissed her back.

She liked it and closed her eyes, being sweeped up in the moment.

His hands went around her waist and pulled her closer to him, feeling safe in that moment, nothing could go wrong.

Suddenly a buzzer went off and shook them out of their moment of kissing, which annoyed them both as Rachel looked at the staring camera and shouted curse words at GLaDOS, who had been watching them.

"I gave you enough time to show Ethan around Rachel, it's time to do some testing again."

GLaDOS announced as she opened up a door for them to walk back to the testing area.

Ethan looked at Rachel with worry, he didn't know what the tests would be and if he would be good at them. Rachel just gave him a pat on the arm and explained to him that the tests were easy and you only needed to use your brain to solve them.

She also told him that she would help him in all ways and that made him slightly confident.

Another door opened after a few minutes of walking and Ethan was blinded at first by the white room they had entered. There were a few slanted panels, lasers and a few boxes, one box in particular had hearts on it and it made him wonder what that was.

"Here's your Portal device, it has 2 buttons: one shoots a blue portal and the other shoots an orange portal and if you have shot both of them they open up and you can walk through them like so."

Rachel explained and showed him, leaving him staring in awe and earning a giggle from her in response.

"H...how does that...?"

"Work? I don't know exactly the science behind it, but it's cool! You can shoot one portal across a deep pit and put the other one next to you and just walk over to the other side. But it's easier to just do it, get a feel for how it works and you'll be a pro in no time!"

Ethan took his Portal device from Rachel and tried it out, feeling it's weight (which was pretty light considering how big and heavy it looks) and pressed one button, shooting a blue portal across the pit and pressed the other button that made an orange portal appear on a white panel next to him.

Rachel was smiling from across the way and cheered him to go walk through it to where she was standing and he walked, with his eyes closed, through. He kept his eyes closed but when Rachel gave him a hug and a small kiss on the cheek he opened his eyes again, seeing he made it safetly.

"See, it's not scary. Maybe uneasy at first, but you'll get used to it."

Ethan just smiled, hugging her back, happy to have her by his side.