((AN: Yay, I'm writing again for a little bit, and kinda-yay, something completely different: a fanfic of a fanfic. XD At least it's -something-, sure have been neglecting this space for a while. My writing muse has kinda taken impromptu vacations on me. But at least I'm getting inspiration back from some other places. There may be more of my own headcanon Portal stories here in the future too, because I've recently become obsessed with those awesome games. x3

So if you're a little confused, but know of the Portal universe, go and read Blue Sky; it's perhaps yet the most amazingly accurately-characterized portrayal of the universe, and it's fun and feels-inducing and just drop-dead gorgeous. Even the thought of a non-mute Chell grew on me after this.))

Our Scars

She was running. Always running, the metal clanging rhythmically and endlessly beneath her boots.

She could feel the ache in her lungs, but she couldn't have the luxury of stopping to catch her breath. Not with Her voice echoing through the abyss of the labyrinthine facility, mechanical and unfeeling, with the barest hint that once, long ago, that all-consuming Voice had been human.

There was no hiding. She was everywhere, goddess of this underworld of machines and constant adrenal vapor smells, thrumming, shaking, shooting, testing, testing, TESTING...

Chell knew that she was running in Aperture's bowels between test chambers. Crisscrossing all around, above and below, were infinite catwalks of metal, leading to no exit doors that she could ever see. Any hope of an exit was drowned in moving panels and constant cameras locked onto her. Like a fox chased by hounds, she could run and evade and trick. Her own cleverness and tenacity were her constant lifesavers. Sometimes she could find a place hidden beneath the notice of the mad A.I., but only for too-short moments. She was always found again. Had to run. Had to keep running, somewhere, anywhere, up, always up.

"I know you are there", She said from somewhere above and all around. "I can feel you here."

When it started to feel like she could no longer move, her own body betraying her with its need for rest and the portal gun clutched in a waning vice grip, she saw it. The door at the end of the miles-long catwalk. It couldn't be real, but it was all that was there and she had to try.

Suddenly, the catwalk gave a lurch, and started to fall backward. Gravity dragged her down, but she strained to hang on, biting her lip, sweat making the grip harder. Had to reach the door. Foot over foot, slower, pushing on, jumping to catch more holds every few feet.

"Do you think you are going the right way?" laughed the Voice. "Think again."

Chell's jaw was set, determined and unyielding as she kept climbing. But the door only seemed further and further away, and she was slipping...slipping...below, she thought that she could feel the heat of the incinerator, flames coloring the world a flickering orange...

Then, another voice, breaking through the horror of the creaking catwalk and the droning machines. Breaking through Her commanding tone and pouring hope into Chell's rapid heart.

"Chell? Ho-hold on, hold on! Chell, you're doing the...y-you're doing it again! It's okay, love, just hold on! It's okay!"

From above the catwalk, she thought that she could see the door partly opened into a bright world never shown in the facility. Partly into daylight, framing the bright blue of a familiar optic. Wheatley's constant words of encouragement and comfort were something to draw on, to follow, to gain strength from.

Oh thank God, she'd thought without a blink of doubt.

She was climbing, faster this time, and the door and Wheatley were moving closer. As he kept pulling her up with his tidal wave of speech, the facility was left behind. She was silent, powerless.

And Chell was reminded that she was free of all of this.

"That's it, nearly there, keep at it," said Wheatley's voice, closer and calmer. Chell felt warm, but not from the incinerator's flames now miles below and unseen. This warmth was enveloping and protective.

She'd reached the door and clasped the handle, breathing hard, shoving open, pulling through. Up, out...

Out.

"You're alright...it's okay, you're here, not there. Here and safe. It's okay."

"...It's okay."

Feeling herself breathing as if she had really been running, Chell's eyes blinked open, out of sleep and out of just one of the many nightmares familiar to her since escaping Aperture. Nightmares that she still braved, though not as often as she had, thanks to the presence pulling her close to him.

As her heart slowed to a normal and careful beat, she took another deep breath. This time, different scents eased her mind out of a battle-ready mode of self-defense: her sheets, her room, the fabric of his shirt. Familiar things that she never took for granted and never would.

He lightly combed his fingers through her loose dark hair, and she looked up. She was met with concerned eyes the same blue as the optic of the Personality Core named Wheatley, though now belonging to the human he once was; a human still getting used to that fact, but picking up on it day by day.

"...You alright now?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper as he let her sit up to glance through the soft light of the cordless pebble-lamp illuminating their room. "I gotta say, that one seemed pretty intense. Been a while, too, since you had them, those nightmares...thought you were done with it for a while. Apparently not," he chuckled and adjusted his glasses. "That's taken care of though, absolutely got it under control for you; at least, I hope I did, if you're okay."

She grunted sleepily, but rubbed her eyes and met his hopeful gaze with a grateful smile. "I'm okay."

"Good," Wheatley sighed in heavy relief, as always when he'd worried about her. "Knew you would be, of course, you always are, but, can't hurt to check."

Chell snorted a quiet laugh and leaned against his side, her fingers tracing idle patterns on the back of the hand that he held her other one with. Yes, she was fine. But she didn't feel like going back to sleep just yet, for no reason but an old habit. There was once a time when she'd feared sleep and could only succumb when truly exhausted; afraid of those nightmares, though never to admit it, and mad at herself for being so. They were only dreams, and yet so real, plunging her again into her deep-rooted fear of That Place.

"You remember what it was about, this time?" he asked, and she gave him a curious eyebrow quirk, making him backpedal his words. "N-not that I'm pushing, it's okay if you don't want to say, God knows I wouldn't, oh no, not me. Just curious is all, really."

Chell regarded him with a little scrutiny. The last few times he'd brought her out of her night terrors, he'd asked what they were about. She hated talking about them, but it was also a weird sort of therapy, talking with him about things that they both feared.

Though she'd made many friends since first stumbling into Eaden, people easy to confide in, none of them could understand. And if she had her way (she sure as hell did, dammit), they never, ever would, outside of what they'd experienced before and after a brief stint in cryosleep.

She took a deep breath and looked down to the blanket, her free hand tussling her strands of hair. "Running," she started, her voice low and direct, thinking to the fog of her subconscious. "I was running, to a door. She was...was there, calling. I was slipping." Chell shivered, despite that she could still recall the heat of the incinerator. "I...barely remember any more. Just that I was escaping. But then," she smiled up at him, "You got me out again."

He grinned his widest, a proud but shy tint of color on his cheeks. His smile, she swore sometimes, could light even the darkest of rooms.

"I like when you end it like that," he chuckled and squeezed her fingers. "Always glad to be of help, you know, always; good at something, at least."

She huffed a laugh and buried herself into his side again, though she couldn't help but notice his demeanor as he slowly brought his arm around her shoulders. He was a little pensive and nervous, biting his lower lip and flicking his eyes every-which-way, as if he had something more to ask and was thinking of how to go about it.

She knew Wheatley too well by now to know that was exactly the case.

Chell nudged him and he turned back to her, meeting the unspoken question in her calm light-steel eyes. He gulped. If she knew something was wrong, he knew that he wasn't going to get away with waffling out of it.

He ran his fingers through his messy blonde hair and pressed his lips into a grimace before beginning. "I was wondering something, actually...been wondering for a while, almost every time you have these to be honest. Um...do you...well, I should say did you, I mean, I don't think you'd have them now, considering...everything...but you still might. Right, sorry, the point, getting to it."

He nervously met her eyes. "Do you have nightmares about...about me? You know, about how I was before, all bossy and wanting to kill you and everything. I-I mean, how couldn't you, really? I was horrible, monstrous...and-and I can never really..." he hid his face in his palms, a fierce shudder racking his lanky body. "I still have nightmares about that. Surely you have to as well, right?"

Chell watched him worriedly while the question rolled in her mind. She knew it was a time he still deeply regretted and thought about, if there came a moment when he thought too much, and when he wasn't occupied in his endless curiosity of everything human and the world that they both now shared. When he wasn't living in happy, bountiful optimism, he was back there in a Hell that he'd created and still wasn't sure that he could ever take back, despite the true sacrifice he'd gone through to right his wrongs.

But as for herself...

Chell barely remembered the details of most of her nightmares. She just knew that they were all of testing, of that place, of Her taunting voice, and of the relentless push to survive everything that She threw at her while keeping her will intact and her words locked deep in her throat. She tried to remember. But, she was surprised to find, when she did...

"...No. I don't."

Wheatley jerked up in surprise, his head whirling back to her. "You...what, really? C'mon, love, don't say anything to make me feel better, please...you have to have had one at least..."

Chell silenced him with a fervent shake of her head, her hand finding his and letting their fingers lace together. "I've never had one about you. Even before you came back. Not one."

His stare was still colored with disbelief, the bottom of his eyes twitching with emotions welling from that very active place in his chest. "But...but how couldn't you have...I mean, I was like Her. Worse than Her, I..."

Wheatley felt her squeeze his hand, warm and strong. "You weren't Her, though." She shut her eyes tight, the image of a massive white chassis and a glowing yellow optic piercing the darkness. She felt his touch staying the shudder she felt. "She was always a nightmare. A monster from the beginning. You weren't."

Chell breathed, gathering her words. It was hard for her to be reassuring through speaking when she was always rather blunt and direct. But by the way both of her hands now held one of his beneath her chin, he was finding her assurance anyway, unspoken and steadfast, and was listening attentively.

"Back when I put you in Her body...and after you became like that...there were times I thought that you were still in there somewhere. That maybe I could...save you."

His lip was trembling while hearing her; she'd never really spoken about what happened right after he'd gained control. "...You thought that? You really d...but a-after I...tried to kill you..."

She closed her eyes with a solemn grimace and lowered his clasped hand to her lap. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach, remembering. That was the point in that venture that he'd been past forgiveness, and past the privilege of her hope.

"You'd become that monster," she bluntly confirmed, and he bit his lip hard. He thought for a split second that he was going to be on the receiving end of a well-deserved insult. He feared the ones from the girl in front of him more than from anyone in the world.

But as always, his expectation was unfounded. Her head shook. "But you were never supposed to be that monster. And even long after I escaped...and through the four years before I found you again...I still didn't have nightmares. Because a part of me thought...that the old you was there somewhere. A part of me...missed that. Dreamed instead that...you were yourself, the way I remembered."

She smiled, the soft kind of smile that gave a flutter to his heart and lit up his own world. Her hands squeezed his. "And you are. So no, I don't have nightmares about you. That you, from before...that's in the past. It's done."

Wheatley struggled to find his words; a very rare thing for him. "But...I was still...you really...?"

She shook her head, telling him in no uncertain terms that the subject was dropped...that he never had a reason to worry. She laid her cheek in his palm, caring and trusting. "Wheatley. That's over. It's done."

It's done. Those words, right then, filled him with unimaginable light. For the first time in ages, Wheatley thought he felt that he was well and truly forgiven.

He still doubted himself, and a part of him could never stop...but looking at the resolution in her eyes, hearing the finality in her voice in that moment, it was a declaration. It was law, set in stone, her sincere and always-unshakable truth. It's done.

Still hardly believing what he'd heard, he felt the welling of emotion from his chest cinching his throat (oh God, I'm going to leak again...), and took her into a tight embrace, his punctured laughter ringing in her ear as his face bowed into the crook of her neck.

"Have to be honest," he sniffed as one of her arms wrapped his back and the other combed through his hair, "I was almost certain you did have nightmares about me. But you keep surprising me, love, you really do. Just...thank you for that. All I can say, really."

He pulled back and swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, adjusting his glasses before placing his forehead on her shoulder again. "I guess I really shouldn't think about it too much, yeah? Bit of a problem of mine, that."

"Stop thinking, then," she dryly joked, and his indignant snort was felt as well as heard.

"Come on now! That's impossible you know, literally impossible, to stop thinking. I have to have some brilliant ideas every now and again, don't I?"

She shrugged with an innocent smirk, and he groaned, flopping back into the pillows. By doing that, he realized once again what time of night it had to be, and rubbed his eyes.

"...Bah...well, at least I can stop thinking about nightmares. Gets too worrying after a while, certainly no good for the old human brain. Silly things, human brains. What's the use of nightmares anyway, other than to give you a fright when you try to sleep? Rude of it, that's what it is, bloody rude. You'd think they'd stop, the nightmares, after you actually get out of the scary thing. I mean, right, you said it yourself; it's done, we're free." He rubbed his head, as if trying to metaphorically get his brain's attention on the matter of the complaint. "Why keep at it?"

Chell laughed again, a hearty sound that never failed to fill him with warmth. She nestled in close and pulled the blankets back over them, resting her head on his chest where his wonderfully human heart thrummed a steady beat in her ear.

"Not that easy to get rid of nightmares," she said. Her eyes closed, and she was being lulled by the rise and fall of his body with each breath. "Just like scars. They don't heal easily. They just get easier to deal with."

Wheatley hummed. He knew of scars; his human body had a discolored line or two, and from where they came, he never remembered...only that they were wounds a past and foggy part of him knew. And he'd seen the marks on Chell's calves where once a pair of braces were practically bolted to her flesh, as well as other badges of endurance from That Place marring her skin.

The mind can be scarred too, he thought with a small shiver. But happily, in the morning it will have turned out to be nothing more than that, just like always. A dim memory lost to the night, a small mark lost on the skin.

Chell had already fallen asleep again, and Wheatley felt like he was soon to follow suit. Placing his glasses back to the side, he pulled her as closely to him as he could, a warm tangle of limbs under the blankets. It was all he could to ward away his savior's deep fears and echoes of the past, dark things of which he knew at least that he wasn't a part of.

His lips pressed briefly to the crown of her head as he drifted off. "Sweet dreams, love."