"Absolutely, one hundred percent, truly fabulous that Christmas party was!" said Wheatley as he and Chell walked back towards Chell's house. It had long since turned dark by this time, and now thick snowflakes filled the air and danced in the lights of the town.

"A bit brisk out here isn't it? But also rather nice in its own way. Lovin' the snow falling…and the streetlights…and, ah! Yes, there's Foxglove glowing on the horizon. Downright lovely this is! Also nice of Ms. – uh, I mean, Emily to have gotten me these socks for Secret Santa. Not- not the most exciting thing I'll be honest, socks, but they look quite warm don't they? Interesting style knitted into them, too. Look kind of like those Christmas sweaters some people were wearing, only these are, well, socks. And the book's nice, too. Not sure why she seemed to think I would be particularly familiar with the works of this Dickens fellow, but…I dunno. Maybe I was at some point. Well, even if I had read it before, no problem in reading it again, right?"

Chell just smiled in response as they continued to stroll through the snow. As they climbed up the steps of the front porch, Chell let out a cough, but it wasn't the normal clearing-your-throat or trying-to-get-your-attention sort of cough. It was heavier, and came from deeper in Chell's chest. She also bent over slightly as she let out another one, even stronger than the first.

"Hey, are you ok?" Wheatley asked as he turned around.

Chell just smiled again and said, "I'm fine," but even that also sounded deeper and not quite as fine as she had wanted to sound.

"Oh no. You're not getting sick are you?" asked Wheatley with concern.

"I'm fine," Chell said again, but ended up finishing it off with another cough, and she felt some mucous come up to the back of her throat. "Oh great, not now," she thought in frustration.

"Oh oh, here, let's just get inside," said Wheatley as he opened the door for her. Chell stepped inside, and found that as she pulled off her coat and boots, she suddenly felt a little dizzy, and she swayed a bit as she went forward and leaned her hands on the kitchen table to steady herself.

"Whoa whoa! Steady now!" said Wheatley as he went forward to her side. "Here, uh, how about you sit down on the sofa, yeah? And I'll fix us some more hot choc- er, wait. Probably not the best thing to have, hot chocolate. N-not if you're stomach isn't doing so good as well. How about some tea then? Yeah? That sound good? And-and maybe some toast with jam, yes?"

On most any other day, Chell wouldn't have liked anyone to be fussing over her like this. She wasn't really one for wanting a lot of attention, and especially since after being so battle hardened from all the testing she had to do, the occasional cold didn't seem like something worth being fussed over about in the first place. But the mentioning of tea and toast with jam did sound really nice, especially if she got to share it with Wheatley for a while. It's not like she would have to do a whole lot anyway, just sit and listen. Not a lot of attention would be on her really. Just having to sit and listen to his waterfall voice.

She rather liked that. So she gave a small nod, and went and sat down with a blanket while Wheatley went about in the kitchen getting their evening tea ready.

"What sort of tea would be good to you think?" he called over his shoulder as he began to boil the water. "I'm rather partial to the Earl Grey myself, but I suppose one of these herbal or green teas would be good for a cold. Have rather relaxing aromas as well. Although I guess it would be hard to smell or taste them if your nose is too clogged. Well, maybe you could just look at it or something. Hmm. Hey, speaking of which, who do you think this Earl Grey bloke was anyway? And why would they name a tea after him? Or perhaps he had it named after himself. Maybe kinda like that Venn guy who named the Venn diagram after himself. Rather vain that is I think. Well, maybe the Fact Sphere would've known about Earl Grey. Well, probably not actually. A rather mixed up chap he was. Didn't get to talk to him a whole lot before, but our consciousnesses – whoa, kinda hard word to say that is, consciousnesses – anyway, our consciousnesses did connect for a bit after you plugged him into that massive- uh…well, yeah…we don't need to go into that. Uh, erm, ok, I think I'll just go with chamomile then. If-if that's alright."

Wheatley's voice had gone really quiet by the end of that soliloquy. Chell also felt some slight discomfort as that horrible shared memory suddenly entered in.

"Wheatley, I-" Chell began to say, but then the lights suddenly went out.

"Wasn't me! Wasn't me!" shouted Wheatley, who had flung his hands up in the air away from any sort of appliance in the kitchen. Chell could see his silhouette faintly against one of the kitchen windows. "Ok, don't move!" he said, as he slowly began to walk forward with his hands stuck straight out in front of him, feeling his way around the room.

[CLUNK!]

"Oh! Ow! That's the table, I've found the table. Ok, so from here I go- whoa! The floor's a bit uneven there. Whoop! Oh, a chair. There's a chair there, in case you were wondering. Wouldn't want you to run into it. Ok, let's see…ah! Here's the light switch!"

[click click….click click]

"Ok, that didn't work. Looks like we've got ourselves a power outage." Wheatley sighed. "Looks quite technical…Yeah, don't think I can hack this one. Well, the good news is, I got the water hot just before it went out, so we can still have our tea. The bad news is, we have no light. As I, uh, don't have my flashlight feature anymore."

"There are some candles and some matches in the cupboard to the bottom right," said Chell.

"Ah! Alright then. Ow!" yelped Wheatley as he hit his head on the countertop while bending down. "I'm ok, I'm ok. Just, uh, getting the feel for the layout here. Ok, I've got the cupboard open. Now let's see here, candles…"

Chell heard multiple items fall out and hit the floor as Wheatley shuffled them about trying to find the candles.

"Ah! I've got 'em! Now the matches…oh! They're here on the floor! Alrighty then…" Chell then heard the sound of a match coming alight from a spark. "Ah! Let there be light!" exclaimed Wheatley as he put the flame to the first candle.

After a couple more moments, and a couple of fingers getting slightly burned by the matches, Wheatley had enough candles lit to be able to see where he was going around the kitchen and living room. He then got the rest of the tea ready, and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa and handed Chell her cup of tea.

"Here you go. And rather well done, if I do say so myself," he said with a goofy grin. "Sorry, no toast though. Didn't quite get to that before the power went off. Just bread with jam then. Hope that's alright. So then, uh, seeing as how the power's out, I guess our options are rather limited as to what we can do now. TV's out and everything. No Christmas specials tonight I guess. Hmm…oh! Ding! Here's an idea! How about I read that book I got from Emily? You know, as a sort of bedtime story. Or, well, I uh- I guess you're rather too old for a, uh, bedtime story. Sorry, that idea just sorta came out."

"I think it's a good idea," said Chell as she took a sip of her tea.

"Oh, really? Oh, uh alright then!" Wheatley went and got the book from the kitchen table, and then settled himself down again on the sofa, holding the book in one hand while in the other he held his own cup of tea.

"Ha ha! Feels a bit like 'Classic Theatre' or something doesn't this? Going to read a book aloud while having a cup of tea. I guess all I'm missing is the sort of bathrobe those chaps tend to wear for some reason, but whatever. Anyway, here we go!"

Wheatley cleared his throat and began to read.

"Ahem! 'A Christmas Carol', by Charles Dickens. Whoa! I hope I don't actually have to sing any of this. Ok, well, let's find out what this is all about then. Ahem! Here we go. "Marley was dead: to begin wi-" Wait, what!?" Wheatley then flipped the book over and looked again at the cover.

"What's the matter?" asked Chell.

"I thought this was supposed to be a Christmas story," said Wheatley in confusion.

"It is," replied Chell.

"Wha-…what kind of a Christmas story starts with an announcement about a chap being dead? Rather morbid isn't it? Sounds more like Halloween material to me."

"Just keep reading. It gets better," Chell assured him.

"Well, ok fine," said Wheatley, though still with a rather disturbed tone to his voice. "Ok then, take two. Erm, "Marley was dead: to begin with…"

Within the first several paragraphs of the chapter however, Wheatley was sure this was an awful story, however far you went into it. And a few paragraphs in particular made him really horrified. For he read about Scrooge being a cold and lonely old man, who cared nothing about humanity, and his only concern was how his business was going.

For a while this didn't particularly bother him as he thought to himself, "Huh, perhaps I have read this story before at some point. At least, this Scrooge fellow seems familiar. I wonder why-"

Suddenly, it hit him, like a blow to the gut with a bucket of ice water on top. The way they described Scrooge, it reminded him… of Her. GLaDOS - that horrible monster that no one dared approach, that had no respect for genuine life of any kind, and only cared about her business; about Science. She, that perhaps no one else cared for come to think of it; not a single soul caring about whether she was alive or dead.

For a single confusing and unbelievable moment, Wheatley felt rather sorry for her. "Whoa! Why on earth would I feel sorry for that nasty piece of work?" he thought to himself in alarm. "Either this is another strange part of this whole Christmas thing, or-"

Then, to an even greater horror, he then realized what it was he was feeling for GLaDOS. It was empathy. For just then, Scrooge reminded him…of himself. It all suddenly came back to him. What he had been like while in the mainframe. Not caring for anyone else but himself, for himself…by himself.

Had everything, and yet nothing. Was cold hearted, and...

Alone.

By the time Wheatley had read the part about Scrooge only being concerned about the continual functioning of the prisons, and the 'surplus population' of mankind that could simply be disposed of, he felt something break inside himself. He had seen this very thing happen firsthand! And it was horrible.

"Oh my God…" he said out loud before he could think to stop himself.

"What's the matter?" asked Chell, with urgent concern in her voice.

"N-nothing. It's…nothing…" Before Wheatley knew it, he felt hot tears running down his face. He quickly turned away, trying to hide it.

"Wheatley? I'm serious, what's wrong?" Chell asked again, sounding nearly scared herself.

"I told you, I'm fine," Wheatley tried to say convincingly, but his voice wavered terribly.

"No, you're not fine," said Chell firmly, but not unkindly. "You've been having moments like this all day. Now tell me what's wrong."

Wheatley just shook his head and hugged himself tight. Even now, he had the tendency to curl up into a ball, or as similar to his former spherical shape as he could get, whenever he felt insecure or very afraid.

"Please," said Chell, almost pleadingly. "I can't help you if you won't talk to me."

"…Oh Chell," he said after some hesitation, but still not turning around. "You really are amazing you know that."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you are," he said. "I mean, after…after everything that happened…and all that I was…god, you even want to help me!" Now he turned, to have his tear stained eyes look straight into hers. "You gave me another chance! WHY? And…" Here again he paused as he saw utter confusion and even a twinge of fear in Chell's eyes. "Oh blimey, I'm sorry," he said, wiping off his face on his sleeve. "I-I know we've been through this already, it's just…" He let out a long sigh to steady himself. "It's just that, I've seen so many…ghosts…today."

At first he expected Chell to not have any idea what he was talking about, but instead her reply was, "So, the turret wasn't only one then?"

"Y-yeah," he said. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I have had a lot of good times today, what with the sledding and hot chocolate and the party and everything. It's just that…so many memories of the old days have come flooding back to me, all sudden-like, you know? You…you kinda know what I'm saying?"

At this point, Chell got up and went on into the kitchen, and came back with the music box Wheatley had gotten her. "As a matter of fact," she replied, "I do."

She then opened up the music box, and as the music began to play again, she said to Wheatley, "You see the mirror here?"

"Uh, yes."

"Well, I saw a ghost in that very mirror today."

Wheatley's eyes went wide. "Wha-what do you mean?"

"As I looked in this mirror, with the fire burning close to my side, and still seeing some of the scars left by my previous battles, a lot came flooding back to me, too," she said, with a slightly distant sound to her voice. "I was seeing the flames of the incineration chambers all over again, and was reminded of how I struggled and fought to get out of that Place."

Wheatley shrank back a bit. "Oh Chell, I'm so sorry! I never would've gotten it if-"

"But," she continued, interrupting his nearly hysteric apology, "it also reminded me of the fact that I HAD gotten out. That somehow, I had made it out so that at the moment, the moment I opened this box, I was safe and surrounded by friends. One of them being a part of what got me – got us – out of there in the first place." Then she again gently closed the box, and looked back at Wheatley. "That friend was you."

Wheatley, having no idea how to respond to that, simply looked down at the floor between his shoes, his whole body still shaking from all the emotion that had welled up inside of him.

"Don't worry about how you used to be," Chell continued. "What matters is who you are now. And you're our friend. You're MY friend. It's never too late to make up for the mistakes and get a new start, and that's exactly what you've done."

Wheatley then gave another long sigh to further steady himself, and turned his face towards hers. They just looked at each other for a moment, until finally a small smile came to his face. Not a cheerful one, but one that was one of the in-spite-of-what-he-was-feeling kind. And it seemed a bit random, but also rather fitting at the same time, as he said, "Maybe…maybe WE are the ghosts."

Chell found herself giving the exact same kind of smile as she reached out and put an arm around his shoulders. "Maybe we are."

Wheatley then turned completely around so that they came into a full embrace. They sat like that on the sofa for a few moments, each taking comfort in the warm presence of the other, and feeling their hearts beating against each other between them.

Eventually, the moment was interrupted by Chell having another small coughing fit.

"Whoa, steady on luv," said Wheatley, with a new real smile returning to his face. "Here, you just sit there, and I'll finish reading the rest of the story for you."

"Are you sure you want to do that?" asked Chell with surprise.

"I- I think so," he replied. "You said it gets better right?"

"Oh, yeah, it does," she said.

"Well then, let's see how this all turns out."

They settled themselves back down, this time with Chell leaning against Wheatley's side as he had one arm around her, and the other holding the book. It was a hard book to read at parts as they would get a bit dark, but after Wheatley really got going with the story, he couldn't stop reading it. Although it still felt terrifying at times as the story carried all sorts of parallels to their own story, it also resonated with him as no other story had. And the ghosts in it were most interesting to him because although they scared Scrooge half to death, they were also the best things that ever happened to him. Although the experience with them was painful, the ghosts were there to help him, and eventually it all caused him to change for the better.

Eventually, it came to the end, and with great dramatic emphasis Wheatley finished it.

"And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

He then softly closed the book, and turned to find Chell had fallen asleep at his side, with her head on his shoulder. She felt a bit feverish to the touch, but she was sleeping deeply and peacefully. He then smiled fondly at her, gave her soft kiss on top of her head, and whispered, "Bless you luv."

Just then, the little clock radio Chell had sitting on the windowsill gave a short beep. It was one o'clock in the morning. Christmas morning! Without realizing it, Wheatley had read the story right on through into the small hours of that morning. Also at that very moment, he had a visit from another 'ghost.' For the radio also gave a couple small static bursts as a message came through, put together by various channels being tuned into consecutively to create it in various voices. But soon enough, Wheatley knew the single 'person' that this message came from.

"z…ero…zero….ze..ro…..zero…..four….. a Merry Christmas to all of you!"

Then Foxglove's present began to play.

"I twirl through the driveway with angelic grace
'til I slip on the sidewalk and fall on my face.
This Peppermint Winter is so sugar sweet
I don't need the taste to believe.
What's December without Christmas Eve?"

Wheatley had another huge smile come to his face as he closed his eyes and began to hum along with the music. At his side, Chell also smiled as she heard the humming resonate through her dreams.

"All this holiday cheer
Heaven knows where it goes
But it returns every year.
And though this winter does nothing but storm
The joy in my heart is ablaze
And it's keeping me warm.
It's keeping me warm."

~THE END~