Chell remembers the smell of burning cloth.

It's stark, sharp, a blade in her mouth, and she welcomes it into her lungs. She breathes deep, a steady intake of hot air, and she imagines the memories buried inside of her peeling into gray snakes of charred ash. She imagines the nightmares sloughing off of her scalp like opaque waterfalls of dark oil, pouring to the ground to pool beneath her feet and soak in the spaces between her toes.

This is it. This is what she needs. Fire can cleanse and cauterize what she cannot. Maybe now she'll finally stop bleeding.

Wheatley's jumpsuit is splayed out over the sun-soaked asphalt, drenched in gasoline. A brighter, fiercer orange devours Aperture's colors with avarice. Black coils climb up into the October sky, clawing with crackling flame. A small crimson canister of gasoline sits by her feet. She drew a gallon's worth out of the station a couple of blocks from the apartment before she followed the road out of town. She took an angry pleasure in unscrewing the cap and letting it pour over the swath of orange. With the spark from a worn matchbook between her fingers, it's now scorching the hide of the road beneath in blazing fire.

One of the last reminders of the world Back There is finally burning, and it hurts.

"This is some sort of symbolism, isn't it?"

His voice is soft, inquisitive, and it tugs her away from basking in the fire's glow. She turns to see him sitting cross-legged in a nest of gravel on the shoulder of the road. He's wrapped up in shoddy jeans and a too-tight pale blue turtleneck, hands resting on the knobs of his knees. Bony fingers pull absently at the washed-out denim.

"I mean… it's more than what it looks. You know. Burning that." Wheatley squints as he gazes at the flames, the wind threading through his thick hair. "I could be wrong, but I don't think humans normally burn their clothes. Seem rather fond of them, actually. All bundled up all the time. Never quite understood it before because I was, well, so far removed from the situation, as it were. But I understand now. You lot get cold so bloody easily. All… well, all skin and… and bone. And other, um… building components. You know. All that nonsense."

Chell doesn't know why she brought him here. To keep an eye on him, perhaps. Her trust is razor thin, balancing on that edge; she doesn't feel comfortable leaving him alone in the space where she sleeps. Some days it's necessary, but not for this, and she refuses to leave herself open for an ambush. Even now, she's too awake, too aware. She knows she's tired, but anxiety keeps her tense. Her neck is stiff and the muscles clustered by her vertebrae ache with exertion. Her arms are heavy, encased in stone, and the tendons roping down her calves and into her heels are tender.

"Well, um, what I suppose I'm trying to say is I—I understand. Why you're doing this." He's at a strange angle atop the gravel, as if he's unsure of how to make his body sit properly. He curls in on himself, though if it's due to the cold breeze or something else, she doesn't know. "I know. I do. That place was… was terrible. An understatement, really. I understand why you'd want it gone. That suit. I could—well, I could waffle on about everything, but there's really not much point, is there? It's done. Over with. Can't change anything. Would just open old wounds. But I… I'm glad. I am. To see it burn."

Chell stares into the billowing flames. She's not sure if he understands. He might say he does, but that doesn't mean he truly grasps the gravity of what happened. That doesn't mean he realizes what That Place did to her. What he did to her. That doesn't mean he's contrite and willing to repent. All he's ever been is a crude conglomerate of words and promises, composed of nothing but smashed sentences and crushed vowels; constant and endless noise. It's almost as if he talks just to hear himself, like he has nothing left to hold onto—like he doesn't know what to do when the silence comes.

If she had left him out in the field, she wonders, would he have gone insane before he died?

The jumpsuit is a charred husk on the cracked pavement in front of her. Only blackened tatters and a melted metal zipper remain. The orange has been scoured from this earth, burnt into smoking remnants, and there is a part of her that feels relief. It's as though something has shifted inside of her, a decrease in the pressure around her throat and lungs, and she can breathe a little better now.

In spite of that, there is a part of her tucked close to her heart that is still rife with grief.

Chell picks up the canister. The surrounding wheat fields sway under the gusts of wind, rippling in waves of molten gold, and the sky opens up into a plane of cloudless October blue. If she were to follow the backbone of the cracked and crumbling road out west, she would eventually find The Shed steeping among the crops. She wishes she could burn it down, too. Maybe she could. Maybe she could take a sledgehammer to its walls and pour gasoline down the elevator shaft and just light the entire thing on fire with her flimsy matchbook and watch it smoke and burn and crisp away from her memory like she really wants.

But she won't go back. She won't. It spit Wheatley up before. She's afraid of what else might come crawling out of its maw.

Chell turns on the ball of her foot and starts her way back. When Wheatley notices that she's leaving, he scrambles to his feet and trails along behind her. The pattern of his footsteps is still awkward and scattered. The blisters on his heels are still healing, shoved into some black socks and an old pair of size thirteen Converse sneakers; coupled with the atrophy of his muscles from his body's apparent stint in suspended animation, he's developed a very unique gait over the past week.

"You all right?" he asks, slinking up beside her. "You look—well, um, you look good. Just stating that first. You do look good. Everything in its proper place. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just so that's established. Looking very human. Well, at least I think so. Can't see all that well for some reason. Rather annoying. But I did notice that you are frowning an awful lot. I mean, I know. About the suit. And everything. It's all sort of… well, unpleasant, to put it lightly."

Squinting at the hide of broken asphalt before them, Wheatley knots his hands together, all thinness and tendon and quartz-pale skin. He lopes along without too much trouble, dropping a touch behind her. Chell is no judge, but he seems somehow unnerved, and that eases the tightly spun tendrils of anxiety choking at her insides.

"I guess I'm just—ah, lost?" Chell notes that Wheatley's severe height puts him in an awkward place. He keeps looking upward—out of habit, she supposes, as there was a time Back There where she held him out before her—and it's always a second or two of pristine skies before he realizes that she is not, in fact, above him, and he corrects his gaze accordingly. "I don't know if you actually know this, seeing how you're, well, you're you, but I'm just going to put it out there: it's very difficult trying to figure out what's… um. Happening. With you."

Chell doesn't reply. She supposes she could gesture, but there wouldn't be any point. He's just going to keep talking and prying, pretending he cares, and she knows that if she continues to listen, she'll start to take him seriously, and then she'll bend.

She won't let that happen. Not to him. Never.

"Well, what I mean to say is you're different than before." A pair of footsteps crunch by before he realizes what's come out of his mouth. "Oh, but not in a bad way! All right? Just making that clear. Not in a bad way at all. It's not bad. Different's not bad. It's just… uh, different. Don't really know how to explain that, sorry. I mean, I know I'm different. Aside from the obvious definitely not a robot anymore thanks to the Absolutely Mental Maniacal Godface back in that bloody place. At least I think. But I suppose it's not unusual. A whole year, you said. Is that right? It is, isn't it? It's really been. That's mad. A whole bloody year. I was just gone for an entire year and it's like nothing happened."

She ignores him and focuses on the road ahead, following its weathered surface as it curves out into the flat horizon. The gentle rustle of the wheat fields is a constant against the shells of her ears, and the chilled breeze curves across her cheeks in gentle fingers and tugs along the sleeves of her coat. The way back won't be long; she's only ventured a mile or two out of town, just enough to serve her purpose. It will be an easier trek now that Wheatley can walk without relying on her for support.

"You know, you are very light with conversation. Which is to say there is literally no conversation. At all."

Chell catches his windswept mess of hair out from the corner of her vision. He's next to her again, breath puffing, somehow keeping up with her steady strides. His blisters must be healing far faster than she'd thought. Whether that will prove to be better or worse in the long run, she doesn't know. The latter, most likely.

"Well, not that I'm really expecting any. Conversation, that is. I mean, you did go all that time without saying anything, after all." The wind flows by in a blustery gust, and Wheatley tucks his arms close under his ribs as if to shield himself from the air cutting through his turtleneck. "Don't know how, if I'm honest. You do seem to get by quite well without it, though. Got yourself a nice flat. And some belongings. Classy things. The sofa is lovely. And comfortable, I might add, though a bit short. Just seems like you're doing well in spite of all—well, all that happened. You know. Back there."

Wheatley peers over his shoulder. He won't find the slab of concrete where he woke—they're not close enough, she's made sure of that—but the image of the Shed and its rusted corners rising up over the rippling crops still burns behind her eyes. Unbidden, a shiver unspools down the length of her backbone.

"Anyway," he says, eyes flicking back between her and the surface of the crumbling road, "I, um, well, I guess I expected some sort of… communication? You know, something to work with. Go off of. Anything, really, since we're together now. Again. And you're letting me stay at your flat for… for some reason or another, I imagine. Probably a good reason. Or, well, at least I hope so."

When she doesn't respond in the brief pause of silence he allows between spells of rambling, he shuffles ahead of her and makes a point to cut through her stare down the alligatored road. He plants himself quite firmly between her and the path home, his tall and spindly stalk of a body swaying under the duress of the breeze. The sun overhead paints shadowed hollows down below his cheekbones and along the tendons and the knot along the column of his throat, and again she's reminded of exactly how thin and undernourished he is.

"I did notice you wrote a lot that first day," he presses, squinting. "Just wanted to let you know it was appreciated. Was nice. Convenient. And very helpful, seeing as how the talking front is still, well, nonexistent."

Chell averts her eyes and weaves to the left, passing him by in a gentle arc. As she continues onward, she's pursued by the familiar sound of a stiff exhale behind her. From the remnants of their past beneath the surface—god, she hates it; they have a past—she's gathered he doesn't like being ignored, and so he's becoming frustrated with her lack of response.

It doesn't bother her. It doesn't. Right now, it's her only weapon. He's opened her up and plunged a shard of himself back where he doesn't belong, and silence is the only thing she can use to protect herself from him.

She doesn't owe him a goddamn thing. Not even words.

"Not that I'm saying nonexistent is necessarily a bad thing," he amends, drawing up to her side once more with a touch of urgency in his steps. Concern creases his brow whether she likes it or not, although the thought of him being concerned is enough to make her fists clench. "Whatever you like is fine, really. I mean that. No problems here. No problems at all. Everything is great, actually. Going pretty well. But—consider this, just consider it—things would be that much more great if you could just… um. Well, I would say talk, but I don't want to be insensitive, right, so maybe… let me know? Somehow?"

Chell breaks into a run.

Shock rolls up her knees and through her legs. Hard asphalt grinds under her feet as she barrels forward, the soles of her shoes flattening over spiderweb cracks and crushed pebbles. The gasoline canister is awkward in her fist, but she pays it no mind when it bobs against her thigh. The sharpness of the breeze forces itself down her windpipe and bitter air lines the sides of her throat; ice and wind and anxiety and grief knit together in a cold cacophony behind her breastbone.

"Wait," she hears him call, a wavering sort of keen, but she doesn't.

The countryside is open and endless. The fields on either side of the parted road seem to stretch on for miles until kiss the ends of the sky. If she wanted, she could run out into the golden waves and churn through miles before meeting their end. A year ago, she did—she sprinted away from the Shed as fast as her legs could carry her, her long fall boots catching wisps of wheat between the straps.

Chell knew what she was running from then. Now, she's not so sure.

Her lungs suck in bursts of oxygen as the muscles in her calves drive her forward. The road curves to the left, and she follows it without question, the petrol canister tight in her hand. She thinks she can hear him somewhere behind her, but a coiled knot in her chest prevents her from looking over her shoulder—or is that the stitch in her side?

"Wait," he pleads, closer now; "I can't keep up, please, hah, don't leave, I—" A gasping breath; he must be in worse shape than she'd thought, "—I don't want to be out here! Not, hah, not alone, please—"

The sound of his sneakers catching onto something pricks her attention. A ragged shout pours out, and then the crunch of him hitting the pavement shortly follows. Her blood is pounding in her ears, pumping in tandem with the movement of her feet, and somehow she can hear him groan among the symphony of her body. Something snags in the back of her mouth at the sharp puncture of his voice; it hooks her by the neck and twists her around, her shoes grinding into the road.

Wheatley is crumpled upon the grayed surface of the asphalt in a lanky heap. He lies eerily still against the rippling gold backdrop of the wheat fields. She's not sure if it's the distance or tricks from the shadows cast by the overhead sun, but there looks to be a smear of red beneath his head. If chalk haloed his body in white silhouettes, it might be murder.

Chell lets the canister drop. It strikes the road with a hollow clatter. Digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms, she approaches him with guarded steps, a swirling blackness whispering cautions under her skull: he tried to kill you, it's only a trap, he tried to kill you, he means to take you back, he tried to kill you, She sent him here, he tried to kill you, he'll only do it again, he tried to kill you, you must remember, he tried to—

"Oh, this hurts." Wheatley stirs on the ground ahead of her, a disjointed noise somewhere in the thick of his throat. He sucks in a breath like he's forgotten how to work his lungs and he makes an attempt to lift himself up, but the pain appears to be too much, too overwhelming, and so he flinches and snaps still again. "Oh, this really hurts. I-I shouldn't have—god, why does it hurt? That was… that was nothing, really. Nothing. Not like it's falling down a pit or anything like that. But I—well, no boots. That's… that's probably it, come to think of it. Boots would've helped. Bloody hell, this hurts."

As she approaches, Wheatley begins to crunch in on himself. He compacts his body as close as he can, tucking his long legs close to his belly and hunching inward as if he could somehow transmute himself into the metal sphere he once was through sheer will. She's not sure whether it's some sort of latent defense mechanism or whether he imagines the agony might fade if he assumes the proper shape, but it's… pitiful.

And yet, it's somewhat comforting. It serves as a gentle reminder that he is neither competent nor cunning, and that in spite of the poorly executed attempts on her life as the mad and corrupted entity he became Back There, he is also incapable of caring for himself in any fashion. This seems to hold especially true for the skinny pile of bones he currently inhabits. Not only does he struggle with simple things like walking, eating, and his newfound relationship with water, he is also completely dependent on her for just about everything.

Chell peers down at the man curled up on the road. She could have left him, she thinks. She really could have. She has no doubt he would be dead by now if she had chosen to keep running. His ability to extrapolate is less than satisfactory, and she has little faith that his lengthy experience in caring for test subjects provided him with anything useful in regards to the whole surviving business. And if it did, she has even less faith that he would have had the foresight or the initiative to apply it.

He'd managed to crawl half a mile, though. He was half conscious and starved and exhausted, but he'd made it half a mile from the Shed.

That's… well, that's something, isn't it?

Chell kneels by his shoulder. She takes his chin between her thumb and forefinger and angles his face away from the pavement. His skin is cold, she notes, and the pads of her fingers feel the grit of the thin start of stubble. As she inspects the extent of his injuries, it occurs to her that his body's time in stasis must have slowed his hair growth. Either that, or it somehow behooved Her to thoroughly shave him before sending him to the surface to die, in which case she supposes she should thank Her as she has a feeling he won't take to razors that well.

"Ah, anything? It—it stings. Quite a bit. Stings a lot, actually." Wheatley grimaces under the pressure of her fingers as she guides him upward for a better look. While there is a nasty scrape down one cheek, it doesn't seem too serious. There is a small amount of blood coupled with dirt and pebbles from the fall, but nothing a bit of antiseptic and gauze can't help. "Um, don't really know how to describe it. Sorry. It just… it hurts."

She uses the back of her hand to dust off what she can, gritting her teeth through his wincing and whines. When they make it back to the apartment, she'll have to take him into the washroom and do some patching. Letting go, she then moves to his hands, prying apart clenched fingers to reveal more scraped up skin and tiny black stones dappled amongst his lifelines. It looks painful, she'll admit, although she's not so sure it's quite as incapacitating as he's making it out to be.

Then again, she can't imagine his pain threshold is particularly high, either.

"Can we—can we go back now?" Wheatley's brows knit with discomfort as he strains to lean forward. He did have a spectacular fall; she suspects he'll be sore for a few days at the very least, and that's only for overexertion. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? Going back. That's why you were running. I mean, don't want to make any assumptions or anything, but it just—well, you don't much like it out here, do you?"

No, she doesn't say, no, I don't, but she swallows it down and clasps her arms beneath his ribs and helps him stagger to his feet in silence.

The remainder of the walk home, she keeps a slower pace. With Wheatley on one side and the Shed at her back, she finds a fluttering tightness in the hollow of her chest. Chell knows she shouldn't keep him with her. She can burn his jumpsuit and avoid the wheat fields and shove the charred companion cube against her door at night, but she won't be able to completely banish Aperture's lingering mark.

Wheatley isn't healthy for her. She knows that. But she can't get rid of him. She can't. She's not a monster. She's not heartless. She's not vindictive. She won't leave him out to die.

She won't be like Her.

"Sorry."

Chell glances up at him. The afternoon sun soaks his brown hair in layers of gold, etching his jaws and throat in shapes of shadow. His adam's apple dips in a swallow and she watches as he runs his tongue along his lower lip. He lopes along beside her with an even stranger gait than before; compensating for his new injuries, she assumes, judging by the limp.

"I mean, for—well, for earlier," he adds. His thumbs rub absently along his fingers, slow and tentative to avoid irritating the scrapes on the insides of his palms. "Sorry. Probably hit a soft spot or something. Don't actually know. At least it seems like it. Just sort of figured I was waffling on again and said something stupid."

Wheatley offers a strained grin. His forehead is furrowed and his jaw remains set, as if smiling were a painful task. With the extent of the abrasion stretching down the side of his cheek, she doesn't have any doubt that it does. Some sort of retribution, perhaps, even if it is piecemeal.

Oddly enough, that doesn't make her feel any better.

"So, yeah. Didn't mean to ruffle feathers or anything. Sorry, if I did. If I didn't, well, I'm sorry anyway. Could probably use that as a preemptive apology or something. Or, you know, pop that one onto the I'm sorry for being bloody mental and trying to kill you pile. Because I am. Sorry, that is."

He arches an eyebrow, focusing on her. The fierce blue of his eyes is halting, she finds, and something she wishes she could erase and block out. Under the expanse of the sky, all she can see is the vivid color of his optic as the black void of space pulls at her heels. It's pressed under her eyelids, etched into her vision in the coming dark; he follows her in places he should never go, places he's never allowed, and yet he slithers in, incorporeal, a shade in the machinery.

"I do hope that's getting across," he continues, tugging down the fabric of his shirt. The wind carves paths around his body and he seems to tremble under its touch. "I honestly can't tell with you. You know, with the, uh… yeah, you know what? We've gone over this already. Quite a few times. No real point in doing it again."

Chell straightens her gaze back onto the road ahead. Wheatley might not be competent or capable or clever, but it seems he can be somewhat perceptive. Absently, she wonders whether this might be some sort of advantage of being stuffed into a human body. Sudden freedom from protocol and function could do a lot to an individual—or so she supposes.

Regardless, it buries something foreign between her lungs.

There might be hope for him yet.

It's well past sunset, and Chell waits at the kitchen table with the ticking metronome.

The rush of running water can be heard threading through the pipes from the washroom across the flat. A hot shower, she assumes. Wheatley came stumbling in a short while ago from his mysterious outing, face flushed and hair static-struck. After a speedy salutation, the duration of which lasted the exact amount of time it took him to shed his winter coat and shoes, he promptly absconded out of her sight and to another part of the apartment.

There is a small voice in the back of her head that pressures her to know where he's been all evening. It was somewhere important, he'd insisted earlier that morning; it was important, it really was, had something to do with his memory, but he refused to relinquish any details. In fact, the whole discussion was rather bare bones and sparse of any real substance. Coupled with his behavior's sudden and extreme pendulum in the opposite direction, the conversation was more or less along the lines of, "Hi, morning! So, hey, got somewhere to go tonight, hope that's all right—sort of important, memory-related, you understand—so don't wait up for me, yeah?" punctuated by Wheatley bolting out the door.

A great swell of unease brims beneath her breastbone. She supposes she has no real reason to ask him other than selfish curiosity (aren't you going to include me, I want to know), and even then, it somehow doesn't seem appropriate. The amount of growth they've shared over the past couple months is extraordinary, she knows, but this is something profoundly personal. The truth is that whatever kind of amnesia or memory loss that Wheatley suffers from isn't her business. If he wants to invest his time into figuring out what might've happened beyond the world Back There, that's his prerogative. He should have the freedom to investigate however and with whomever he wants. Even if that person happens to be his boss. Even if he's known said boss for significantly less time than he's known her.

It shouldn't, it really shouldn't, but it somehow makes her feel slighted.

To further compound upon that ill and twisting feeling, Wheatley is different. He's been distant and erratic since returning home last night, and all she can think is that he's discovered something troubling about himself. He'd mentioned his memories (and lackthereof) as she sat by his bedroom door with the metronome at her side, and she remembers him expressing that there was a possibility of uncovering unpleasant things. The scraping something under her skull presents a good argument: that very well could be the source of his detachment. In a similar vein, it might also be why he's so loath to disclose anything to her.

If she really thinks about it, that kind of reaction isn't so surprising. He's come this far with good intentions on his coattails, building himself up from the slew of mistakes he made as a machine, and after making such progress—both as a human and as an individual attempting repentance—it might be… well. It might be devastating. It might be uncomfortable. It might be a lot of things. She doesn't know. She isn't him, and she has no right to ask.

And perhaps it's selfish of her (it is, you shouldn't be so interested, he tried to kill you—or did you forget?), but she wants to know. If he's discovered something he's concerned about or troubled by, she wants to know. It might not include her and she might not be needed, but she wants to be a part of whatever happens. And she doesn't know why. That tiny shard of him lodged into the space by her heart has fractured into shrapnel, and it's making its way through veins and arteries and beating chambers, pulling through her in a strange and intimate way. The odd relationship they've somehow forged tugs her toward him, and she wants…

Well. Honestly, Chell doesn't know what she wants.

Wheatley has brought both stability and turmoil into her life. His existence alone has made her confront the looming creatures in her nightmares and other things that would have been better left undisturbed. He's split her open, shattering the walls she's built, and nothing but black fear pours out in constant waterfalls, soaking down her back and clutching at her legs. And yet, in spite of all of the anxious nights and dark mornings, he brings a strange sort of companionship. He's made her construct a routine she's comfortable with, and his presence is no longer something that's always lingering on her peripheral.

He's here now. He belongs.

Chell runs her fingers along the metronome's mahogany shell. It's smooth and polished, a proper device, and it reminds her of more than she'd like to admit. It's only been a month or so since he brought it home, and yet in that short amount of time, it's managed to open her up and pry things out of her that she never thought she'd hear. It's true that she can't form words or sentences, but she can make sounds. She can hum. She can control pitch and tone on some level, and that in itself is impressive.

Or at least that's what Wheatley said.

You're brilliant, you know.

If she's being honest with herself, her progress should be credited to the practitioner, not the device. He's the one that proposed the idea, after all. She never would have thought to try something like this on her own. In fact, before Wheatley showed up, she was rather content to trap herself in perpetual silence, regardless of any repercussion. Aside from performing mind-numbing clerical work and some various forms of data entry at her job, she hasn't exactly had anyone to interact with, so there was no real desire to try.

As the metronome continues to tick, she wonders if this capability is something that's been inside her this whole time. On some level, she supposes that it has. Inner strength is something she's never lacked; she exercises discipline and knows willpower, and despite everything that happened, she's calm when danger encroaches. Her voice has never been a priority. No real reason to go seeking it out when your existence is limited to testing tracks and solving puzzles for an angry, manipulative construct of artificial intelligence. Pointless, really.

Before Back There, she thinks she might have tried. Everything prior to Aperture is a soft blur. She can't be sure of anything; there are a lot of fissured memories and splintered pieces. It occurs to her that there must be a degree of brain damage if she suffers from the same sort of amnesia as Wheatley, but that doesn't matter. Regardless of what might or might not have happened, she seems to be overcoming her mutism, selective or otherwise.

Perhaps she just needed to be with the right person.

A sharp yelp pervades the quiet of the apartment. Concerned, Chell rises from the kitchen table and hurries toward the bathroom. The door is closed, as expected, but she thinks she can hear some sort of pained mumbling on the other side. With the back of her hand, she strikes it twice and strains to listen.

"I-I'm fine," says Wheatley from beyond the door. His voice is muffled, yet there is a definite timbre of panic lacing through. "Really, I'm fine. Doing good. Doing well. Sorry, didn't mean to worry you. I'm fine. Uh, I'm—oh, okay, maybe not, nope, I'm not fine, that's actually a lot more blood than I was expecting, oh god—"

Chell twists the knob without another thought and barges in. To her surprise, she's greeted by the sight of Wheatley clad in nothing but a pair of navy boxer shorts. He's leaning against the sink, pulling in shaky breaths, willowy hands pressed to porcelain and shaving cream puffed around his face. He's made an impressive chunk of progress, if she's honest. There are clean sweeps down his cheeks where the razor has been, and he seems to have more or less picked up the proper technique from watching her previously attend to his facial hair.

In spite of that, he's cut himself along the underside of his left jaw. Blots of red seep into the whitish green foam and slowly glide down the column of his throat. The razor has been dropped into the sink, she notes, meshed together with clumps of discarded foam and flecks of brown—and oddly enough, auburn—stubble.

Assuming the role of damage control, Chell draws up to him and reaches up for his face. He swallows as she places her fingers against his cheeks, guiding him down to where she can better inspect what sort of wound he's managed to inflict. He peers at her through the lenses of his glasses as she tilts his chin upward.

"Ah, that's—it kind of hurts, in case you were wondering," he says. His hands flex by his sides, as if anticipating further injury. "I mean, it's not, well, not terribly bad or anything, but I nicked it on accident, you know, not like I meant any of this, and then it just sort of started… bleeding. A lot."

Chell squints at the cut. It's not particularly large or deep, but it is indeed a cut. She doesn't know how he accomplished it. Perhaps he tried going against the grain in a rough way? Either way, she's equally amused and impressed. She's loath to admit it, but his attempts at independence and autonomy are rather endearing.

Tucking her tongue between her teeth, she reaches for a sheet or two of tissue and dabs his jaw with care. After the initial sanguine is soaked up, she applies a gentle pressure to staunch the bleeding. Wheatley grimaces, but keeps remarkably still despite his obvious discomfort. Chell is proud.

With the immediate danger behind them, she takes a moment to decompress. The air is thick with warm moisture, and the fogged over mirror to her immediate left is starting to clear. Wheatley leans over her, his body adapting to the awkward curve she's brought him in. Heat radiates from his body; there are still stray droplets from his shower, she notes, dripping down his still-damp hairline and clustered by the edges of his hipbones pointing southward. While she knows he's not as thin as he was out in the field, his pronounced collarbone and showing ribs argue that fact. The muscle in his arms and chest presses against his skin, shaping him in a spindly way, and the tendons in his hands and ankles jut out with a pleasing prominence. And his shoulders—are those freckles?

Second guessing her eyes, Chell shifts her weight onto her toes as she cranes her neck up to look. There are tiny speckles here and there, flecked upon the pale skin stretching along his shoulders. There aren't a great number of them, but yes, those are definitely freckles. It's odd; she's not sure why she's never noticed before. On his first night in the apartment, she'd stripped him down and shoved him into the bathtub to rid him of all the dirt and grime from the field, so it's not as if she hasn't seen him without a shirt. And of course, there had been a few additional encounters afterward where she'd had to instill exactly what proper human boundaries were, but it still wasn't something she'd noticed.

Then again, she hadn't exactly been as focused on his appearance then as she is now.

… oh.

Something peculiar happens to her pulse, and a distinct heat spreads through her face as she holds the folded paper to his cut. She's now acutely aware of how tall he is, of how he moves as he breathes, of how warm his skin is under the pressure of her fingers; her proximity is enough to see the hairs on his arms, the light trail that slopes down his belly, the spotted birthmark by his right hip. His face is still tilted upward by the insistence of her hand, and she can see the muscles of his throat work in a heavy swallow.

"Uh, has it stopped yet?" He tries to glance down at her, and it's then that she realizes there is a visible flush in the portions of his cheeks that have not been lathered in cream. His ears are tipped in a soft pink—was he like that before?—and his voice seems to have taken a slightly lower octave. "I-I mean, I'm, ah, not averse to—well, doesn't matter, but it's sort of starting to get, you know, uncomfortable, all bent up like this."

With a tinge of reluctance, she pulls the tissue away and crumples it in her hand. Tossing it in the washroom bin, she starts the tap and lets hot water flood the sink. As she rinses off the razor, she glances in the mirror and finds that Wheatley has more or less folded in on himself. His shoulders are hunched, his arms gathered beneath his ribcage, and his gaze has dropped to the floor. His brown hair is still somewhat wet, she notes, disheveled and feathered as though he's only just taken a towel to it, and the thick of his sideburns layers over the thin frames of his glasses. There is a part of her that recalls the night she crept into his bedroom, the same part that compelled her to bury herself against his neck, and that part regrets not entwining her hands through his hair.

What is wrong with me, she thinks, but all that replies is a chorus of I don't know.

Chell shakes the remaining water from the razor and twists off the tap. Turning to him, she holds the razor up, wordlessly asking if he intends to finish the job or whether he needs help. When he doesn't respond, she taps the flat plane of his belly with two fingers, and then holds the razor out for emphasis.

"Ah! Sorry," he manages. His teeth worry at his lower lip, and his eyes dart elsewhere around the room, as if preoccupied. "Didn't, uh, see you were gesturing." Wheatley's thumb brushes over where her fingers touched, faintly pressing at the skin. The gentle color on his face still has yet to fade, she notes, and she has a difficult time understanding why. "I can—well, I thought I could. Shave, that is. Saw you do it a couple of times, so I figured, you know, why not give it a go. You made it look easy, though. Just dragging that thing down over and over. I know it's a, well, a blade, but still, how hard could it be, right? Well, pretty hard apparently. There's your answer. Pretty hard. Bloody stupid, if you ask me."

Wheatley looks silly enough with shaving cream blotted on his face, but it's worse when he's pouting. It takes a lot of willpower not to laugh.

Chell flicks her free hand toward the toilet, signaling for him to sit down. Wheatley does as he's told and plops down on top of the porcelain lid. As she draws up by him with the razor, he slides his glasses off with a forefinger and folds them onto his lap.

"Might be easier," he says, offering a shrug. "Or at least I imagine."

Shaving him is more involved than it was. It's not difficult by any means, but she finds herself taking ample time to ensure that each sweep clears as much as it can. Each rinse is thorough, each stroke is precise, and each time she brings her fingers to his face to angle him as appropriate, she finds that her preference is to keep them there rather than draw away. It's calming, in a sense; relief; like his distance last night never happened, like he never disappeared with his boss out to who knows where, like everything is as it should be.

And exactly how should it be?

Wheatley seems tense under the work of the razor. His spine is straight, his shoulders squared, and he keeps himself silent and still. His eyes remain closed as she continues to chip away at the remaining portions of shaving cream. Each time she returns from cleaning the blades, she notices the shapes of his jaws and the column of his neck, and now the small constellations of freckles stippled along his shoulders. It makes something swell beside her lungs, something close and coiled, and she doesn't know how to react.

When the last of the whitish fluff has been swept away, Chell rinses the razor and lets it set on the side of the sink. She grabs a small hand towel from the nearby rack, and after wetting a portion of it under the faucet, she dabs the remnants of foam from his cheeks and throat. As she comes to where his cut is, she tilts his head upward with her thumb on his chin and leans in to inspect it. The surface has coagulated for the most part, she notes; it should be all right as long as he doesn't go scratching. To finish up, she pats him dry with the untouched section of the towel, hangs it upon his shoulder, and then runs the backs of her fingers along the length of his cheek.

Chell thinks she can see him shiver. It's almost indiscernible—she's sure she wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been looking—but his body does this thin, slight sway under the touch of her hand, rippling up his backbone and settling in his neck. Wheatley opens his eyes, locking onto her with the vivid and brilliant blue that once pinned her against the stars, and then snaps his gaze aside toward the shower.

"Thank you. Uh, both for the—well, for this," he says, drawing his thumb along the jawline by the cut, "and for giving me a hand. Or two. Two, actually. Two hands. Pretty sure you used both hands. Either that, or you sprouted more fingers when I wasn't looking. I don't think that's possible, though, so two it is." The side of his mouth tugs in a nervous grin.

Returning it, Chell takes one of his hands between her own. Gently, she presses her thumb against the lines that criss his palm, her fingers tracing the tendons across the back. His hand is far bigger than hers, she realizes, both lengthwise and proportion-wise, and it seems almost bizarre how much he dwarfs her in comparison. The heat from his skin seeps through her nerves in radiating circles, and she soon finds herself lacing her fingers through his in tentative movements.

"Look, I don't—ah, I don't think this is a very good idea," says Wheatley, a quiver in the threadbare timbre of his voice. "Just, you know, uh, personal space and all. I do remember you were pretty strict on that awhile back. The not touching. And now we're… we're doing this."

His brow beetles as he averts his gaze. He clasps her hand loosely, as if he's unsure of what he should do or how he should react. His discomfort is apparent in the line of his mouth and in the way his shoulders hunch. Perhaps it's from the night before, or perhaps it's from whatever sort of thing he remembered from his past, but it's making him withdraw, it's making him close in, and she doesn't know what she can do because they've done this sort of thing before; she came to him in the middle of the night, he held her hand, they've done this before.

"I'm—sorry, just, I really don't want to make things weird," he mutters. "Or, well, worse somehow. Since it seems I'm awful good at doing that. And I just have this feeling something's going to happen. I don't know what, don't ask, just something, something always happens, and then you'll—you'll hate me. A lot. More than you probably already do. And, uh…" Wheatley sucks in a shivering breath and forces a swallow, his eyes focused on his feet. "I don't think I could… deal. With that. With you. Um, hating me. Well, more. There is a certain level you're at right now, I'm pretty sure, and that's overall a lot more bearable than… ah, you know what? Ignore me. Ignore everything I just said. All of it. Well, except the first bit. The personal space part. Because I respect that. You know, being proper human etiquette and all."

There is something wedging between her heart and her lungs. Her palms are damp and her pulse is in her throat, but she doesn't care. All her mind latches onto is that he thinks she hates him. Hates him. After all that's happened, after all she's done, after the teaching and learning and humming and the mutual everything, he truly thinks she hates him?

She wants to say something. She wants to say something so badly. She wants to say I don't hate you but in different words because that's what They said and she doesn't want any of That Place in any patterns woven from her mouth. She wants to say I can't hate you but that would be a lie because she did hate him, she really did; she hated who he was and the monster he became but she doesn't hate him now, she has nothing left in her to hate—she can't—she's so tired, and it's not nice to lie. She wants to say I won't hate you because it's true, she won't hate him, she won't, even if his dredged up memories say otherwise, but she can't because she's useless and mute and weak and as much as she doesn't want to admit it, she needs him.

Instead of spilling the words she can't grasp, she leans in and wraps her arms across the flecks on his shoulders. Her nose is against his neck; she can smell the lingering sharpness of the shaving cream, and she breathes. He's too warm, too human, too close, and she pools all of her inner strength together and tries to muster what she can't seem to alone.

"Are—a-are you—" Wheatley goes rigid, muscles roping taut, "Ah, I'm—sorry, I'm just—I really—"

Her diaphragm opens up, and then she's forcing a thin hum in the juncture above his collarbone. It's weak, it's small, it's desperate; it's I won't hate you and I'm sorry and we're finally gone in one shaking sound pulled up from between her vocal cords. His hands slowly make their way up her back, folding along beneath her shoulder blades, and the pumping of his heart beats somewhere beneath her ear.

"I don't know what's happening," he says.

That's all right, she thinks. Neither does she.

When the noise dies out and when she's too spent to conjure further strength from an empty reserve, she pulls back and frames his face between her hands. His skin is smooth, addicting, warm, and something seems to stop functioning when he stares back at her with the sky in his eyes.

"I—I'm sorry," murmurs Wheatley. "This is… I-I'm—I don't know. I'm lost, honestly. I really am. There's a gap in communication here. I know you're, well, sort of in a spot, and that's okay, but I—I did mean it. The, ah, respect part. Don't want to intrude or anything. Personal space is important, from what I understand. Or from what you got across. Uh, previously."

His teeth sink into his lip as he gently guides her hands away from his cheeks. He does brush the undersides of her wrists as he lets go, and she doesn't know whether it's by accident or by intention, but it spurs her heartbeat somewhere beneath her breastbone.

"So, I guess we'll do dinner then," he says, rolling his shoulders. "And then a session, right? Because that was the situation. It was a trade, after all. And it's sort of been… er, lacking in the transactional properties lately, as it were. But that's not because of you. That's my fault. Completely mine. Taking the blame on that one since I've been home so late. Going to have to work on that. I will, though. Promise. It's just difficult, you know, with all that's been going on."

Wheatley unfolds his glasses and slides them back into their proper place. He then rises to his feet, stretching to his full, towering height as he tugs the towel down from his shoulder. A quiet note of awe drops through her rushing thoughts; she only meets his bottom of sternum.

"I'll see you out there, okay?" he says, patting along his jaws. "I'll be out shortly. Got some, uh, clothes to find. Ha."

Chell makes her way back to the kitchen with purposeful steps. Her mind is buzzing and her bones are filled with a dull ache. His behavior has shifted, he's deflecting, and she both does and doesn't know why. It shouldn't bother her because he tried to kill you did you forget, but lying to herself about it isn't going to make things any better (and it's not nice to lie). She also shouldn't pry; she told herself she wouldn't because she understands, she knows what it's like to keep things tucked inside, but that is starting to erode away at the seams.

As she enters the kitchen and spies the ticking metronome, something knocks somewhere in the back of her skull and she stops in her tracks.

Chell cares about Wheatley. She really does. She's become invested in his health, his growth, his mental and physical wellbeing, and she cares about him. Far more than she should. And not only does she care about him, she's become accustomed to it. This is normal. This is now what should be.

Two months ago, she would have been livid. She would have done far more than set his jumpsuit on fire. Entire of fields would have burned into the smoke-clouded sunset, clawing up into the open air. She would have taken a sledgehammer to the Shed; she would have smashed it in, broken the walls, destroying the elevator and cracking concrete. She would have dismantled anything and everything to do with That Place, and she would have reveled in the feeling because self-destruction and violence are so much easier than healing and because her scars always did nothing but bleed.

But now, after everything, after the darkness and The Shed and The Moon, after dealing with a reformed robot and his somehow well-intentioned attempts to find her voice, she's… content. She's better. Recovering. And she's not alone. Not anymore.

The ticking thrums into the film of her eardrums, and Chell holds her head in her hands.

This is bad.

This is very, very bad.

She loves him, doesn't she?