One Time Too Many

The two women slumped to the floor, panting, staring up at the pale sky above them. Chell's arm was bleeding badly, and her head was spinning from a painful blow...

"That was close," Cara-Mia sighed. "We need to get you to a hospital..."
Pulling herself together as much as she could, Chell fought to think straight... She wanted Wheatley...

Chell loosened her sweating fists and dropped her portal gun. Where is he... She tapped on the box weakly...

"Oh, him! Oh no!" Cara-Mia panicked. "Oh, please say he's okay..."
She prized open the lid of the box and Chell stared into the container, her heart pounding-

And there he was.

Chell swallowed back tears as she smiled for the first time in a while... He was here with her...

"Hey! Are you okay?" Cara-Mia asked him.

No reply.

The blood red sky was beginning to darken, the first stars appeared...

Chells smile faded as she looked back at Wheatley... His optic was smashed and oil was leaking from his dented faceplate... His shutters were half-closed...

"Come on, speak!" Cara-Mia encouraged. "Say something!"
Wheatley's optic slipped out of focus as he stared past them in wonder at the darkening sky above them...

Chells eyes filled with tears as she shook the tiny robot desperately... Something rattled inside it...

"Please!" Cara-Mia begged tearfully, catching the hopelessness in Chell's eyes. "Anything!"

Wheatley looked back at Chell, looked straight into her grey eyes as if they were the most beautiful things in the world...

His optic dimmed and flickered to empty darkness, and Wheatley knew no more.

Silent tears fell from her face as Chell held the tiny, limp core in her arms. Desperate, Chell shook it again, but it only rattled lifelessly, it's little faceplate nodding idly...

Cara-Mia gently closed his shutters over his shining optic that reflected the stars, and wiped the oil from his faceplate with her sleeve. He looked so peaceful in Chell's arms, he could have just been sleeping.

"Let me take him," Cara-Mia whispered soothingly to Chell. "You can't carry him around with that arm."

But Chell couldn't let go. She held him closer to her, silently sobbing. It couldn't be true. There had to be some way... But deep down, she knew it was the end. She knew she had to give up.

"Come on," Cara-Mia encouraged gently, blinking back tears. "There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry."

"There you are."

The two women jumped at the sing-song voice, looking around in fear. "What was that?" Cara-Mia whispered in fear. But Chell already knew.

"Do you remember when I said maybe Black Mesa would help you? I wasn't actually being serious. But I suppose it sailed right over your head. Just like everything else."

Suddenly, the ground below the two women opened into a portal and they fell through before they could think-

They both hit a hard cold floor, and the sterile smell of Aperture filled Chell's nostrils once again...

"Who- who- what is that?" Cara-Mia stuttered in fear, looking up at the cieling. Chell picked herself up, still clutching the tiny core in her arms, and once again saw that dreaded mainframe, that leering orange optic...

"I suppose you wouldn't know who I am. You did come from Black Mesa after all. Knowing the bunch of idiots you are, you probably haven't even heard of an Artificial Intellegence," GLaDOS told her, Her voice filled with hatred.

"Where are we?" She asked numbly.

"Aperture Science. Anyway, what's this?" GLaDOS lowered a claw from the cieling to grab hold of Wheatley. "Oh. It's that idiot. Oh, this is great. So much revenge."

"NO!" Cara-Mia screamed, seeing the desperation on Chell's face. "LET HIM GO!"

GLaDOS' claw lifted Wheatley away from the women, hanging him just out of their reach. "Come and get it, then," She sang, swinging the claw back and forth. A panel opened below him, to reveal the empty void of Aperture...

Chell ran blindly towards Wheatley... He was all she had, the only thing that had kept her going through Aperture...

"It's dead, anyway," GLaDOS taunted, satisfied to see the pain and helplessness on both of their faces. "It's not coming back."

As Chell jumped to catch Wheatley, GLaDOS let go and the dead core rolled lifelessly through the air, into the abyss below...

More tears spilled hopelessly from her grey eyes down her cheeks as she watched him being swallowed up by the empty, cold fog... A distant, sickening crash below told her he had hit the bottom...

"Oh, come on. It's not like it was your only friend. Oh. I forgot. It was," GLaDOS laughed grimly.

Something snapped behind her tear-streaked face as she stared at the thick fog below...

It was one time to many.

A terrible rage filled Chell as she stood there, paralysed. Her limp hands balled into fists...

"If it makes you feel any better, it probably hated you anyway. You know, after you tried to murder it-"

Chell span around, her grey eyes lit up with a feverish rage as she threw herself at GLaDOS, her fists flying, punching every part of Her that she could reach, wanting to hurt Her as much as she could-

"Argh!" GLaDOS coiled in fear closer to the cieling, taken aback by Chell's rage. "Get away from me, you lunatic!"

Chell stood numbly, trembling with anger as she glared up at GLaDOS with utter hatred. Cara-Mia ran forward to grab her before she could run again-

A panel hurled the women into the air, into the empty void of Aperture...

"Goodbye," A musical voice called after them...

With a loud crash, they landed on a catwalk...