AN: Wow... well, this is by far the longest single chapter I've ever written. Somewhat daunting, reading it back to myself, actually. Though, this chapter wouldn't exist at all without the very generous help of exr. This entire story would likely have turned into a pile of ... well, shit really, without the help I've gotten. Thank you so much!
And, of course, so many thanks for the happy reviews I get that make me want to post these chapters and this story. However, since I'm so damned tired at the moment, that's all I can think of and any form of 'wit' or 'humor' would probably give me an aneurysm. Without any ado, on we go! :)
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Hours later, the noise of Chell's boots roused her best friend for the second morning in a row. Lexi sat up fast, blinking stupidly at the wall while she wondered what had woken her, then upon hearing the noise yet again her eyes widened and her mouth tightened into a thin line. She distangled herself from Emma, curled up against her, and edged to the window to peek through the gap in the curtains at the sky lightened with the approaching dawn.
"Takin' a 'walk' my foot." Lexi growled under her breath, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she faced the room again. Quickly, she made up her mind and stepped over the splayed legs of one of the boys. "Emma, wake up." Lexi hissed, shaking the other girl's shoulder.
"Eh?"
"Wake up, come on. You've really gotta wake up. It's Chell." Lexi stopped bothering with lowered tones. She moved on to Sarah, giving her a quick shake before moving to the other lounge. "Sarah! Josh, get your butt up off the floor. Toby! Oi! Theo!"
"What?" Toby flung a cushion at her, though Lexi swatted it away. "I was sleepin'!"
"I don't care. It's Chell. It's not good, wake up and get your shoes on, we're going looking for her." Lexi exclaimed. "It's important, damnit, there's something really wrong!" Her voice broke and she shut her mouth fast, lips pursed.
"You sure, Lexi?" Theo yawned, to which Lexi nodded vigorously. But her next words came in a half-sob that she couldn't disguise.
"I swear. There's something wrong with Chell."
"She was acting a bit strangely today." Sarah yawned, stretching her arms as she stood up. "Any ideas where she might have gone?"
Despite the lack of caffine and also a lack of time to rectify that, the group made short work of getting their shoes and jackets so they could leave.
"I have got one. You remember what I said yesterday, about the banging noise in the carpark?" Lexi said. "I'll bet Chell's there. That's where we should start."
The six-strong group left the house in silence, without ceremony, and following Lexi they made good time to the University carpark. They crested the hill just as Lexi had the previous day, now wide awake thanks to the brisk pace. She silently called them to a halt around the solitary bench seat, though, her eyes scanning the carpark rapidly in an attempt to pierce the grey light, and they remained that way for several minutes.
Until Josh spoke up.
"The hell is that?" He said, pointing. Lexi's head snapped around eagerly, her mouth dropping as he picked out Chell's lithe form racing across the rooftops of the University classrooms.
"She's gonna kill herself." Toby hissed, starting forward. Lexi grabbed the back of his hoodie, jerking him to a stop.
"Just watch." She insisted. The fluro-haired male smacked her hand away and glared, but Lexi just pointed past him. Toby looked up, in time to see Chell fly off the edge of the buildings mid-stride and land seamlessly upon the next-closest rooftop a good five meters away, not the least falter in her steps.
"Fuck!"
Sarah summed up their dropped-jaw expressions simply. They watched in stunned silence from then. Chell leapt from those classrooms to the high wall of the two-story set nearby and ran diagonally up the flat surface, smoothly hauling herself up to the roof as easily as Lexi had seen her do twenty-four hours ago. Then barely two long strides later she vaulted up onto the air-conditioning units and flung herself off them as well.
The next buildings were taller. Chell hadn't gained enough height, even with the help of the chunky air-con units, but her outstretched hands caught the uppermost edge of the wall and she swiftly curled her body up, her heels smacked quietly into the concrete side of the building. After a minute spent getting her breath back, they saw her pull herself up and roll onto the roof, then stand, dusting her hands together like she'd simply climbed to a meter-high branch in a tree. She looked around casually, now stretching her arms over her head and pacing in a wonky circle, clearly relaxed and accustomed to the things she was doing.
"Do you know what's going on?" Josh demanded, grabbing Lexi's shoulder. The auburn-haired girl shook her had, eyes glued to Chell.
"Not a clue."
"Hey. Psych-major." Theo spoke up, tapping Emma on the shoulder. She locked ice-blue eyes on him, then frowned slightly.
"We always knew she's got no fear." Emma said after a minute's thought. "Think of all her medals. If you're scared of gravity like a normal person you wouldn't be half as good as she is. You'd be way too nervous and you wouldn't focus. Chell's not scared at all. She'd not scared of falling, or dying, or being paralysed." The ringleted girl told them slowly. "Why not?"
"How's she running so fast? That's practically inhuman." Josh asked quickly.
"I did psych, that doesn't mean I've got telepathy you idiot!" Emma poked her tongue at him childishly, then turned and darted away from them. The others followed her down the hill and across the sparsely-occupied carpark. Just three cars were scattered there tonight, large black shapes on the darkened expanse, leaving plenty of open ground and thus few obstacles to dodge.
Emma started yelling their friend's name before she was halfway across. They saw Chell approach the edge of the building and look down for the source of the noise, before her body went rigid upon spotting them.
It was not the reaction they'd expected. When they came to a halt, still about ten meters away in the wide-open space of the carpark, they saw her glaring venemously from the height of the metalworks classrooms. Her expression was starkly lit by the waning moon, bringing her features into sharp relief and making the scowl even more pronounced.
"What the hell're you doing here?" Chell snarled at them, even her posture something like a startled feline, defensive.
"I wouldn't mind asking you the same!" Lexi yelled back at her. "I knew you had something to do with that noise yesterday! I heard you, I came here and I saw you running around like that!"
"Lexi, shh." Emma whispered. "Don't-"
"It's my business!" Chell screamed at them. And she vanished from sight, having moved from the edge of the building. Her friends remained stock-still, all of them gaping at the last spot she'd been standing.
"Good one." Josh finally mumbled, his voice remarkably clear in the morning silence.
The shorter girl's eyes flashed and she glared, curling her right hand into a fist should he provoke her hot temper any further. But before any other moves were made, or words spoken, the rapid noise of running footsteps reached them. Six pairs of eyes looked around for the source, then their heads snapped upwards when Chell's light-colored form flew into view. She sailed gracefully into the air, her body rolling easily into a ball before, directly overhead, her white-clad legs shot out straight and Chell was angled feet-first at the ground just past them.
Her boots hit the tarmac with a thunderclap SMACK and for a moment, she was still. Perhaps it seemed longer because they were in shock from the noise, and at having seen the other girl fall three stories and land unscathed, but then she was standing and they realised she was trembling, her shoulders shaking and her hands clenched into fists. Chell's breath fogged hotly in front of her, puffing from her nose not unlike the smoke of an angry dragon. Her glare was just as livid, too.
"You better have a good story!" Lexi exclaimed. The others seemed more focused on her boots, which Lexi then spared a glance at. She was momentarily taken aback, angry words dying on her tongue.
How strange. They looked like the same plastic-y stuff that panels on really new cars were made of. Fibreglass. The weird prong on the back, which reached from the very top edge of the hardened shell and curved under Chell's heel, was clearly responsible for taking the impact of the fall. There were scratches all over the bottom-most surface of the black, spring-like attachment. Yet the boots looked brand-new, the clips that held them on Chell's feet were only the slightest bit worn in and the entire white surface was glossy, shiny.
"Where did you get those?" Lexi asked hotly. An instant later, she'd pictured a muddy orange cuff lying across the toe of the boot. "Wait, you had them before I met you." She corrected herself, meeting Chell's livid gaze again. "Why didn't you say anything? And where did you get those anyway?" Lexi exclaimed.
Chell managed to make a choked, angry noise. Like an animal backed into a corner.
"My past is my business." Chell growled out. "What I went through, it's my business." She screamed at them, then turned and raced away before they'd recovered from the pitch of her voice ringing in their ears.
As Chell ran, her eyes began to sting. Her surroundings turned into a blur -well known streets were unrecognisable, fences passed by so fast that she started to get dizzy and, instead, took to the favorably open shape of the road. All the while, she was screaming in her head, furious she'd been seen. Where was the careful attentiveness? Where was her caution? Sharp instincts of self-preservation honed in the life-threatening atmosphere of Aperture Science had somehow been eroded to nothing, why? How?
Chell's thundering heart and aching lungs finally forced her to stop running, and she stared blankly at her surroundings, mouth agape for the fresh air that should -any moment now- cut through the swathe of thoughts rushing around in her spinning head and cause things to make sense. The whole of it became a blissful white-noise as she waited for the answers to slot in place, like they used to. How was this any different to a Test Chamber?
'Calm down. You never solved a Test Chamber when you were pissed off, and you're not gonna solve this... thing... either if you don't calm down.' Chell lectured herself. She pressed shaking hands to her forehead, still gulping at sweet air. It was working. Slowly.
To try and distract herself from the pounding in her head, Chell looked around. How far had she run, anyway? How long had she been running for, she wondered?
A sign nearby conveniently pointed back towards the University, though Chell wasn't interested in that direction. So much as reading the name of the place brought a fresh image of her friends' accusing faces to mind, causing Chell's own expression to tighten angrily. How dare they?
Catching herself in time, Chell determinedly made a clinical examination of her immediate surroundings, finding the detachment in the task she forced on herself to be far more effective in dampening her whirling thoughts. Her surroundings were mildly appealing, too. She'd found a road out of town and was quite a long way along it, and this early in the morning even the people who liked to walk their dogs at such an hour wouldn't see her. Light scrub crept up to the edge of the road, the tufts of a fallen branch stuck out just in front of her, still green, and behind her, Chell could see the low fences that marked the presence of houses on the furthest fringe of the small town. They were hundreds of meters away at best.
She was on top of a hill, too, and could see the University campus just past the treetops that populated the steep slope between the upper and lower points.
Her mind blissfully vague and blank for the first time since realising she'd been caught out, she breathed deeply and let her gaze settle on the horizon. The rising sun peeked between two ridges, the same dark gold as Chell's medals on her bedroom wall. The rest of the sky was a near-white shade of blue, a thin handful of clouds bright pink on their undersides thanks to the glowing sun.
Below them, the ground reaching away to those hills was a smattering of different shades of green and brown, owing to the various states that the farmers kept their fields in. Off to the far right, and reaching all the way to the hills, were pine plantations. The sections of land were a patchwork of dark and lighter green, some packed with older trees and some far younger, and there was abrupt brown where they'd recently been cut down. The quilted appearance of the hills then blended in to short-cropped, grassy pastures filled with dairy cows, which she could see as no more than tiny black and white dots amongst the pale green.
Chell breathed deeply, tasting the clean fragrance of the air, still crisp with morning dew and the fresh bite of the foliage surrounding her. It was exactly what she wanted -away from people, away from loud voices and demanding words, allowed to think in peace and quiet, she'd calmed down and now she could work on solving this new and strangely uncomfortable puzzle. She didn't like confrontations. In the past they'd been near-death experiences. Against GLaDOS, twice, she'd been subjected to bullets, rockets and neurotoxin. And Wheatley had hurled bombs at her.
Okay, maybe it was her own fault she'd nearly ended up floating around the moon, but still... It was a near-death experience and all. Not pleasant.
Regardless, Chell decided, she refused to let anyone choose her circumstances for her. It was her life and she'd experience it how she wanted to. How could Lexi, or Emma, or any of them understand what she'd been through? How dare they think they could make such demands of her!
An engine roared into her consciousness, startling Chell from her fantastically cleared thoughts with both its' noise and the sweet tang of fuel. She spun to see Josh's prized sedan skidding to a halt nearby, the lanky young man at the wheel gaping at her, and beside him, Lexi chattering into the mobile phone she held hard against her ear.
The anger surged in Chell's stomach again, rising hot in her throat as though she was going to be physically sick if she didn't get away from the source. Josh started to get out, but as one foot hit the tarmac Chell took off again, sprinting down the broad, inviting road that stretched away from the town.
But even the fact that she'd been followed didn't quite shake the thrill of adrenaline coursing through her, as she listened to her own rapid footfalls and the wind tossed her ponytail about behind her head. She relished the freedom of her speed and threw her arms out to the sides, her quick eyes darting about in the search for new surfaces to run on, to throw herself at. It wasn't hard to pick out things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed on the side of a road. Small gulleys, two or three meters across. Chell kicked off powerfully from the very edge of them and landed smoothly on the otherside, her stride unbroken.
A manic grin crossed her features in anticipation of a sturdy-looking fence just ahead, which she instantly saw a path to via an upcoming fallen tree. It had landed at a decent angle, it was particularly large, weathered smooth over the years, and Chell darted off the road, angling her path slightly to come back in on the fallen tree. When she leapt into the air, her boots found purchase on the wind-worn surface, then Chell righted herself to run along the top, rapidly judging the upcoming jump and the force she'd need to land herself on the sturdy fence that followed the edge of the road from there on.
The snarl of Josh's car catching up didn't distract her. Chell focused purely on her paces, the kick that launched her, and the fractionally dangerous landing on the flattened planks that topped the fence. Only when she had loosely judged the next hundred-or-so meters of fencing suitably sturdy did Chell dare let her eyes stray to the vehicle keeping pace with her. Lexi's voice was almost lost in the wind when she put her head out the window to yell at her.
"Chell, will you please quit acting like a bloody lunatic?" The other girl called.
Chell slowed suddenly, her ears ringing somehow, and when the car outpaced her she jumped from the fence and landed on the roadway, watching it roll to a stop with the tail-lights glowing. The similarity to her most recent memory was not lost on the panting athlete.
Though it still took some effort to stay put when she saw the passenger door open, Lexi scrambling out amongst a tangle of the seatbelt and panic-induced clumsiness. The anger was crawling back, demanding attention. The other girl jogged towards her, unaware of the acidic fury in Chell's gut, her wavy hair flopping around her head, unbrushed, a thorough mess.
"Che-"
Chell shoved at her friend's shoulders and stepped back at the same time, her own temper suddenly easing the choking lump in her throat when she let it take over.
"Why'd you spy on me?" Chell yelled at her. "And you brought them into it!" She added, voice rising further. Lexi seemed frozen, gaping at her, and her large eyes glistened wetly. Chell tried to focus on her own temper more than the little voice in the back of her head that kept saying she should shut up and calm down. She didn't want to calm down. It felt good to raise her voice, the pent-up knot in her belly was fading with every syllable. "How long have you been spying on me?" Chell screamed.
"Don't put words in my mouth!" Lexi exclaimed. "Since when is looking after my friends called 'spying'?"
The hot-headed response somehow sparked a rush through Chell that soothed her, though the rage returned quickly, crashing in her mind like ocean surf slamming against a cliff face. She railed against the little voice pleading for calm and drowned it out with the noisy one. She didn't want to be calm anymore, it felt good to be angry. It was easy.
"You followed me, you spied on me!" Chell screamed. She wasn't even aware of taking a step back, she only relished the blood pounding in her ears, the adrenaline ripping throughout her body. Only GLaDOS had ever provoked this in her before- "You fucking spied on me! You're worse than that psycho computer! What're you gonna do next, try and kill me? Like she did?"
"What in the... computer? What the hell are you talking about?" Lexi shrieked right back, arms thrown out to either side in utter confusion.
Half blinded in her rage, Chell pounced on the opening, her right fist connecting solidly with Lexi's jaw and causing the girl to stumbled away. But even as Chell jerked her arm back to herself and skipped forward like a prizefighter for another shot, a strong pair of hands grabbed at her shoulders and she was tossed backwards. She tripped, landing flat on the hard-packed dirt that edged the road, and though it only took a second to scramble upright again Josh was already between them, his frown set, daring her to make another attempt.
Past him, Lexi was making a wet spitting noise, and Chell could hear another car approaching from the town. As fast as it had come, the consuming fury was gone and Chell blinked stupidly at her fist, trying to figure out why her knuckles were throbbing so bad. She only realised what she'd done when Lexi moved from behind Josh and stood on the edge of the road surface, both hands clutching her mouth. Red spittle stained her lips.
"Good one, stupid, you made me bite my tongue." Lexi said, before leaning down to spit thickly on the ground again. "Fuck, that hurt." She added under her breath, clearly to herself.
Chell looked around when she heard squeaky brakes over the rattling noise of the other car. It was Emma's rustbucket, a two-door hatchback with a flaking, faded orange paint job inherited from her grandmother. She, Sarah and the twins were all crowded inside.
Distractedly, Chell wondered how the heck they'd managed to fit in the tiny car. Then, with comedic ease and speed, they'd piled out of the aged vehicle and had joined in on the face-off.
"What happened?" Toby blinked at the trio. Chell was frozen, staring at her slowly-swelling knuckles now, horrified wth herself. She didn't answer, and Emma was still spitting blood. Josh decided to speak up.
"Chell socked her one." He said bluntly. Chell's gaze whipped to him at the sound of her name and he edged warily onto the road surface, putting himself squarely between Chell and Lexi again.
"Nice one." Sarah exclaimed. Chell rounded on her, feeling like a cornered animal. With all her anger burned in that one outburst the panic was coming back, weighing in on her head and making it difficult to so much as think, let alone react. "She's fucking worried about you, what did you punch her for?" Sarah yelled before Chell could so much as open her mouth.
Tears burned in Chell's eyes again and she screwed them shut, covering her face with her left hand while the guilty right fist remained balled and shaking by her side. The moment was replaying over and over in her mind, painfully clear. It was almost like watching something from a movie, Chell saw it as though she'd been standing nearby, seeing someone else strike Lexi, not her. She saw her tanned arm stretch out, level with her shoulder, connecting even before it had straightened. She saw the force in the blow, too, amplified by her entire bodyweight and even the springing action of the Long Fall Boots propelling her forward, causing Lexi's head snap back under the force of the impact.
And Chell didn't like any of it. The anger that had been curling in her stomach suddenly turned into a leadweight of disgust, threatening to overcome her entirely. All Chell saw was an animal, she hated it.
"L-Lexi, I'm sorry." The words caught in her throat and she had to force them out, every syllable an effort. "I... I didn't..."
"Damn, you hit hard." Lexi muttered, facing Chell. "Have you got that out of your system now?" She asked simply. The statement, Lexi's flat tone clearly proving she was less concerned with the fact she'd been punched and more with putting the outburst aside, somehow lifted all the heavy self-loathing off Chell's shoulders. Chell managed a slow nod, rather dizzy with fatigue, and to her immense relief Lexi actually moved past Josh and reached out for her, wrapping one arm solidly around Chell's shoulders.
All at once, the tight rein on her bottled-up tears snapped and Chell threw both arms around Lexi's waist, her shoulders heaving.
"I'm sorry, Lexi, I-I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Chell sobbed into Lexi's shoulder. Lexi sighed heavily.
"C'mon, Chell. I know you pretty good by now. If you hadn't of hit me, what would've happened?" She asked rhetorically. Chell flinched when someone else's hand touched her, though Lexi matched the reaction and tightened her arm for a bare moment, shushing her, keeping her in place until Chell had relaxed again.
"How about we go get some breakfast, and then go see the psych nurse?" Sarah put in from somewhere to Chell's right and behind her. "Whatever's got you punching people is serious, Chell, it's not healthy."
"I don't... No." Chell shook her head, though she was unwilling to let go of her friend. "She'd have me committed." She added in a mumble.
"How do you know that? She might just give you something to help you sleep."
"What happens when I tell her about the smartarse computer that can think for itself and who tried to kill me?" Chell replied.
"You said something about a computer before." Josh interjected. "But, like, you said it more like you were talking about a person."
"I was." Chell raised her head, still clinging to Lexi but attempting to meet the others' curious faces. "You have no idea... Let's go home. Let's have some coffee and I'll tell you about her." She suggested. While a resounding part of her mind screamed for her to shut up, keep her secrets to herself, she was far more relieved than expected when a round of nods followed her words. A tiny smile finally crept to her trembling lips.
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AN: Aww... mushy rubbish... someone please shoot me. Actually, no, I'll just go read some torture!Wheatley stories and then I'll feel better. Hehe.
Remember, R&R! :3