Wheatley had always known that he wasn't the smartest man (core?) alive. The fact that he wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box had made itself painfully clear on more than one occasion, especially the ones where She had ranted about how he was 'The Dumbest Moron Who Ever Lived' right in front of Chell. Wheatley was aware of all the things She had said, he had done his best to ignore them, but at the moment that annoying little voice that usually screwed things up was giving him the epiphany that'If my mind was designed with the specific purpose of coming up with terrible ideas, and it's actually registering the fact that I just acted on a bad idea, and is being very vocal about how bad the bad idea was, this must have been a really terribleidea.'

Wheatley gave Chell all of two seconds to respond to what he'd just said before he went into all out panic mode. His mind twisted Her words with her voice, painting endless scenes of denial, of insults and threats and anger and hurt- scenes featuring a Chell that really did hate him and wasn't afraid to show it. What he had just said, that couldn't- wouldn't- make Chell hate him... could it?

He didn't want to find out. Once he had slapped together a vague course of action, Wheatley's voice kicked into high gear (not that it really had a low gear), starting with an embarrassingly high pitched laugh which his expression somehow matched (in fact his momentarily frozen expression was so intensely terrified that it very nearly read A Psychotic Clown is About to Stab You In The Back. Chell actually gave a cautious glance over her shoulder before returning her (slightly concerned) gaze to him), and quickly tried to undo whatever damage he may have caused.

"Ok, ok," Wheatley started once he remembered how to use his voice, "I shouldn't have said that. I really shouldn't have said that, but remember, remember, I don't expect you to, er, agree, or, or, reciprocate, as it were. The point of this isn't to make you angry, it's not to insult you, or make you upset, it's just to tell you the truth!" His hands froze in front of him in defense, his bony fingers splaying out to create two shields as if she might punch him in the stomach.

"I know." Chell said calmly.

"No, I know you know (only not really because he was so panicked that for once he hadn't really heard her speak, it hadn't registered) but just listen, there wasn't any point in trying to keep it from you because you'd just figure it out like you always do and then you'd be mad at me for keeping things from you, 'Oi Wheatley, have you ever heard of this thing called honesty?' Yes! I have! And that's why I'm telling you this, because I want you to trust me and you can't have trust without honesty, right?" Chell gave a light frown at the desperation in his voice, but he was too busy (intensely) examining the carpet to see it. "It's just- I'm sorry! I'm more sorry than I can put into words and God knows I have enough experience talking, but you hate me, I think, you still do, the only difference is that you're getting better at hiding it, and this could make you trust me more but it could also make you trust me less?" Wheatley's eyes met hers for a moment and she blinked at the misery in them. At her silence he started drooping (face first) towards the carpet like a wilting flower. "God, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it. I knew I shouldn't say it even before I did but it just wouldn't leave me alone and-"

"Wheatley," Chell's voice was gentle, and the sound of it stopped Wheatley from colliding with the floor. He looked up at her slowly, reluctantly, fearing whatever form of anger or hurt that may reside in her eyes, but she only gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know."

"What do you mean you know?" Wheatley asked dubiously, shooting back upright so quickly he nearly fell backwards.

A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. "You gave it away."

There was another moment of stunned silence on his end, and he swore Chell actually laughed out loud at his expression. He hadn't planned for any of this. He hadn't imagined even one scenario in which she found This funny. Or in whch she knew about It before he said It.

"I- I've been worried sick this entire week over how you would react- whether or not I should even tell you- I spent the whole day wandering around, practicing what I wanted to say, and worrying over how you would react if I told you, and you already knew?"

"Sorry." Chell offered, smirking lightly. "You rehearsed that?"

"AUGH!" Suddenly Wheatley flopped backwards as if his bones had turned to rubber. He hit the carpet with a thud (it looked as though that might have actually hurt), his blue eyes looking up at her with pure misery. "Do you see what you did to me? I'm dead now. This is your fault." His voice matched.

"Did I kill you?" She asked, prodding his arm with her foot as she stood.

"Yes!" He wailed, snatching his arms away and using them to hide his face.

"I didn't mean to." Chell said softly, siting down in the couch.

"How are you so calm?" Wheatley cried, his arms flinging out beside him. "I didn't even want to tell you about this because I was afraid you would have some kind of an emotional breakdown or something! You'd throw me out of the house or take me back to Her or-"

"That's a little extreme." He swore there was a hint of disapproval in her voice.

Wheatley smiled nervously at the spark in her eyes. "You can be a little extreme."

"Only when I have to be." She smirked down at him, crossing her arms.

Chell was pretty. Wheatley hadn't really realized it until the night they went stargazing, but now it felt as though he were figuring it out for the second time. He was lying on the floor, limbs splayed out like some kind of (scrawny) animal rug. Chell had risen from her place on the floor (probably so Wheatley wouldn't hit her with all the flailing he was doing), and was now smirking down at him from her perch on the edge of the couch (Wheatley absolutely loved how Chell smirked. It was as though even her smile had to find a way to challenge everything around it). When he dared to meet her eyes he was pleasantly surprised to find that they didn't harbor the tiniest bit of resentment or pain; they were their usual sterling silver, the spark in them brighter than he'd ever seen. Still, he felt her current expression was similar to her I'm-about-to-break-something-that's-really-expensive-and-I'm-excited-about-it look. Wheatley only hoped that the thing she was about to break wasn't him. He noticed her expression shift (which meant she had caught him staring) and he quickly returned his gaze to the floor.

"So are you... Ok... With this?" He fidgeted, threading his fingers through the carpet and avoiding her eyes. His face was probably as red as an apple, he could feel it changing color, but he still clung to the hope that he somehow appeared nonchalant.

Though she appeared calm, Chell's voice of reason (which had been screaming bloody murder throughout this entire conversation) recoiled at the thought. It didn't matter whether she did or she didn't: she was from There, they were from There, and The Cake was a Lie. What did it matter? It wasn't safe.

"Well since you asked," She started, trying to think of a delicate way to voice her thoughts and not finding one, "No." For a moment she froze as he had earlier, realizing too late the harshness of what she was saying. When she glanced down at Wheatley he was as tense as if were about to strike him. She continued, her voice taking on a more timid tone. "Love... I think... loving someone is trusting them with your life." They both cringed and looked away from each other. Again Chell realized the sharpness of her words too late. "You and I don't have the best track record when it comes to trust. What happened happened over three years ago, and for all I know it wasn't even your fault, but it still happened."

Wheatley wondered if there was any way humans had the ability to turn invisible, because right then he really, really wanted to. "Um... yes... it did." Was what he said, but what he was thinking was more along the lines of 'So if I hadn't turned on you your answer might be different.' That and 'I tell her I love her because I want her to trust me, then she tells me she doesn't love me because she doesn't trust me.'

One of the worst things about this conversation was that Chell did not sound angry. She did not sound defensive, she did not sound tired, she did not sound annoyed. Chell sounded skeptical. And gentle. Which mixed together into something that Wheatley could almost describe as pity.

"After all that, you've been gone for three years, back for maybe two or three months, and now this Already?" She looked so skeptical that she was almost smiling.

"What do you mean?"He asked nervously, though if he was honest with himself he was already expecting her answer and wondering if it might be true.

"Wheatley," Her voice was so gentle and soft that his eyes drooped shut at the sound of it. "I think you wholeheartedly believe what you said, but I don't think it's true." She hesitated for a moment, cringing internally, knowing that there really wasn't a nice way to say this: "I don't think you know what you're talking about." Which was awful, but it was probably true. If Wheatley had spent his entire life up until now in Aperture, there was no way anyone could have loved him, nor he love them. Chell was almost certain that love in Aperture could not exist; the only exceptions ended in death. "Think about it. Up until a few months ago, everything you'd ever felt was simulated. Artificial. For as long as you could remember everything felt the exact same way." She was right of course, Wheatley thought as he stared at the carpet; not that he wanted to admit it. The closest thing to love he'd ever felt as a core was a very strong sense of self preservation. "Now suddenly you're in a human body with real, complex emotions, and there's a new dimension to everything. Everything feels so much deeper than anything you've ever felt before, and," For a moment Chell was silent and Wheatley wondered if she'd lost her voice (that would be the second time she'd lost it because of him, wouldn't it?). When she looked up at him there was caution in her eyes. "I'm the person you tried to hurt." Here his gaze snapped back to the floor, where he glared at the carpet with a vengeance. Had he possessed laser vision there would likely be a hole in the floor. Chell continued, treading carefully. "Now you spend most of your time with me, and, let's be honest, being around me probably makes you feel guilty and grateful and... You've never felt those emotions with this much depth before."

Carefully, not wanting to startle him, Chell placed a hand on Wheatley's shoulder to get his attention. He hesitated to look at her, and when his eyes met hers they were full of pain. It was her turn to examine the carpet.

"You're just confused."

She flinched as he jerked away.

"But you said you knew!" He snapped, curling in on himself.

Wheatley had known This wouldn't work out even before asking had become an option. He knew it was a bad idea, that he was stupid to even consider it... but of course some small, grotesquely optimistic part of him had pictured a much happier ending, of Chell's voice, sweet and clear and happy, saying "It's ok Wheatley, I forgive you. I love you, too." It was impossible, he knew it was. Those were words he doubted he would ever hear. And even though he deserved it it still hurt.

"I knew you thought... you did."

"What if you're wrong?" Wheatley asked. When his eyes met hers she was surprised by the determination in them. "What if I'm not confused? What if I do- know what I'm talking about?" Though even as he said it he knew it was hopeless: the number of times he'd been right about anything wouldn't fill up a single one of his scrawny hands; the number of times Chell had been wrong? Who was he kidding?

"It's still not as simple as you think it is." For a moment she almost sounded angry. "I don't even know if we can- where we're from? If she knew? I don't want to know what she might do." She looked at her hands. "This is dangerous."

Chell knew she must have really hurt him because he wasn't talking. Usually that was his first line of defense.

"I'm not mad at you." She offered with a half smile. "I'm not throwing you out, I'm not taking you back to her, I'm not stranding you on the moon."

"Thanks." Wheatley mumbled, still avoiding her eyes.

"I'm only saying that... what you want isn't as easy as you think it is." Her tone was gentle but her voice was firm. "For now, we keep things the way they are, because it's safer and we're getting better. Ok?" Wheatley wouldn't bring himself to look at her, but if he had he might've noticed that, just for a second, her smile turned into the one she'd worn the night of the jealousy talk. "Give it time." She said, patting him on the shoulder.

'It could have gone worse,' He reminded himself, hiding his face in his hands as he heard Chell enter her room and shut the door. The door she hadn't shut since the night of the thunderstorm about a month ago. 'Yes, it could have gone much worse. And it could have gone much better, too.'

-
Author's Note:

When it doubt, talk your way out is Wheatley's life motto.

This chapter just about killed me. I rewrote it (or at least started rewriting it) about five or six or more times. Because 1) this is kind of an important chapter, and 2) it was really hard trying to find a proper reaction for Chell. There was one version where she was calm and flirty, there was one where she kind of freaked out, there was one where she wouldn't talk at all. They all had the same ending but Chell was different in every one. I played around with this a lot. XD Eventually I thought about how Chell is (obviously) calm in the face of a crisis (not that this is a crisis, necessarily), so even if she was freaked out by what Wheatley said she would keep it to herself. And since Chell is extremely clever she could probably talk Wheatley out of thinking he was thinking what he thought he was thinking. I'm STILL not sure if I'm happy with this chapter but I need to write about 30 more (I wish I was exaggerating) before the year is up so I best be moving on. XD There may be editing once Pieces is complete.

I'm sure you guys probably expected more of an "I love you, too." kind of response, but the thing is, I've never seen one fic where Wheatley confessed and Chell denied him. Ever. And I feel like that's not all that realistic. Because Chell is so complex, I feel that even if she did love him she would either need some time to process it before she would admit it, or she would deny it because she's the type of person who can easily act like they love someone but have a hard time actually saying it. She's a head over heart kinda girl.

Both of them were just internally screaming through this entire chapter.

Poor Wheats.

Have no fear. There will still be fluff.

If you have any questions about this chapter or just Pieces in general, stop on by the Q&A book and ask away. I'd love to hear from you.