Chell hummed in her throat as Doug locked the door behind him.
Six months of living with Rattman and she still couldn't get over his mumblings, or rantings, or that twitchy thing he did with his hands and eyes when he was fidgety in the mornings after drinking his black coffee. She took a mouthful of her coffee, mostly cream and sugar, and went on the clean up after Doug's mess. Even after living out of Aperture, the man ravished anything that wasn't beans and left a huge mess (Chell never even thought to buy beans for a second and cringed when ever they passed the canned foods at the store) Beside his empty cracked white stained mug were his pills he had spent his pocket money on.

Chell whistled as she began clearing and cleaning the dishes, putting the pills into a drawer, and wiped her hands on her pajama shirt. Today was her day off, which meant the usual routine, consisting of sitting in front of the television, (with cable they stole from the nasty old lady on the floor below them. She had called both her and Doug a lot of things when she caught them. Chell didn't understand the words, partially because Doug had covered her ears forcefully.) Eating ice cream, (Doug joined whenever he could, mumbling that he didn't like rainbow sorbet, despite eating an entire container of the stuff more than once.) sleeping, and a jog in town around the mostly vacant park nearby. The Black Mesa incident far from any ones minds.

She breathed heavily out her nose as Betty argued with Henry about his "baby mama". She licked another spoon full of green and pink cold stuff. Doug said he had a surprise for her tonight. She hoped it wasn't another strange present, his job at the little drug store in town had provided many of thous. He bought mostly books and little toys for himself and hoarded them in a corner in their room along with his companion cube. They shared a single mattress and a large thermal sleeping bag, mainly because it was the only room that didn't have a draft, usually one of them would end up on the floor. She secretly hoped he was bringing home another sleeping bag.

She went into the bedroom and pulled her red wool turtle necked jacket off the door handle and peaked out the window. Snow. That's what it was called. And it was both beautiful and dangerous. She learned this the hard way, having fallen down the stairs outside the apartment numerous times, heavyweight boots dragging her down. She decided against jogging and instead thought about surprising Doug herself, maybe with a sweater with those horned animals, they seemed to be popular. She pulled on light brown boots that went up to her knees and her sweater. Tying her hair back with one hand and grabbing once of Doug's spare hats with the other, she turned off the television with her foot and pulled the hat on and another bigger jacket, it had small holes here and there but eh. She was determined to go out and come back before the gentle snow fall became a blizzard. She unlocked the door and made a break for the stairs, not bothering to lock the door. She jumped over the five steps leading into the complex, not chancing falling again. She stood for a minute admiring the falling white stuff and walked a little slower than she would have liked, in actuality, she just wanted to get out of the tiny, musky, smelly, somewhat damp, apartment. She passed by Doug's store, a RightGreens, a sharply dressed woman in a fur coat stared at her through the window. Chell smiled and waved unsure, the woman made a face.
Chell bet that fur was fake anyways and continued on.
Other humans weren't exactly friendly at first, especially to Doug, either creeped out by his mumblings or the way his eyes did that thing when he was hearing voices. Frankly it scares her too sometimes, no one want to hear Doug Rattman mumble about toothpicks after midnight. he didn't talk to his companion cube as much as before either nowadays. That must have meant something, other than he was taking his pills again. He would talk to her, providing half of the conversation, while she gestured and wrote her reply whenever remarked something that she couldn't reply with a simple yes or no, or a odd gesture. People often looked at them strangely when ever they go out together. In the grocery store they must look strange, Chell usually disagreeing with something Doug put in the little cart, usually little knick-knacks or things that didn't really have a purpose. She would remove it, only for him to replace it with something even stranger or more useless. Gesturing with him in public was even worse, mostly because he couldn't understand what she was trying to get across at all and mistook it for something completely different.

They had their differences, but the things they had in common kept them together.

Chell nodded at the old cashier as he said his required goodbyes, the door opened slowly and she held the blue paper bag closer to her as the snow began falling in big clumps. She walked as fast as she could without becoming unbalanced in the deep snow, no one bothering themselves about shoveling out the street or side walks. She thought about taking a shorter way to the apartment, a worn path that led from now barren wheat field to the park. She begrudgingly began walking in the path, that place was no where near here, but...

She slowly made her way up the frozen concrete stairs. Her foot slid at the top but she caught herself before she could fall all the way. She opened the door to the complex and wiped her feet on the mat beside the stairs, the land lady must have been out, her cats pawed at the door as Chell began making her way up the next two flights of stairs. Hurrying past the angry woman's apartment. She swung the door open accidentally, hitting the cheaply made wooden chair beside the little table they shared their meals at. She pulled the paper bag out from under her jacket and placed it on the table, she pulled out the thick woolly sweaters with those horned creatures on them and took out the tiny canvas she bought sneakily while right under his nose. He often used up whatever pocket money he had lying around to buy a few, but couldn't this month because of his pills. She smiled coyly and wrapped the canvas with the dark blue sweater. She put the small pile on the table under a newspaper for him to find. She looked at the small glowing red numbers on the clock over the table. It wouldn't be long before it was time for dinner.
She spent too long looking out into the empty field. That place just a dot in the distance.
How long had it been since she first saw the moon on that day? Chell stirred the light brown liquid while gazing off into no where.
Had it been a year? No. When she came out it was warmer, alot warmer.
Longer than a year? Chell wiped her head with her sleeve of her shirt and moved the meat around in the pan. It had to be, Doug only came out of there a short while after and it wasn't cold then either.
She counted the days and months and weathers in her head as she added vegetables and meat into the broth, turning it into a soup. She heard a familiar bang and turned her head to meet Doug's shaggy black beard as he attempted to get around the little couch on the right and the aggravating chair on the left. His scarf caught on the hook on the end of the door, strangling him for a instant before he could figure out what went wrong. He blinked rapidly as he removed his scarf and jacket, leaving him in a blue knitted hat and a gray long sleeve woolly sweater over his favorite white button up. He smiled awkwardly as he held up a rectangular box wrapped in red and green paper, he sniffed the air. "I-is it almost d-done?"
Chell smiled a welcome home smile and nodded. "G-good. We s-should take it to g-go. Its starting s-soon." Chell leaned her head to the side and shrugged her shoulders. "I got y-you a present, and w-we're going to u-use it." He walked briskly towards the tiny bathroom and turned on the water in the sink. Chell followed him with her eyes as he moved about. She let out a deep breath as he disappeared into their room. He was either trying to talk to his cube again or changing, but she was guessing the former. She covered the soup with the metal lid and turned the stove on low. She sat on the couch waiting, listening to him mutter to the cube. He didn't say anything for awhile until she heard him clambering in the closet.
He came out with his cube and his old holy messenger bag that he patched up regularly. He put them both down delicately beside the couch and sat close to her. "H-how was y-your day?" She gave him a nod and shivered violently before moving her hand in a neutral gesture with her hand. He frowned. "C-cold? Im s-sorry. I'll see what I can do about the heater, there is ice in the shower. I think its leaking again." She pointed to the news paper on the table touching their knees. He looked at it for a minute and picked it up. "Offensive G-game Takes Fat Jokes Too F-far?" Chell shook her head and plucked the folded sweater off the table and pushed it into his chest, he flinched as a corner from the canvas poked him. "F-for me?" She nodded and rolled her eyes as if saying duh! Who else?

He unfolded the sweater and took in a shaky breath as he saw the flash of white. "Y-you-" she grabbed his shaking pale hands, chilling to the touch, he smiled weakly as Chell pulled away and went to check the soup and put the canvas down on the table and pulled the sweater over his scrawny shoulders he pulled it down more to get a look at the reindeer patterns and gave it a crooked smile. Chell tapped her spoon against the oven to get his attention, he looked up to see her shake her head and point to the pot. "Not done y-yet?" He looked at the clock and jumped up, pulling on the jacket he had taken off and stuffing the wrapped box into his bag, though half of it stuck out "T-thats ok, w-we have to g-go!" She blinked as he got the companion cube on his back and opened the door and stood in the door way waiting for her. She let out another deep breath and pulled on the gray wool hat that lay on the table, her red jacket and took his scarf from where it lay on the table they ate at. She shoved it in his chest and began walking down the stairs as he locked the door and clicked off the lights.
He joined her out side the apartment, the snow having let up no more than a hour ago.
He hurried towards the park and she followed him slowly tracing his foot steps. She never noticed how big his feet were compared to hers. He mumbled as they walked, did he hear the cube again? He shouldn't be, he did take his pills less than twenty four hours ago, so they shouldn't have worn off. She tugged at his scarf as it trailed behind him, he gagged and turned to look at her silently giggling at him. "What is it? your h-hungry aren't you? Im s-sorry, but this c-couldn't wait. I am t-too and it w-won't take long. Only a f-few minutes. Promise." Chell shook her head and pointed to his hands, "w-what? You w-want to hold i-it?" She rolled her eyes, he was always putting words in her mouth. She grabbed his hand as he attempted to continue on and pulled out gloves from her pocket and slipped them on his bony frozen fingers. She gave him a look a poked his arm think with polyester and wool.
He smiled childishly and took her hand anyways, she didn't mind, it was cold after all, it wasn't until she realized he was dragging her toward the edge of the park and into the field that she protested. He turned to her sharply and removed the cube from his back and set it down. He sat on it and took out the rectangle gift and handed it to her to open. His face was so... scary, but that meant that he was happy so she took it with a weird smile of her own and tore at the paper carefully, "I b-bought it a f-few weeks ago j-just for tonight." She tore at the rest of the paper revealing a blue box with little stars and what looked like Space on it. She looked at him questioningly. He scratched his beard, "it's a telescope, y-you can look through it to see the stars and the p-planets an-" Chell opened the box looking at the pieces in the snow and trying to piece them together. Doug held her shoulder and shook his head, his mismatched pupils meeting hers. He began to piece it together knowingly, "s-sit down it wont t-take long." It was no secret that Chell, despite what happened before, THAT DAY, still missed her very important friend.
Doug often caught her staring at the moon, it was after all the first thing of the outside world either of them had seen. He pieced together the last of the telescope and began focusing in on the moon, it wasn't high powered at all, it was a child's play thing, but tonight was special.
When Chell had been working late the past few days he had been watching the news, and they had talked about tonight, the night that the moon was closer than before and that a big meteor shower was going to happen.

He was already planning on getting the telescope, so it just added to their perfectly planned night.
It just didn't go perfectly as planned.

Hey there! I know I've been kinda dead on here but the plot bunnies got to me the other night, not too long after I beat Portal 2.
So here's the beginning of something fluffy. Not sure what else to say. R & R for the next part.