A/N: This one's quite a bit longer than the rest and came to 17 pages in my notebook. The original seed of the idea came from the "dangerous, mute lunatic" line which you'll see. Then I also had some other ideas and then I smashed them all together and this was the result. I'm a bit proud of this one but, as always, don't worry about criticizing. As long as it's not just "u suck hahaha" criticizing because that isn't too helpful. Actually for the lack of reviews I'm starting to wonder if I'm invisible here. Oh well.

3. Catch Me
Summary: "Oh, wait a minute, I see - do you want me to catch you? That's not a problem, luv. I can do that." A short, nervous chuckle, and two metal arms reached out towards her. "Don't you worry. Ol' Wheatley's got you here."
Genre: Friendship
Characters: Chell, Wheatley, GLaDOS
Warnings: Mild Chelley?

A world too harsh and cruel outside had driven Chell back to the shed in the wheat field. Although she was stubborn, she was also intelligent to realize that Aperture was safer. She honestly wasn't surprised that the elevator was waiting for her, or that She didn't immediately kill her when she reappeared in the Central AI Chamber. "I thought I told you never to come back," She had said, her gold optic seeming to glare. "Did you think I was trying to trick you with reverse psychology?"

But still, Chell was allowed to stay. She couldn't honestly say she was too surprised about that, either, especially when She made a passing remark about a virus that She couldn't get rid of.

Turns out Caroline had decided to stick around.

At first, their relationship had been strictly businesslike - Chell tested, GLaDOS refrained from trying to kill her and let her take breaks to eat and sleep and do other necessary human functions. But as time marched on, they found that when they spent their time not trying to kill one another, they rather enjoyed each others companionship.

They had become - dare they say it? - good friends.

Still, GLaDOS could be surprising. Chell was mildly alarmed when she was pulled out of the regular testchambers and placed in one meant for the Cooperative Testing Initiative. After methodically searching the testchamber for a solution she could do on her own, she looked up at the camera, confused.

She gave a short chuckle. "This is part of an initiative to determine how a dangerous, mute lunatic reacts when locked in a room with a traitorous moron."

A portal opened in the ceiling and Wheatley tumbled through, landing at her feet. He looked up at her, for once not saying a word. Chell picked him up for a moment, looking him over ...

... and promptly threw him into a nearby acid pit.

Then she stood staring at the spot where he had gone in.

Within seconds, the Reassembly Machine had churned out another Wheatley. His optic was a tiny pixel. "W-what was that for? I - I didn't even get to say -"

She threw him in again.

The process repeated itself for a while. The Reassembly Machine would produce another Wheatley, who Chell would promptly chuck into the acid pit. GLaDOS watched the entire thing in amusement, having to admit this was a better punishment than several of the others She had thought up (the incinerator, the cryogenic refrigeration wing, the screaming robots room, and last but not least, the fangirls). The Reassembly Machine, on the other hand, was annoyed.

Eventually, it happened where Chell simply couldn't bring herself to throw him in another time. Instead, she let herself collapse, clutching him by the handlebars, sobbing.

The Reassembly Machine breathed a sigh of relief.

Wheatley did his best to nuzzle into her side. For over ten minutes, he repeated himself over and over, ove and over, to the point where she wondered if his vocal processors were damaged in some way.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, luv, I honestly am."

Chell refused to relinquish the robot, and reluctantly, GLaDOS allowed the pair to enter the Cooperative Testing Initiative, commenting again about how this virus impeded Science. And so they began. Wheatley was fitted with arms and legs, a process which was thoroughly unenjoyable for him. In the first few testchambers, he wasn't much of a help, and most of the time was spent with Chell trying to instruct him on how not to accidentally destroy himself. But slowly, he began to get the hang of it, to the point where he became more of a help than a burden.

Another thing Chell quickly discovered was that Wheatley liked to hug her. A lot. The first few times he had done that, she had immediately pulled back from him, a natural instinct telling her not to trust this core, the core who had betrayed her once before and who might do it again.

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry!" he had yelped the first time. "D-did I hurt you, luv? If so, I didn't mean to! I promise! Swear my life on it, even." His lower shutter lifted in some semblance of a sheepish smile, and he put his hand on her arm. Chell shivered when cold metal touched skin.

As they progressed through more and more testchambers together, Chell grew accustomed to his hugs, and one day found herself hugging him back. The hard metal parts of his frame poked into her, but she honestly didn't mind.

The testchambers increased in complexity and deadliness. Although Wheatley could be reassembled on a moment's notice, Chell couldn't, and her every move was cautious.

Until one day ...

She wasn't sure what had happened, but deep-down, she knew she had made a big mistake in being careless. Now she was hanging by her fingers over an acid pit. Although she had tried, she just couldn't summon up the upper body strength to pull herself to safety. She dug her fingernails a little more into the tiles, but it was difficult to get a good grip.

"Oh no, this - this isn't good! J-just keep holding on, okay? I'm coming. Don't fall!" She heard the small hydraulics of his frame moving and the familiar sound of the portal gun as he found a way to cross the acid pit, but she couldn't see him.

"Okay, here's some bad news a-and some good news The bad news is that I can't get up there. To where you're about to fall to your imminent death. Which would be ... bad. Good news is that I'm down here."

Although she was afraid of throwing off her precarious balance, Chell angled her head down to see him on another ledge below her. If it had've been another six inches to the left, she would've let herself drop and let the long-fall boots do the work. But ...

"Um, luv, you - you're going to have to let go to get down here. If you haven't already noticed."

She had noticed, thank you very much.

"Oh, wait a minute, I see - do you want me to catch you? That's not a problem, luv. I can do that. But why didn't you just say - oh. The massive brain damage. Sorry, slipped my mind there for a moment. Yeah, the brain damage ..." A short, nervous chuckle, and two metal arms reached out towards her. "Don't you worry. Ol' Wheatley's got you here."

She only wish that GLaDOS wasn't bound by test protocol to not help her out here. After all, how could she trust the core designed to come up with bad ideas to actually catch her?

"We're out of options here, luv."

And so she let herself fall.

There was the sheer feeling of weightlessness, the utter feeling of helplessness for a moment, then two robotic arms wrapped tightly around her waist. The sharp parts dug into her skin. She knew she would have bruises later on, but for now, she was alive, and she was grateful.

They fell in a tangle of arms and legs on the ledge, and immediately, Chell pulled the robot close to her in a tight embrace. "Thank you," she murmured, again and again, again and again, until Wheatley was sure that her vocal cords were damaged in some way.

Then Her voice came over the intercom, very relieved about their safety and very, very human. "What?" Wheatley said, his optic displaying confusion. "Her worried about us?"

Chell suppressed a smirk as the voice went back to its usual cool, mechanical inflection. "I'm sorry; that virus seems to have affected my judgement. I'll be right back. Continue testing.