Chell remembers: it's a few days after Aperture spits him up onto the concrete slab.
It's after she runs from him in the vastness of the field, swaying threads of gold clustered at her hips. It's after she helps him out of the cradle of wheat stalks and braces him against her shoulder, feeling the weight of his body and the chill of his bare skin. It's after she follows the spine of the cracked and crumbling road toward the city, him hobbling by her side and swathed in the neon orange that burns behind her eyes each night.
It's after her anger has burnt itself into a charred husk, leaving its ashes in a bitter bed beneath her lungs. It's after sleepless nights poured full of anxious ceiling stares and hands bunched in damp sheets. It's after she's running on nothing and her fingers are claimed by subtle shivers and dark charcoal lace prints under her eyes in gentle crescents.
Chell climbs the flights of stairs to her apartment with measured steps. There is a palpable tightness encircled by her ribcage that's always present. Every time she breathes, her lungs grow full and she can feel that knotted tumult pushing back. It's that same feeling that is cinched around her windpipe and that makes her fight to swallow. Every time she sees the bronze apartment number hanging outside her door, everything seizes up and she feels like she's paralyzed, like this isn't really her, like she's looking at the doorframe from a hundred miles away, like this is a nightmare or some cruel joke that her mind has dredged up from its hordes of synapses and neurons because she's still afraid, she's still so incredibly afraid—
Her wrist twists, and the deadbolt turns.
When the door opens and she steps past the threshold, Chell spies a swatch of Aperture orange spun in a vibrant heap on the living room floor.
Something inside of her coils. She can feel the adrenaline threading through her blood, and it takes all of her willpower to resist the urge to turn on her heel and fly down the flights of stairs to the street below. With her heart hammering on the inside of her breastbone, she shuts the door behind her with a tentative hand, and she takes pause to scan her surroundings.
To the left, the fading sunlight from the kitchen window reflects off of the pale linoleum of the floor. The stove and the countertops are stark white and bare, save for a small, silver rack of bottled spices. The room is quiet, still; only the dishes from this morning remain by the chrome sink. The kitchen is empty.
To the right, his makeshift living space on the sofa has a blanket or two rolled up by the armrests, while the throw pillows have been piled into an acceptable sleeping angle. A single lamp by the bookshelf in the far off corner sluices the walls in a soft, yellow glow. A few of her paperback books are strewn about, but nothing unusual.
Wheatley is not there.
Chell draws in a long, deep breath to decompress. Although her heart rate pumps steadily in her temples, she can feel it start to slow. She's not sure where he is, but she knows he must be within the apartment somewhere. It's getting colder outside, and that jumpsuit is the only piece of clothing he has—not to mention the only thing that will fit his crazy proportions.
Stepping out of her shoes, she herds them toward the doormat with the side of her foot and hangs her coat onto the rack. As she steps into the living room and approaches the sofa, she catches the sound of a yelp coming from the direction of the bathroom.
Cautious, she crosses the den and makes her way to the hall. The bathroom door is open halfway with the light on, offering a view of the pearl porcelain sink, the nearby toilet, and what looks like… someone's backside?
Chell taps the door open with a hesitant push.
Wheatley—pale, thin, and very naked—is sitting on his haunches on the mat by the bathtub. His right hand is wet, she notices; it's left a tiny puddle on the floor by his feet. She can see the arc of his spine, the knobs of his elbows, the rigid planes of his shoulder blades, and the pronounced line of collarbone that stretches along below his neck. She knows he favors his heels with the curve of his posture; there are gradually healing blisters clustered on the soles of his feet, proof of their long trek out of the countryside.
He has such a sharp jaw line, she notes. His prominent adam's apple dips in a swallow, and she watches as he wrinkles his nose in a grimace at the filled tub. He slowly lets his already-wet hand drop to the water, but pulls back just before it breaks the surface.
It's in that moment that he notices her staring at him from the open door.
"Oh!" says Wheatley, glancing to her in the doorway. He runs his dry hand through his thick mess of hair and offers a nervous grin. "Ha, hello! Don't mind me. Just… well, trying a bath. Trying. Emphasis on trying. Not very successful, though. Unfortunately. Bit difficult. But trying."
Chell says nothing. Does nothing. If she could say something, she wouldn't. Couldn't. She is absolutely frozen in place and she has no idea how to move. How do people move? Her feet aren't stone, come on, how do you even make muscles work—
"It's ridiculous, you know," he says, poising his hand over the bath once more. "Having to do this. Having a bath. Because before, this stuff was lethal. Deadly. I would die if I touched it. And I don't mean I'd die just because they said I would. Well, they did say that. That I would die. But unlike the whole Wheatley, you're going to die if you use that flashlight so don't ever, ever use it bit—because that was a bloody lie, as we all know—this was real."
There is an odd heaviness in her legs. Even though she wants to spin around and slam the door shut, she is pinned in place by a web of shock, still and silent and unable to move. She watches Wheatley as he flexes his willowy fingers over the stillness of the water. He inspects his reflection in its body, and from the set placement of his jaw and the intensity of his stare, he seems equally perplexed and fascinated at the gaunt face that peers back from the pool.
"Believe it or not," he continues, "water and robots don't make proper friends. They make rather bad ones, actually. I mean, I knew a robot that died. He was the 'gotta be right all the time' type. He said just a bit wouldn't hurt. Yeah? Just a bit? Well, look how bloody far that got him. Dead. A heap of sparking circuitry that not even maintenance could fix. They… well, I don't know what happened. Didn't see him after that. Probably because he was dead, come to think of it. But I figured they—well, sent him down to scrap or something. I don't know."
Wheatley's brow knits as he gazes at the water. His shoulders shift; Chell can see the shapes of his shoulder blades rise like plateaus over the plane of his back as he leans against the edge of the tub. One hand hovering over the open bath, his fingers curl into a blanched fist.
"I was afraid of it," he murmurs. "Of being sent there. Into the fires. Crushed into scrap metal. Dying. You know, they told me so many things would kill me. Nearly everything. Water, flashlights, popping off the management rail. According to them, all of it would result in some terrible and gruesome death. And they had so many rules! So many bloody rules. Couldn't do this, couldn't do that, couldn't leave. Had to stick to protocol. Had to make sure things were running properly. Had to make sure all the test subjects were still alive."
Chell can't help but follow the growth of Wheatley's sideburns down to the fine line of his jaw. Her eyes trail down the pale column of his neck, to the muscle in his shoulders and the way it ropes down his arms, all the way to his prominent wrist bones.
This is a strange feeling.
"God," he says, shaking his head. "And that was even after everything was falling apart. After the whole place started crumbling. Rubbish and bloody plants everywhere. Fat lot of good that did. Still got punished for not staying in their stupid box of rules."
His eyes flick from the bath up to her, and she watches the corner of his mouth as it pinches in a smile. Something twists inside of her, brushing under her lungs, and she can't tell if it's anxiety spiking her heart rate or fear gnawing at her insides or something else altogether.
"Well, not literally," adds Wheatley, shoulders bobbing in a shrug. "They didn't literally make me a box. That would be kind of stupid. Not much room to move about. I meant box in the metaphorical sense. Figurative. Symbolism and all that. You understand."
Turning his stare back to the water, Chell catches a visible shift in the contours of his face.
"Sorry," he mutters, knotting his fingers together. "Waffled on a bit there, didn't I? I guess the whole point of this is… I'm really not very keen about water. Or anything dealing with water. At all. I am extremely against it, actually. And it's ridiculous, because humans dunk themselves in it and drink the bloody stuff and somehow absolutely cannot continue basic function without it."
The disparity between his persona as a corrupted machine and his persona as a living, breathing human is… jarring. The last she'd seen of him is when he was plugged into the mainframe, the portal gaping into open space, oxygen sucking from her lungs, and he was urging her to let go so that he could fix the mess he'd made. She dreams of him chasing her when she sleeps; she dreams of the facility bearing down over top of her, of him trying to end her life, of his voice and his anger and rage and of a spark of violent blue in the darkness—
And now here he is, in a human body, a naked human body, curled up in front of the tub and pawing at it like a frightened kitten.
Good lord, what has she gotten herself into?
"And you lot get smelly awful fast," he remarks, dipping an index finger tentatively into the bath. "Doesn't that bother you? All those… well, you know. Secretions. But if you really think about it, I guess that's just a small bit in the grand scope of things, isn't it? Drop in the pond. Little price to pay for not having someone down your back just 'cause you didn't check on floating box number three hundred something or other to make sure its vitals haven't stopped."
Wheatley makes a scoffing snort in his throat.
Chell has no idea what she should be doing because she has never experienced this before. She's not quite sure what to do with a naked robot-turned-man who is both eager and too afraid to get a bath. And to top it off, he seems to have no sense of embarrassment! How could he have been so shy to make her turn around while he "hacked" things as a machine, only to be completely unabashed when it comes to… well, this?
"I think I might have to give this another go later," he says, rising to his feet with a slight wobble. "Ha, I've been trying to… well, get up the nerve. All afternoon. Pretty much all day, actually. Not a lot of progress so far. Which is unfortunate. Though I suppose a hand is better than nothing, isn't it?"
If she weren't paralyzed before, Chell is now. She makes every ounce of effort to focus on his face; his angled jaws, his sharp nose, his high cheekbones, the brilliance of his blue eyes. She can't look anywhere else. Can't. Shouldn't.
Good god, he's tall.
"Oh, hey, hey, wait, since you're home now, that means it's time for dinner, right?"
Wheatley approaches the doorway, towering over her, all ribs and hipbones and light hair trailing southward from his bellybutton. He is far too close, right within arm's distance, and even though she is not at all comfortable with a naked man standing in front of her, she stares up at his chin and the muscle in his neck and nods because she wants this to be over, she wants to move, but absolutely nothing is cooperating, god damn it.
"Thank god," he sighs. "Stomach's been making noises all day. And it kind of hurts, actually. That deep sort of rumbly feeling. I think it's hungry. Er, well, I am. Hungry. I'm hungry. Sorry. Not used to it. Body parts. Uh, organs. Having… needs. All that nonsense. Weird being—well, all this, you know."
She refuses to follow his hands in the sweeping gesture up and down his body.
"So, okay, hey, while you're here, here's a question for you," says Wheatley. His brow is furrowed and he squints down at her his like he can't see that well. "Completely serious question. All right? And I know you probably can't answer until later because I don't think you brought any of those notepads with you—or maybe you did? No? Nothing? Right, no, that's okay, not a problem, I'll accept late answers, although sooner than later would be appreciated."
He glances down at his arm, his wrist, his hand, and then down the plane of his chest. With the flat of his palm, he presses down against his skin and sweeps down to his stomach in a jagged movement.
"How do… how do you deal with this? Being like this. Being made like this."
Wheatley's discomfort flourishes in the creases of his forehead and in the firmness of his frown. He is a pillar, stoic and solid and stretching ceilingward, and planted before her as a monolith; a breathing shard of the Shed and all its horrors within.
"I mean, you're all fleshy," he continues, pulling a patch of his own skin between his thumb and forefinger. "And soft. Vulnerable. Got all this stuffed inside you like a walking bag of water. Don't know how you deal with it. And the pain. God, if it's not one thing that's going on the blink, it's another. Something always hurts. Feet, arms, whatever else. And this isn't that simulated pain from before that I was programmed with for some bloody reason. This is the real deal. This is real. This is straight up, in your face, downright monstrous pain. How do you deal with this?"
Chell doesn't respond. She feels as though something has wrapped around her mouth, like she's breathing under the pressure of a pillow over her face. Her throat is tight, constricting, and her palms have become damp.
There is living proof of what happened a year ago standing right in front of her, asking her how she can stand to be human. He is a relic, a fossil, an impossibility; something she tried so hard to forget, a memory she wanted buried so far down she would never remember it again—and she can smell him, an earthy kind of musk with traces of her soap from his first night on the surface—and she hates it.
She hates it.
She was so angry before. So incredibly angry. She was drenched in such a rage that it could have fueled the world through another Black Mesa. And yet here she is, burnt out, her lungs filled with glowing cinders, and she hates it because he's helpless, he's helpless—he's afraid of WATER for god's sake—she can't leave him, she can't go out and drop him off in the middle of nowhere and leave him to die, she can't, she would never forgive herself, she hates what he was but she can't be angry, he's helpless, he's not a human, she can't be angry, he's helpless—
At the edge of her eye, Chell catches the shape of a hand reaching out.
"Hey, are we—"
She knows it's not rational. She knows it's not real. But in that moment, with resurfaced fears still brimming under her skin, with nerves so frayed and raw, with her facing the consequences of forcing companionship with the thing that tried to kill her—
All she can see is the mechanical claw of Her body. She can see it looming forward, flexing, aiming to squeeze at her neck. The sheen of the light glints against pristine metal; the movement of the claw blurs. With her breath hitching in her throat, heart pounding, she snaps backward and thrusts an arm up, poised to block the incoming threat.
Don't touch me.
Wheatley stands there, stunned, hand drawn back and curled like he's been stung.
"Oh," he mutters, countenance sullen. "I didn't mean… I'm sorry. I wasn't going to hurt you. Not what I meant. At all. If you thought I was. Which it looks like you did because, well, the, uh… yeah. Look, I just wanted to, well, get your attention. You seemed a bit out there. You know, lost. Sort of. I think. Hey, are you all right?"
Chell lowers her arm, drawing in a tight breath. The muscles in her legs tremble like they might buckle beneath her, and she finds the strength to take a step backward, away, loosening the cement in her calves and planting herself in the living room.
No, I'm not, she doesn't say, no, I'm not all right, but she nods, Yes, I'm fine, because she wants to be, she really does, and she hopes to god she can, she can, she has to be.
"Was just going to ask about dinner," he mumbles. Even though he seems to accept her silent reply, she knows he doesn't believe her. "Wanted to know what it was."
Chell ignores him and turns away. She strides across the living room to the bundle of orange in the center of the floor. Pausing over the heap, she stares at the vivid color and lets the rush of fear crawl up her arms. It invades her veins, punctures her lungs, swells like smoke, gnaws at the undersides of her ribs, and it's then that she decides that that ugly thing has got to go.
She picks up the jumpsuit with one hand. Even though the scent of two washes' worth of detergent lingers on its fabric, it still reeks of the world Back There. Clenching her fingers into the suit, she grits her teeth and throws it over her shoulder.
It makes a gentle flop when it hits the floor by his feet.
Tomorrow, she thinks, she'll take him to the thrift shop. She'll take him somewhere to find clothes that fit. Not only can she not stand to see that color, she can't stand to see him in it. If he's going to stay here, that swatch of cloth is going to burn.
The soft rumple of Wheatley wordlessly shuffling into the suit follows her as she makes her way into the kitchen. When he pads in after her, fully clothed, she is inspecting the contents of the freezer. Combing through bags of vegetables, frosted meat, and the bin of ice cubes, the cold curls close around the skin of her neck.
"So," she hears, meek and soft behind her, "um, well, about dinner—"
Cool and calm, Chell shoves a bag of frozen peas in his face.
Curled up in one corner of the sofa, an open paperback rests in the sanctuary of Chell's lap. Dusk shifts under the curtains; the light from the kitchen climbs into the living room on smooth fingertips. The purr from the space heater pervades the stiff silence, and warmth seeps along the length of the couch.
Something isn't right.
It's a feeling that feathers down the plane of her neck and sinks below her ribs. It unfurls out into a swath of prickling unease against her skin in the looming dark. She can't explain why it's there. She doesn't know why a part of her is murmuring that something is wrong. She doesn't know why she believes it. She just knows.
It's like Before—with her heartbeat in her throat and adrenal vapor in her lungs—there's a sense of wrongness. Gooseflesh bristles down her arms, and the feeling that something is coming hooks over her mouth, snaking tight, and she knows there's going to be a shift in the walls, she knows, it's happened before; there will be fire beneath her and she's going to run, she has to, there's no turning back—
Chell snaps the book shut.
Breathing deeply, she rubs her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. Her feet press into the chilled wood of the floor, and she focuses on the physical sensation of her weight, of her presence, of being in the living room of a flat and not in a place so far underground where she could suffocate if She willed it.
As Chell opens her eyes, she glances to the window at her left. The thin curtains sway in the current of warmth from the heater, the folds catching shimmers of light from the kitchen's threshold. How long has it been dark? She can't remember.
The book remains behind on a cushion as she makes her way to the kitchen. Her heels press against smooth linoleum and she squints under the harshness of the overhead light. The neon numbers of the microwave stare at her from the counter across the room.
7:12 PM.
He's late.
Chell knows that Wheatley has a tendency for tardiness. He gets wrapped up in things, distracted, absorbed in the piano or paperwork or whatever things he does, and he ends up staying at the music shop for longer than he should. At some point, he realizes that he's hungry and that it's quarter past five, and then she can always expect him to waltz in and inquire about dinner a short while later.
But he's late. He's never been this late.
Something isn't right.
Chell ties up her dark hair with the thin band on her wrist, and she starts for the stove with slow strides. She knows that if she dwells on the time, on his absence, on anything, the feeling of wrongness will only get worse. And it is, sluicing down her back and over her shoulders, seeping into the vertebrae of her spine.
Dinner is effortless. She's on autopilot, pulling out pots and pans and filling them with water and oil before tending to the preparation of the vegetables and meat. When the burners glow red with heat, Chell dumps the spice-speckled cutting board into the sink and plucks tongs out of the utensil drawer. She sears the sides of a steak against the hot, black iron of a skillet as the broccoli steams in a pot on the backburner. Brown rice simmers off to the side, smoky vapor curling upward from the fogged lid.
The kitchen is thick with the scent of cayenne, paprika, and black pepper. Chell stands by the stove, watching the steaks as they cook in the body of the cast iron skillet, the heat rising up to envelop her face and neck. As she breathes in, she can feel the warmth as it pulls into her lungs.
7:33 PM.
Everything is nearly finished. She doesn't understand why he's not here.
Chell knows she's become accustomed to the change he's brought. Once a jarring and anxious thing, his presence has now become a thing of routine, of familiarity, and a constant in her life. It's almost funny that that sort of lurking unease traces under her skin when he's gone.
Before, it was because she couldn't keep him under wraps. She couldn't anticipate potential threats. She couldn't quash that feeling that he was going to turn on her the moment she looked away and she was going to be dragged back to That Place because he was such a helpless minion and she was so desperate for her freedom and She would do anything for revenge.
But now…?
The crackling sizzle of the steaks almost drowns out the creak of the apartment door as it swings open. The knot in her chest tightens. Chell knows it's him. She recognizes his footfalls; the spacing, the weight, the scuffing of his shoes. Taking pause, she looks over her shoulder as she turns off the burners.
The stark red of his ears and the flushed planes of his cheeks catch her eye. His glasses have already begun to fog over from the warmth of the flat, she notes, and she watches him as he nudges them down with an index finger on the frame. Instead of greeting her as usual, he takes off his cap—eyes darting away from the rest of the room—and steps onto the mat to shed the rest of his winter gear.
There it is again. Restless and gnawing. Rising hairs on the back of her neck.
Something isn't right.
Chell taps the oven with the pair of tongs to grab his attention. When he looks up, she gives him a wave. She can hear him suck in a sharp breath, and he turns himself toward the wall as he unzips his coat.
"Ah, hello, sorry," he says to the coat rack. "I know, I'm late. Just got a bit caught up, that's all. Thomas was showing me some sheet music, some of the more complex stuff, and I was at the piano for a while, well, practicing, and I didn't exactly realize how bloody late it was 'til it was almost seven, you know how that is, right, and, well—sorry. Probably should've… paid more attention. Ha."
After hanging his coat, he puffs hot air between his hands and shuffles out of his shoes. His hair is a mess, static-struck and fringe falling into his face. His posture is hunched, she notes; his knees are knocked together and he has pointedly turned himself away from her gaze, though he keeps glancing at her with slight tilts of his head.
"Well," he says, very much speaking to the wall, "I'm… actually pretty tired. Extremely long day. Very exhausting. And I woke up a bit early this morning, so there's that as well. I've a mind to turn in early. So… good night!"
And with that, he slinks out of the foyer without another word.
Chell uses the time it takes to divvy out proper portions onto a pair of plates to process what has happened. Since his new job at the shop—and from the start, really, now that she thinks about it—every evening has been composed of a similar routine. There are variations, of course, but everything follows the same general path. His behavior is fluid, predictable, and his mannerisms are unique. The time she's spent with him has shown her a pattern, whether he realizes it or not, and she's memorized it well. She knows him. She knows what he's like. She knows his body language, his idiosyncrasies, how his mind works. She's shared too much with him to think this isn't wrong.
Full plate in hand, Chell pokes out of the kitchen and glances to the left, across the living room and to the hall that leads to his room. She can't quite see his door from where she is, but she knows what it looks like. It's a cheap and light wood, woefully hollow, with a dark body in the vein of faux pine. Off-white trim lines the doorframe, the color somewhat worn, and there is a burnished brass knob, simple and perfectly round, without a lock.
When Chell reaches the entrance to his room, the face of the door stares back at her with solemn darkness. She reaches out with one hand and raps against it with the backs of her knuckles.
"No, no, I don't want anything," she hears, muffled from the other side. "Really, I'm just very, very tired, and I'd—I'd very much like to go to bed."
Oh, he's a bad liar. The timbre of his voice is too telling. He's a pitch higher, shoving too many words into a single breath and running syllables together like his tongue doesn't know how to move.
Chell knocks again, loud and terse, letting him know that he'd better answer and that she's serious.
"Don't," he says. There is distress entwined with his voice, although she doesn't know why.
A moment passes where Chell is unsure of how to get him to answer. She places his plate on the ground in thought, and then retreats to the kitchen. With the metronome in her hands, she returns before the stoic surface of his bedroom door and takes a seat beside his dinner on the floor, legs crossed. A light tap of her hand starts the rhythm, tock-tock-tock, and she waits.
It's not long before the knob turns. The door cracks, and Wheatley peers out, blue eyes and messy hair and glasses resting on his nose, the rest of him hidden away.
"You're not going to go away, are you?" he asks.
Chell inches the plate toward him with the flat of her hand in reply.
"I'm not… I'm not very hungry." Wheatley seems to shrink back into the blackness of the bedroom. "Really, I'm not. I do appreciate it, though. Don't get me wrong, I do. You always cook nice things. I'm just not hungry."
She doesn't believe him, and he knows it, so she pushes the plate further. The metronome continues to tick by her side.
"No," he says, pushing the door open. He's in his too-short pajamas, blue plaid encompassing everything but bare wrists and ankles. Kneeling down, he pushes the plate back toward her.
Chell stops it with her knuckles. She can't say anything, but she stares up at him from the floor, mouth pressed firm, and holds the plate still. Following the stretch of his arm, she focuses on the sharp angles of his face and the nest of his hair. The color in his cheeks hasn't faded, she notes; his ears are still flushed and tipped in a deep red.
"Look," he says, sinking to his feet. A shaky intake, drawing back his hand. "Look, I—"
She stops him by holding up a finger, and she points to the plate by his knees.
Wheatley sighs. "If I eat…" He nudges the fork tucked on the side by the steak with the pad of his thumb. "Will you leave me alone?"
The tempo of the metronome echoes in her eardrums. For a second, it becomes hard to swallow; there is a knot in her throat from nowhere and she forgets how to breathe. A tightness constricts beneath her breastbone, cold and twisting.
Something isn't right. The pattern is off, broken, split. Something isn't right.
Chell gathers her bearings and shakes her head. No, she doesn't say, but she wants to, she wants; the muscles in her throat are strong, they can work, they can, she's sure, but they won't. She reaches out to touch his knee, but she stops short when he moves out of range, just beyond the doorjamb, recoiling as if he's afraid.
"I'm… I'm fine," he mutters.
It's an answer to her unasked question, she knows, and he's a terrible liar. His eyes and his tone and his posture and everything screams wrong, wrong, wrong, and yet she has no pen, no paper, and no voice. Gently, Chell glides the metronome forward. Its beat is steady, ticking by with every second, and she lets it rest by the doorway. She watches as his eyes drop to the smooth mahogany shell.
"Oh. I… promised you another session this morning. Didn't I?"
Chell only nods.
"And you're going to sit here all night with that. With it on and ticking."
She nods again.
"Until I tell you what's wrong. Or eat. Or both."
Another nod.
"I… can't." Wheatley clenches his hands, his brow in a tight crease. He's staring at the floor now, avoiding her, knuckles blanching white. "Listen, I… I can't. I'm sorry. It's—it's got something to do with my memory. Something happened. I remembered something. And it's sort of personal. Very personal, actually. And if I told you, I…"
He pauses, glancing at her from his space in the doorway. There is a flicker of fear in his eyes, and she feels something cinch around her heart in a taut coil.
"I just can't." He slumps forward, head hanging. "At least… not right now. All right? I can't. I really, really can't."
Chell doesn't know how to respond. She can't recall a time when Wheatley has ever been loath to tell her anything at all. He's always been forthcoming; he elaborates without being asked and he's more than eager to tell his side of a story. And although she will admit that his waffling can be annoying at times, she always listens without complaint. So why is this different?
What happened?
"I'm sorry. I really am. That I can't." Wheatley bites at his lower lip with his front teeth, one sculpted canine sinking into pink skin. "But it's something I'd rather not get in to. Privacy and all that. So… now you know, right? Well, sort of. I mean, you get the general idea of it all. And it's actually not that big of a deal, not when I really think about it, so don't go worrying about me. All right? I'm fine. I'm good. Or at least I will be." His attempted laugh is a nervous, flittering sound.
Chell knows he's lying, but she won't press. If this is something he would rather keep to himself, she has no place to judge. She's kept so much bottled up, so incredibly much, and if he wants to do the same, she won't stop him.
"I'm sorry," he says. His mouth is a thin frown, and the shadows of the dim hallway smear sweeps of charcoal beneath his eyes. "Didn't mean to worry you. If I did. I feel like a bloody head case. It's just—I knew something was there. I knew there was. Had a feeling. But I don't think I'm ready. You know? I'm not ready for this. I'm not. Thought I was at first, not anymore. Not after today."
Wheatley runs a hand through his hair, sweeping back about to cradle his forehead.
"And I don't even know if these are my memories," he continues, thumb and forefinger pressing on his temples. "I mean, what if they're someone else's? Is that possible? I don't actually know. Could be, right? She could do anything She wanted. She could've put me in someone else's body. And that's what I thought, you know. Someone else's. That I was using some poor bloke's body without him knowing, and who knows what happened to him, some test subject probably, maybe died or something like that, I don't know. It would be like Her to put me in someone's dead body. But I… what if… what if this is mine?"
Wheatley looks at her up from his doorframe. He's very still, hands now held out in front of him, breathing shallow, his shoulders hunched and long legs crossed over one another. His ankles are bare where his trousers ride up too far, and his wrists look so cold; gooseflesh crawls up his forearms in ripples.
"I didn't think I was this," he says. "In my dreams, sure, why not, 'cause they're dreams. But real life? Never thought about it. Never thought about it when I was in my old body, either. Never questioned anything. I was Wheatley. I was tasked to look after test subjects, and that's what I did. I looked after them."
She watches as he reaches out, slowly, and rests his palm on top of the metronome. His eyes follow the silver pendulum at the center, crossing from left to right and back again.
"But these dreams," he says. "Well, at least I think they're dreams. Thomas says they're most likely memories. I don't know, they might be. They're all so real. I keep seeing these people. People I think I should know. And then there's things like this metronome. Never seen one before, never heard of one, never had anything like that back there in the laboratories, but I know what it is. I know what it's used for. I know it can help. I know it can help you and I know there's a way to try."
Wheatley stares at her, outstretched hand beginning to tremble.
"So maybe… maybe this is me. You know? Maybe there was another me before that place. Before all of that. Somehow." Wheatley draws his fingers away from the metronome, knotting them together with his other hand upon his lap. "And that's absolutely mad. That's crazy. I might've had some sort of life before my other body. That being a robot wasn't actually me. But if I can be this now, and I was a robot before, who's to say I wasn't human before that?"
Chell wants to reach out, hold his hand, let him know that he doesn't have to worry. She wants to say that whatever happened doesn't matter. And she can; the metronome is here and she can hum, she can, she knows; and she has a voice, but it's stuck; and so she breathes, in and out, focusing on the air as it enters and leaves.
"I'm afraid, if I'm honest," says Wheatley. "All I ever knew was that place. Just doing what I was told. That was my life. That was everything. Everything. Being there, looking after the test subjects, doing other menial work. There was nothing else. And now there's more. There's a lot more. At least that's what it seems like. And what if, during all of this, I remember something that's not… that's not very good. Something that's terrible. Something I'd regret. Because I already—"
He stops himself, forcing a thick swallow.
"Well. I've not exactly been a proper friend."
Chell's breathing has become slower, deeper, purposeful. The metronome's gentle tempo pumps in her veins and she can feel the oxygen as it pulls into her lungs. She ignores the knot in her throat, the bundles of words she wants to say, and swallows them down. Burying them beside her lungs, she reaches out for him, fingers splayed, and touches the back of his hand.
Wheatley tenses beneath her, bones pressing underneath his skin and into the soft palm of her hand. He attempts to withdraw, but she curls her fingers around his own, as if to lock him in place.
"What are you doing," he says, his voice a touch higher than before. There is a slight pressure where he resists, where he tries to pull back, away, but there is also reluctance and a subtle quiver that climbs up from palm to wrist to elbow. "You shouldn't—I mean, well, I don't think this is a very good—"
But she ignores him. She ignores the timbre of his voice, the shiver up his arm, the wild shadows under his eyes. Instead, she centers on the swell inside her chest, the movement of her diaphragm, the sensation of air streaming through her body; she focuses on the chill of his hand, the hill of his wrist bone, the bridges beneath that build his arm. His rambling is a stifled buzz against her eardrums, but everything comes to a halt when she begins to hum.
It's not any of the nursery rhymes they've tried. It's not simple, or easy. It's Her opera.
Although it's slower, the effort to create each note makes her throat hurt. She can feel the thrumming vibration along the roof of her mouth, and she can hear the slender thread of her voice unspooling out. The cadence of the metronome lays the groundwork, and her muscles shift to accommodate a higher or lower pitch. Her memory is crisp and clear; she's heard it only once from Her, but she knows each note as it comes. Some are too high to reach, and so she drops an octave instead.
Somewhere in the midst, Wheatley's fingers have hooked around her thumb. He's staring at her in the bedroom doorway, frozen, his jaw rather slack. She concentrates on keeping her voice steady, but she is very aware of the weight of his hand, the slopes of his neck and cheekbones, the intensity of his eyes.
Soon enough, her strength wears out, and her voice thins into nothing. With the metronome ticking nearby, Chell takes in a heavy breath, and her shoulders slouch as her diaphragm decompresses. The sides of her throat ache with exertion.
"So you do remember." His words are soft, quiet, whispery. "Though honestly I don't really know how you wouldn't."
Chell draws in another breath, feeling her lungs expand. Something else is nestled there, gentle and flickering, jumpstarting her heart into skipping beats, but she ignores it. She straightens herself, smiling with one corner of her mouth.
"But you did it," he says, squeezing her hand. "You did. I can't believe it. Well, no, that's wrong. I can. And did. I hoped at the start, but I always believed you could. I mean, we've practiced, but we haven't really done anything like… well, like that. But you're better. Extremely. You been doing this on your own?"
There is something about Wheatley that makes her take pause. He's excited, she can tell; there is a distinct glitter in the color of his eyes, and the telling creases beneath them reflect a grin, but he is guarded. He holds himself at a distance.
No, she doesn't say, stuck down where she can't dredge it up; No, and she shakes her head in reply.
Without warning, Wheatley drops her hand like she's molten metal. Curling his fingers into a pale fist, his brows pinch and his teeth bite at the flesh of his lip, and he nurses the invisible wound. His skin leaves unseen scorch marks across the back of her palm.
"Right," he says, rubbing at his wrist. "So, tomorrow then? Maybe we'll try something else. Nothing fancy. Just… you know. Progression."
Something isn't right, she knows, but she doesn't know why.
Wheatley slowly rises to his feet. He draws himself up to his full height, his hand sliding along the wood of the doorjamb to hold his balance. Ill-fitting pajama bottoms shimmy up the lines that shape his calves to reveal jutting white anklebones.
"I'm sorry," says Wheatley. "About dinner."
Chell cranes her neck to meet his empty stare. Shadows sleep under his eyes in satin strokes, and his face looks far too gaunt in the dark. This haggard man reminds her too much of the creature she found in the field.
"See you in the morning."
The ticking of the metronome hammers in the film of her ears as he shuts the door. Her heart feels tight and her throat feels dry, but she doesn't know why.
Chell picks up the plate and brings it into her lap. The underside is cool on her fingertips. If his is no longer warm, hers must be the same. She supposes she could reheat it in the microwave if she wanted, but the hunger in her has disappeared. The only gnawing sensation she has is the one that carves deeper and deeper behind her breastbone.
Before making her way back to the kitchen, she turns off the metronome.
"It's all at your pace. All right? Your pace."
The pattern is different. She hasn't forgotten.
But she will adapt and persevere, just as she always has.