Wheatley was dying.

His every movement hurt, he was exhausted even though he had slept through most of the day, and his stomach was absolutely killing him. The pain was ten times worse than any of the artificial stuff he had experienced as a core, and it hurt like someone had their hand inside of his stomach in an attempt to flip it inside out.

Wheatley was dying a slow, terrible death, and to top it all off, the lady was laughing at him.

She had delayed her trip into the living room for a very long time (30 whole minutes), not being too keen on seeing him again for obvious reasons. Eventually she had poked her head in to see if he was awake, or maybe, if she was lucky he was sleeping and she too could return to bed (Chell was by no means a lazy person, but she was still tired from luging a half conscious Wheatley all the way from Aperture the day prior). Unfortunately for her, Wheatley was awake, and he spotted her peeking into the room before she had time to retreat.

"Lady!" He sprung up from his slouched position the second he saw her, his voice sounding half thrilled and half terrified. "Somethings wrong! Everything hurts, and my stomach keeps making these weird noises... I think.. I think She gave me a defective body or something!" Here Wheatley flopped backwards against the couch like a flailing back like a fish. "I'm dying!"

Here his stomach gave a loud growl as if to agree.

Chell glanced in his direction with a look that was a mix of sympathy, amusement, and annoyance. Wheatley wasn't dying; he was hungry and dramatic. They had gotten home late the night before, and Chell had been so relieved and exhausted that she had simply dumped Wheatley on the couch and gone to bed. Now she realized that he hadn't eaten since he'd been in her custody (which had been about a day now), and Chell wondered if he had eaten at all since the transfer.

Something told her that She probably hadn't fed him a three course meal before dumping him on the surface to starve to death.

With that thought her amused expression faded, but not before Wheatley could see it.

"Did you-Are you-Did you just- Are you laughing at me?" Chell glanced in his direction with a now somber expression, shaking her head to the side. "Yes! You-Ow!" His blue eyes gave her a pitiful look as he slumped back in pain. "You laughed at me! That's terrible, lady! I would never laugh at you if you were dy-" At that Chell's expression sprang from light sympathy to a dubious scowl. Wheatley gave a nervous chuckle as he realized his mistake, raising his hands in surrender.

"Um, bad example. Wait! Where are you going?"

'I'm going to find you something to eat before you further convince me to let you sit there and starve to death.' Chell thought with gritted teeth. He certainly wasn't helping his own case.

She gave a strained sigh as she entered the kitchen and tried to think of something Wheatley could eat without chocking on or spitting it out.

'Huh. This might be harder than I thought.'

He was so terribly thin, hardly anything more than skin and bones (and a mop of very dirty, tangled red hair that she wasn't ready to deal with quite yet). Chell herself remembered how awful it had been living off of nothing but adrenaline vapor and assumed that Wheatley had experienced the same during his short second stay at the facility. At least in her case she'd had some meat on her bones before her stasis and testing (not that she was fat); Wheatley looked as though he hadn't even had that, and Chell wondered how long it had been since he'd actually eaten anything. If he didn't get a little meat on his bones soon, her reactions to his thoughtless comments would be the least of his problems.

Chell snapped out of her thoughts and strode to the refrigerator, opening the door and grabbing a bottle of water. After a brief wrestling match yesterday, she had gotten Wheatley to drink. He had been terrified, screaming about how water would make him explode and she was trying to kill him (Thankfully for both of them she hadn't been trying to kill him and no one had been around to hear him scream), but once Chell had gotten some water down his throat (and he had finished choking) he quickly realized that he liked it, and needed it, and finished off the rest of the bottle.

Chell placed the water on the table. Wheatley could drink; now she needed to get him to eat.

It was time for breakfast, but Chell didn't want to feed him anything too rich (the last thing she needed was to have to clean Wheatley throw up off her carpet) and giving him anything hard was practically giving him an invitation to choke to death.

'Cereal, pancakes, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, eggs, potatoes, fruit...'

"Say apple!"

At that memory a small smile flashed across her face, though it was hidden from Wheatley by the kitchen wall and Chell was glad he didn't see it.

'I could give him an apple but he'd probably choke on it.' Chell bounced on her toes as she thought, then reopened the fridge as she got an idea. Moments later she returned to the living room with the water bottle and two small containers in hand.

Wheatley gave her a sheepish smile as she reappeared from the kitchen. "Erm, thank you."

Chell gave him the water first and he drank about half of that in one swig. She was just happy she wasn't going to have to force it down his throat like yesterday.

Next she handed him the container and a spoon, attempting to keep it level so he wouldn't spill it all over her couch.

"Um... Thank you very much for getting me something to eat- I'm very grateful- that you went and got me food... but, what exactly... is this? It looks kind of... gross."

'First you wake me up begging for food, then you don't even want to eat the food I bring you?'

He seemed to notice her annoyed expression and quickly backtracked. "But, you know what? I think I'll try it anyways."

Wheatley at least seemed to remember how eating worked, as he scooped up a spoonful of food and popped it into his mouth. His expression changed from hesitance to happiness."That's... actually pretty good." He popped another spoonful into his mouth. "What is it?"

Chell didn't respond (she kind of doubted that he'd expected her to), she simply turned back to the kitchen to make some breakfast for herself. She shook her head and smiled as she watched him eat.

'Say apple.'

-

Authors Note:

Hey guys! I'm so sorry this took so long. I had a really hard time writing it and I'm still not too happy with how it came out, but hopefully the next part will be better. I may come back and redo this one later.