Wow! It is so good to be back. I apologize for how long it took me to update; I spent 45 days canoeing through the Northwest Territories of Canada! It was quite the summer but I'm happy to be home.
This chapter is all for TheScorpion0081 who leaves some of the best reviews, but I want to also welcome all my new readers who followed after my last update!
NOTE: The Doc Manager has been removing some of my words and my formatting, and I know this by the word count. I'm working hard now to fix this problem, but please bear with me! Everything should be fixed by the end of the day today.
Her outwards demeanor was being racked by another fit of coughing, but inside her mind was reeling. She just admitted who she is, who she was, and what she was apart of. To a couple of strangers. But she herself doesn't know why.
Despite her better judgment, her cunning, she had told the men about her connection. The only reasons that crossed her mind were all situations about vanity. Was this a vain attempt to share her story? A vain attempt to shut down Aperture? An attempt at revenge? A meager attempt to find out the truth?
Chell didn't think it was for those reasons, but she also didn't know why else anyone would do what she did and come clean to strangers. The only thing she was certain of was that she was not looking for pity, and she would sooner walk away empty-handed than accept pity. Unless, of course, the clerk in the Diner wanted to give her a slice of cake. Her mind went to her throat again and how much she desperately needed water to soothe her throat.
Her throat was parched, and her head was getting light. As her body shuddered with each hack, she bent and put her hands on her knees, willing her body to stop. Sam, watching a foot away, tries to extend a hand, but Chell keeps her head down and waves him off.
"You don't have to say anything else, Chell. Just take a breath." At the suggestion to take a 'breath', Chell straightens up and glares at Sam before returning to another heavy bout of raspy gasps. Sam realizes his mistake and heads back to the trunk of the impala, rummaging for one of the stray cans of beer or soda or anything drinkable. After finding a hot can of Coke, cracking the tab and handing it to her, she accepts and makes careful sips. After the coughs subside, she takes a deep breath and makes careful eye contact with both Sam and Dean. What are they going to want now?
Chell chastises herself mentally. She willing gave up her name, her test subject status, showed them the portal gun, and yet now she expects them to not want anything else? She makes up her mind in that moment to take them to the entrance, warn them of GLaDOS, but she will be out of there as soon as logical. No part of her will ever be returning to the chambers. Just thinking this much of it makes her head spin, and her fit was not helping how faint she was feeling.
"Do you think you could maybe help us? Whenever you're ready?" Dean was making no offer, so Sam felt it his job to step up and be the peacemaker. Chell looked back and forth from the brothers, and back at Sam, and Dean again, and the third man who must have just shown up. Third man? No, that can't be right. With a slight nod, the world spun faster, lost focus and with a slight gasp, Chell slumped to the ground, both Sam and Dean lunging to catch her.
With the world having gone black, she wakes up a few moments later on the ground with Sam and Dean on either side of her. Funny though, it doesn't feel like she hit the pavement, just like the air was sucked out of lungs. Taking a look around, and slowly trying to sit up, Dean extended a hand to help get into a sitting position.
"Where can you go? Where are you going?" Dean asked with nothing but his brand of empathy for the girl who only just passed out.
After coming to, she only realized how exhausted she felt, but with the shake of her head and another almost silent murmur of 'no', she had another feeling of desperation, because she really had nothing.
"We can put you up in a hotel room, you don't have to be alone. I mean, in your condition...," Sam tapered off, but Chell was nodding. What else could she do, other than back herself into corners that could only be escaped by the help of these guys.
She couldn't tell if GLaDOS was right or wrong when she said Chell was predictable, admittedly, Chell had patterns she followed in her actions, but it got her out of Aperture, so she decided to trust her gut and put some more faith into humans.
Standing and dusting off, Chell gathered her jumpsuit pack, and followed Dean's gesture into the backseat of the Impala. With no more words, Dean drove to the motel they passed on their way through town. Sam and Dean walked inside to take care of the booking while Chell waited. Before she could think of something to make her second guess her situation for the fiftieth time that day, the guys were back and ushering her to the last room on the immediately went and lifted out the companion cube from the car without so much as a second glance to see if the coast was clear, and that shocked the brothers more than her using the portal gun once more. Sam held the door open for her and she set the cube in the far left corner of the small room.
It was just a standard room to Sam and Dean's standards: two beds, a couch, a TV, minifridge, table and a singular chair, bathroom in the far right corner, tacky are everywhere. However, Chell was impressed, moreso with the beds than anything else. It has been a long time, she thinks, even if Wheatley did say I was under for who knows how long.
With the cube down, Chell neatly set her portal gun and jumpsuit on top and collapsed on the nearest bed and dozed off before another word could be said the boys, who promptly thought nothing of it, and were glad to have a moment to themselves so they could talk about all they discovered today.
Sam went right to work unpacking his books and laptop on the table, while Dean made sure Chell was actually sleeping before he went to inspect the bundle she left on the burnt cube. Sam, taking note of his brother's actions, went to join him in admiring the portal gun. Dean, being the protective child he is, shielded the gun and insisted Sammy look at the suit instead. With a roll of his eyes, the younger Winchester agreed.
Sam turned it inside out and just made notes on the logo and the various stresses put on it, namely blood and ripped fabric. Nothing high-tech so Sam was itching to take a look at the real marvel in Dean's hands.
Dean noted that the white bodied gun was humming slightly, and went to look at the blue tip of the gun, but couldn't get a good look; the closer his face got, the hotter it became, so he figured better not. Placing it on his hand like he saw Chell do twice before, he moved it deftly through the air like he would a normal gun, though slightly surprised at how well it handled for being so clunky. With his fingers on the two triggers, he aimed the blue tipped gun at the exposed wall and gingerly squeezed.
With a jolt, a blue portal shot to the wall and clung to it. With only one portal exposed, the blue was a reflective, swirling, mirror.
Knowing that sound anywhere, Chell sat straight up in bed, only to see Dean holding the gun and the blue portal. With a gasp, Sam looked right at her, and her face said everything she couldn't, and Dean saw her too. Still reeling from what just shot out of the gun that can lift remarkable weight, he slung the gun up on his shoulder and moved to the foot of Chell's bed.
"What the hell is this?!" Dean was shouting and actively trying to keep the gun out of Chell's grabbing hands. "You need to explain right now. Write it all down if you have to. You show up out of this bloodstained factory with a cube and gun that shoots colors and lifts said cube and you just expect us to not ask questions? You better come clean right now." With a stern point of his finger an inch from Chell's face, she jumps up on the bed and yanks the gun from Dean's hands. Not expecting the movement, Dean backed up a step, which was more than enough time for Chell to shoot an orange portal underneath Dean's feet. With a look of confusion and a millisecond of that stomach dropping feeling, Dean dropped through the blue portal.
"This is what I was testing. I'm a test subject, not a scientist." The fact that she was barely whispering didn't matter since the brothers were silent anyway; Dean sitting on the ground, and Sam looking through the orange portal and the blue portal, trying to accept the fact that he was seeing himself looking at himself.
Chell knew that this was a hotbed of tension, but she couldn't help but notice the sheer novelty of the situation. Bursting into a fit of laughter, Chell immediately regretted it, going once more into another bout of coughs. Sam snapped to and got her a glass of water, which she willingly accepted and drank. Chell gave a grateful smile, but went unnoticed by Sam, so she figured he was still in shock.
Taking a deep breath, confident that she was finished coughing, she removed her long fall boots this time and laid down on the bed, putting her portal gun under her arm. Leaving Sam shocked and silent and Dean still on the ground next to the two glowing portals, she dozed off to sleep again.
I know exactly where I'm going with this, but I'm worried about the execution. Let me know what you think. I promise I'm going to try and be more timely with updates in the future.
Also, I hate to ask, but if anyone with any interest in drawing would like to do me a huge favor and show me your rendering of Chell and Dean showing off in the crop circle in the wheat field from a few chapters back, I would be endlessly grateful. Thanks to all those more than I!