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"Good morning. You have been in suspension for [12] days."\

The voice sent a shock racing through her body. In seconds she'd gone from a serine, sleeping woman, to a wild creature, confused, caged and terrified. She jolted upright, and instantly realized she wasn't where she ought to be. Her nostrils flared and her pupils dilated as she took in the drab motel setting.

Everything was exactly as she'd remembered. The tacky wood paneling, the wall sized mural of a beach, the old, empty portable fridge tucked under the desk. This relaxation center cubical was in much better repair than the last one she'd been in.

"Please report to a test associate immediately, to begin your voluntary mandatory testing schedule."

She stood abruptly, throwing the blanket to one side and almost stopped breathing when she realized what she was wearing.

A bright orange jump suit, zipped up to her neck, and cut off shortly before the familiar form of the long fall boots.

"Please report to a test associate immediately, to begin your voluntary mandatory testing schedule."

Chell didn't waste time trying to convince herself that she was dreaming. It would do her no good in the long run. Instead, she tried to remember what she'd been doing before all of this had happened.

Had she ever seen the surface? That seemed much more dreamlike than this. Had she ever lived in that small cottage? Had Wheatley really found her again after five years alone?

"Please report to a test associate immediately, to begin your voluntary mandatory testing schedule."

She looked down, and got the second shock of the morning. Numbly, she reached down to pick up the quilt from where she'd tossed it in her panic. The familiar pattern made her normally active mind go silent. It was their quilt. The one she'd made with him. The one they had worked on together, in one of her rare moments of need. The need to be close to someone. The need to let go of her fear and hurt and distrust and just be with someone she loved.

Suddenly a mountain of sensations and memories crashed down around her. She'd been sick. It had been the worst case of the flue she could ever remember having. But then, it was always the worst when you were in the middle of it. She'd been in so much pain, felt like she was being cooked from the inside out, and then… Nothing. Nothing at all that could possibly account for her being here.

"Not only are you a murderous lunatic. You also don't listen."

Jolting off the bed, the woman instinctively reached for a weapon she did not in fact have.

"Hold on, I'm adding that to your file now. Doesn't listen."

A cold sweat broke out across Chell's body, though her face went blank and tense.

"I can see you're already itching to get your hands on a portal gun, but don't worry, there will be plenty of time for that later. First, I have a few warm up tests for you."

It was surprising, almost downright astonishing that he'd made the decision so quickly. Only a day or so after discovering the Companion Cube's sick little secret, and he had finally gotten up the guts to leave the room.

He wouldn't go so far as to say that it was obvious what had happened to Chell now, but he had a strong hunch, even if he couldn't really think of a good reason behind it.

Why on earth would she want her back? Chell had never been the best communicator, but she had eventually relented to his questioning and explained, in that strange homemade sign language they'd cooked up, that she'd been banished from Aperture. Not quite with the extreme prejudice he'd been evicted, but still, she'd given him to understand that she wouldn't last long if thrown upon the supercomputers good graces again. Not that she'd ever felt the inclination to return.

So, if they were no longer working together, if there really never were any good feelings between them, what did GLaDOS want with the body?

What possible use could she put it to? Did she just want to gloat? Was she somehow punishing him? Trying to drive him mental?

The main, possibly the only redeeming feature the woman had in the computers eye, was her ability to solve complicated tests, but she certainly wouldn't be much use in that department anymore.

Wheatley did not like to admit to being anything short of perfectly reasonable, and above all, sane, neither of which he really was. After the whole chassis ordeal, he'd developed a talent for obsessions, fostering them quickly and nurturing them in the face of severe obstacles. His first big obsession (After testing, which he didn't count because he was hooked into a maniac computer system, and it certainly wasn't his doing at all, nope) had been to apologize. He'd been proper eaten up about what he'd done. He needed to make that feeling stop clamoring in his head, and the only way he knew how to do that was apologize to the friend he'd hurt and gain her forgiveness. That had not gone quite as well as he'd hoped, and even to this day he wasn't sure she really forgave him, never really let him off the hook for the whole relentlessly trying to kill her thing. But all the same, there came another obsession, following closely on the heels of the last, perhaps even born of it. And that obsession, was Chell.

It was funny, he'd never really thought about her back in the enrichment center. She was an extra pair of hands. Something he could use to escape. At best, after he'd come back for her, broken her out of the testing track and explained his strategy of escape, he'd looked on her with the sort of fondness one might have for a very clever animal. A pet chimp maybe.

But never, not once had he looked on her as someone he needed. Not because of her long fall boots or portal gun, or clever neurotoxin hacking little brain. But someone he just needed to be there, with him. Without her, his life seemed so small, so pointless. A thought which would have appalled him years ago. It wasn't that he wanted to die now she was gone. But he just didn't know how to proceed. What was he supposed to do? The world was huge, disheveled and largely hostile.

The point was, he'd spent a good ten years living with the former test subject. She was his family. She was his. Period. What right did that oversized, murderous, terrifying cow of a supercomputer think she had to her body? None. She had no right at all. She'd kicked her out. If she wanted her back so bloody badly it was just too bad wasn't it! She belonged to him now. Not her.

And suddenly, much to his surprise (and mild horror) he realized what his next obsession was going to be. It had already started growing in him, and was too big to squash. He could feel it burning the circuits in the back of his mind, like a line of buggy code. And it was getting bigger, tugging at him, the way the itch had, though in a much less physical sense.

Dead or alive, Chell was his. His his his. No one else had a right to have her, and not even the only person on this planet he was well and truly terrified of was going to take her away.

Alright, so she had already been taken away. That was a bit of a problem, and not one that was easily fixed. But he'd be damned to android hell if he was going to let her get away with this. Going to let her keep his only friend in the whole world for some nefarious purpose.

Standing, Wheatley crossed the room, gingerly stepping over the flattened form of the companion cube, marched to the hall closet like a soldier preparing to be deployed, and grabbed the huge backpack. Chell always made him carry this one, because it was larger and could hold more heavy objects. He never missed a chance to complain about it, but today, for the very first time, he would wear it without a fuss.

He stopped here, hitting his first road block to action. Alright, he was obviously going to need supplies for this little infiltration mission, but what exactly should those supplies be? He didn't need food or water, he didn't need a flashlight or extra batteries. So he wandered the house, stuffing anything he thought might be vaguely useful into the bag...