Only Human

She stumbled, catching herself against the wall. He frowned.

"Why are you stopping? You're not supposed to stop, that's not how this works! You never stopped on–"

"You really are a moron, aren't you?"

"I'm not–"

"Look at her; she's exhausted. You've been working her to the bone, and, for your information which I'm sure you're too lazy to look up on your own, I knew better than to work my test subjects to death. They never last long, and it's never fun to have to clean up the corpses."

"Well, maybe–"

The other AI had no intention of letting him get a word in edgewise. "She hasn't slept in three days, she was that determined to get back here. I think the poor thing was actually worried about you; funny, isn't it? And, of course, my estimate is based on the time I've been with her. For all I know, you pulled this exact same act during your little 'escape,' in which case it's been more like a week."

He paused. While, on principle, he normally didn't take any advice given to him by Her, especially in the condition She was in now, there was no denying that the test results had been getting less…pleasant, and he'd as yet been unable to find a reason why. So he did look at his test subject, really looked at her for the first time in a while, and what he saw astounded him.

Her skin was ashen. And not just hasn't-seen-the-sun-in-god-knows-how-long ashen, no; she looked sick. Her whole skin looked about half a size too big. There were dark circles under her eyes, which themselves were oddly dull and glassy. Her hair was a tangled mess, clearly devoid of even the loose finger-combings he'd seen her use in the past, and her whole figure was slumped, like she was carrying a cube on her shoulders.
All in all, she looked worse than when he'd first woken her up. And this time, he supposed, it really was his fault.

"…Oh. Oh, luv, I'm sorry, just…give me a minute…"

"Adrenal vapors don't help."

"For your information, miss, that wasn't what I was looking for." He huffed, fumbling around with the controls in the chassis, searching for something he knew was there but wasn't entirely sure where…

In the hallway, Chell sat down with a soft sigh, relieved to be off her feet for the first time in far, far too long. Part of her was ashamed that the potato had noticed her condition, but mostly she was relieved. GLaDOS knew she'd be useless in any kind of confrontation if she was ready to keel over at any second, and the AI's talent for lying certainly came in handy (of course Her tests had lasted until the test subject died, and the only sleep Chell had had was snatched in the strange painted rooms, out of Her sight, often to be woken up by a mechanical screech at full volume.) Still, she couldn't help but feel a little bad about it; the obvious implication he would draw was that the test euphoria was getting weaker because his test subject was, which both of the women knew to be false. Still, it was a necessary evil, if she wanted to survive, and obviously it was working.
Part of her even wanted to believe he would let her stop because somewhere, deep down in that chassis, the blue-eyed core still cared. At least a little.

"Aha! Got it! Remember those pneumatic diversity vents we jumped in, way back when? Bit of a one-way trip sort of thing. Go absolutely everywhere in the facility. Well, just thought you'd want to know I'm sending one your way now with a bit of a surprise. Really, this is brilliant, you're gonna love this…"

Of course, it really was a foolish hope.

Chell scooted back into the corner, watching the single camera warily. The panels beneath it trembled and slid out of the way as an enormous glass tube slid into place. She heard him say "And here we go!" and then there was a deafening blast of air, an artificial gale powerful enough to force her to close her eyes and huddle her knees into her chest, knowing whatever he was tossing in here was probably not something she was going to enjoy, and praying whatever it was didn't hit her.

There was a series of muffled whump!s, and the air stopped. She heard the panels slide back into place and slowly took a look around.

"What do you think? Found 'em lying around in back-up storage, knew there had to be something like them around, just some good old replacements for when they clean the cryo chambers. Very useful, I'm sure, very soft, certainly better than that floor you're sitting on…"

Piled up against the wall was a small mountain of plain white pillows.

Chell smiled. Maybe it's not so foolish after all, she thought, moving over and beginning to shuffle through them. Really, she'd always loved to burrow; even in summer, the girl had kept several sheets, stuffed animals and pillows on her bed, so this…this was perfect. She started to set down the portal gun (receiving an incredulous "Are you serious?" from GLaDOS,) then paused, glancing at the camera.

"No, I promise I won't take it. Nope, not interested, you sorta need it, you know, for testing. Won't even take Her, since I guess you do need someone to speak up for you, now and again…sorry 'bout that, luv."

She nodded, placing the device next to the pile, and dove in. She felt the pillows flatten beneath her weight; they were cheap motel quality, but there were enough of them to be comfortable, and with a bit of squirming she was able to get deep enough to have a comforting weight above her head. Chell nosed her face close to the outer edge, curled up, and sighed contentedly.

"Alright then, you get a good night's rest…or day's, can't really tell…you know what, I'll check. In the meantime, you get a nice whatever's rest and we'll just move on…whenever you feel like it. Next test when you're feeling better, alright luv? I'll even see if I can scrounge up some food for you; I know we made preserves at some point…" His voice slowly faded into the background as she nodded off, a smile on her face, her last really aware thought being something along the lines of, no, not foolish at all if you look at it right.

I've always called corrupt!WheatleyxChell dark!Chelley... I'm not sure if the term really applies here because, well, it came out so incredibly fluffy... You can also see it as friendship, of course, if you don't like Chelley, though to be honest, if you've stuck around this long without liking it, I'm going to question your sanity just a squik.

Who says corrupt!Wheatley can't be a softie?

I am pleased with this. Please Read and Review.