Warning: Contains gore and sadness

Edit: Went back, fixed a few things.

Unbreakable

"Oh. It's you."

The claws swept down from above, snatching the two. The test subject dropped her portal gun, gasped, and tried to grab it again. She missed. His arms were pinned to his sides, his whole body quaking. And She was awake, and She wasn't happy.

"It's been a long time. How have you been?" The human glared. "That's nice. I've been really busy being dead. You know, since you murdered me?"

"You did what?"

She glanced guiltily at him, grimacing to herself, and mouthed, "Sorry."

He wished he could have shut up, but the floodgates had been opened, and all he could do was babble. "Oh god! We're going to die…we're going to die! She's going to kill us, and we're going to die! Oh god, oh god, oh god–" He continued like that, unable to think of anything else to say.

She nodded. "You know, the moron is right. As much as I love to test, having you around makes me nervous." The claws tightened, making him squirm. "Very nervous. And humans are such fragile creatures…"

The test subject was tossed into the air. The claw scissored up, snapping down on her rib cage. Her mouth and eyes shot open in a silent scream.

"Lady! Oh, god, lady, are you okay? You're…you're not, are you? Of course you're not, oh god, we're going to die..." The plate across his chest gave in under the ever-increasing pressure of the claw around it, his voice fizzling out. He continued to scream and sob within his head as his optics cut out, and his body went limp.

She tossed them off into the undergrowth, cleaning her hands of them.

The impact with the floor jolted two severed wires together again somewhere in Wheatley's chest. One of his optics blinked on, off again, on…and stayed on. The other continued to deliver nothing but static, but at least he could sort of see.

He moaned, his voice a low, mechanical whine. "I…I'm alive? I'm…" His head rolled to the side.

She lay there, sprawled a few feet away. There was a nasty dent in her chest, as though all her ribs had bent inwards and…oh. Oooh, the very thought made him nauseous.

He rolled onto his knees and tried to crawl to her side. His right leg wasn't responding, and the wires of his arms dragged on the ground, spooling out through huge tears in his shell, but somehow he managed. One shaking hand reached out and gently gripped her shoulder.

"L-lady? Are, are you alright? Oh, please, please, you have to be alright, you have to…"

She coughed. A thin line of red liquid rolled down from the corner of her mouth, jostled loose and propelled upwards by the motion. Another cough, and then she rolled over and retched blood onto the floor. She gasped, coughed, and repeated the process.

"…you're not alright, of course you're not alright, oh god, please don't die on me…"

She turned her head. He looked like he'd been gutted, wires hanging out everywhere, sparks spitting out of his chest and abdomen, and a large, nasty grease ring where She'd grabbed him. Half of his face was gone (she supposed he must have skidded on it when he landed) showing jagged black and grey, where before there had been only smooth white. The optic on that side was flat black, as well, though the other was wide, the inner light a mere pinprick of concern and terror. He was begging her not to die. But her ribs were broken, she could feel it, and there was something filling her lungs. Her sight was blurry, and all she could taste was the disgusting mixture of blood and vomit. She needed serious medical attention, she needed it now, and she was in the one place on earth she wasn't going to get it.

She shook her head, and immediately regretted the action.

"No? Oh, please, don't say no, you can't say no, please…!"

It was strange, she mused, that he could, and would, survive this just fine, he who always seemed so fragile, with his sheepish smiles and nervous laugh, and strange, self-conscious nature. While she was going to die here, on this floor, in horrible pain, her tenacity, her strength, her will destroyed with her fragile human body.

He was rubbing gentle circles on her shoulder, but she didn't seem to feel it. He'd never seen a human die like this before, and he didn't like it. Death for the other five had been something like falling into the acid and not coming back up, or coming out of a portal wrong and just lying there, not moving. He knew that his own death, if it ever came, would be a simple short-out, a single flashing spark of pain, followed by the nothingness of involuntary shut-down, and possibly Android Hell. Death wasn't supposed to be like this: drawn-out, and messy, and obviously, heart-wrenchingly painful. She coughed, more of the red stuff splashing, steaming hot and disgusting, across the floor. The worst part was not knowing if he should pick her up and try to run to the medical wing, or if that would just make it worse. Maybe she just needed to clear her lungs…

Another, whole-body heave shook her tiny frame. Nothing came out this time. Her eyelids fluttered.

"No! Nonono, you have to stay with me, you can do this, c'mon! You can do it, lady, don't let Her win…don't break on me…"

A sigh. She leaned sideways, keeling over into his lap, still shaking with the coughs. Her shallow breath and pallid face made up his mind. The android scooped his test subject up into his arms and ran as best he could for the emergency exit. His right leg seemed to be coming back online, enough that he could stay upright at least.

"Don't you die! You're a little damaged, yes, but nothing too serious, right? We…we'll just get you patched up, all fixed, good as new, and we'll get out of here, alright?"

Her head slumped to the side, eyes sliding closed.

"Heyheyhey, none of that now! C'mon, luv, look at me! Please, you have to, please!"

She blinked up at him, eyes glassy and confused. He tried to smile.

"Better, that's better, think you can stay like that? F-for me? C'mon, lady, you're stronger than this, you can beat it, and, ah, I'll help, got it? Good ol' Wheatley won't let you down this time!"

They were in a stairwell, and every step jarred her. Another blood-flecked cough wracked her frame, staining his shirt as well as her own. Her vision swam as she raised one hand to the red patch.

"Oh, don't worry about it, luv, nothing a little wash won't fix." He whirled around a corner, fighting to keep his balance and cursing his glitching limb. Her face was slack and blank, and he was fairly sure she had no idea where they were, possibly even who he was.

She sighed, and pressed her face against his chest, eyes closing again. He panicked.

"Look, luv, kinda need you to stay awake right now! I know you're probably tired, a-and hurting pretty bad, and it's going to be hard, harder than the catching thing, or any of the tests you did, but do you think you can do it? And again, because I know you might not want to, could you…could you do it for me? B-because I don't know what I'll do if I lose you right now, do not want to be alone in this place, with Her after me, and–There's a good girl, lifting your head! That's very good, definitely a good first step…"

She made a choking, burbling sound in her throat. He suddenly wondered if one of the ribs had pierced her lung; she could be drowning in her own blood… He grimaced in disgust, and lifted his elbow, making her a little bit more upright. The test subject leaned over and hacked up a good deal of the stuff into her lap before relaxing (or perhaps, more accurately, collapsing) back into her previous position. He bit his lip to keep from yelling at her, knowing that the fact she'd held on this long was a miracle. And she still had her eyes open and looking at him, so there was that.

When he finally found the medical wing, he didn't even bother checking the door. This was one of the older sections, without panels, so She didn't have access to it. He braced himself, clutched his friend that much tighter against his chest, and turned, using what momentum he'd managed to build up to slam through the door backwards. Her eyes danced, following something he couldn't see, as he gently laid her down on the medical-table-thing. Something in his chest fizzled warningly: he was pushing his limits. He didn't care, grabbing one of the jars off the shelf and opening the lid. Nanobots meandered their way to the top, a wave of white and grey making its way up the inside of the jar. He raced back to her side and emptied the container over her, praying it would work. It wasn't like there was any more he could do.

. . .

Her eyelids fluttered open, closed again against the blinding light, before settling on a small slit of vision. She felt like an overcooked noodle, but the very fact that she was alive was a miracle.

"Oh thank god you're awake!"

She opened her eyes a little wider and tipped her head towards his voice. Someone had welded a clear-plastic patch to cover the missing part of his face, and fixed the wires. His shirt had blood, grease, and grass stains on it, as well as a few tears she didn't remember being there. Whoever had fixed him didn't know much about the more sophisticated side of repairs, though, because his one eye was still black, probably blind, and the lid kept…twitching. She could hear one of his feet drumming against the ground out of sight, the rhythm sporadic and unhealthy. But he was smiling like he'd just won the lottery. "Don't scare me like that, lady!"

I haven't given Wheatley a scare in a while...suppose something like this was going to show up sooner or later.

A little AU in which GLaDOS tries to solve her problems the easy way... because if those claws can crush a robot, you better believe she was being gentle in the game. Also, I'm not sure how often I make this clear, but in my headcanon, Wheatley doesn't know Chell's name in the beginning. She was never supposed to go in that stasis chamber, so why would it have her I.D. on it? He wouldn't have access to that info until he was plugged into the chassis.

It was really hard to not use Chell's name in this.

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