"I'll start getting everything working while you perform this first simple test," the all-too familiar (and heretofore unmissed) Voice explained. "It involves deadly lasers and how test subjects react when locked in a room with deadly lasers."

Chell was hardly paying attention. And her mind certainly wasn't on testing at the moment. A part of her was too busy trying to work out how to go about escaping, now that She was online again and more vindictive than ever.

And speaking of escaping, the other part of her was occupied with the unconscious android who had been dumped unceremoniously in front of the test chamber alongside her a few minutes ago. She wondered when his system would finally reboot.

She wondered if it would reboot.

Chell wasn't even sure exactly why she was so concerned for him. He was technically a part of Aperture too, after all, a product of the place that was keeping her prisoner. Then again… he had woken her from cryosleep, and seemed to want Out almost as much as she did. She supposed, in a way, the facility had been keeping him prisoner too.

And anyway, she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for his being reduced to this state in the first place.

When She was reactivated, one of the first things She'd done was call Chell out for "murdering" Her. Chell could practically feel the passive-aggressive suppressed rage in Her voice vibrating through her boots. GLaDOS wanted her dead. She had always wanted her dead. But She needed her alive. As much as She would have loved to pay Chell back, with [99999]'s worth of interest, there was still Science to be done. And Chell, by good luck or bad, was the last test subject left.

So She had no choice, but to vent Her frustrations in a different way.

It almost made Chell sick to her stomach the way She had looked her dead in the eye as She lifted Wheatley into the air with one of Her claws, suspending him by the throat. How by a mere flick of Her wrist She tossed him aside.

Chell knew She had done it to get a reaction out of her. And infuriatingly, She'd succeeded. Seeing him collapse on the floor of the dilapidated chamber and not get up again was like an icy stab to her chest, and Chell couldn't keep back the expression of horror and dismay until it was far too late.

She now loitered in the chamberlock, staring straight ahead at the doorway that led to the first of endless tests, but not taking a step towards it. Chell wasn't a time waster by nature, but every time she thought about moving forward, her eyes flicked to the motionless android a few feet away. She was perfectly capable of solving the test without him, she knew. Hell, she was capable of escaping without him. She'd done it once before already.

Well. Almost, anyway.

She'd had to do things on her own for about as long as she could remember. She had made it through Aperture, defeated Her, without any help last time (cryptic murals notwithstanding), and she had no doubt she could do it again.

But did she really want to?

"Where are you going?" the Voice demanded, sounding a pretty even mix of incredulous and pissed off. "The test chamber is that way."

Chell ignored Her. Upon reaching Wheatley she lowered herself beside him, prepared to wait however long it took for his system to come back online. They'd made a deal, after all. This was his escape as much as her own, and Chell didn't believe in breaking promises.

Besides. What exactly was She planning on doing about it? She couldn't kill Chell outright, no matter what She said, or else that first chamber would never be solved. She'd been waiting to get back to testing for this long; She could damn well wait for a few more minutes.

"Oh you are kidding me. You're not actually worried about him, are you? I would have thought you of all people would be used to violence. Or do you only enjoy it when it happens to me?"

Chell tuned Her out. She'd now pulled Wheatley's head onto her lap and was relieved to hear the whirrs and clicks within his casing that indicated the self-repair process was in motion. At least he was still alive.

"What do you even think bringing him along will accomplish? He can't solve the tests for you, if that's what you're thinking. Even if he wasn't unbelievably stupid, all Aperture-made androids are given cheating preventative software upon activation. So now that that's all cleared up, you can stop wasting your time on him and get to the test."

Chell ran her fingers through his hair absentmindedly. She supposed, in theory, she could solve the test and then come check on him afterward. But she thought about what might happen if he woke up while she wasn't there. It would look like she meant to go on without him. His trust in her was tentative enough; she didn't want to jeopardize it if she could help it.

If nothing else, this might make up for not catching him.

[Running diagnostic… System damage rating: 20%]

[System backup: successful]

Awareness trickled back into Wheatley's mind. What had happened…? He remembered a lot of red flashing lights, alarms, the looming reality of certain death. Her. She was awake, and it was his fault and they were both going to die.

Both of them… The Lady… The Human. She was the one– the one from before. She'd killed Her [well how was I supposed to know nobody tells me anything wasn't she supposed to have escaped ages ago?]

He was lying on something solid, but it didn't quite feel like the floor. Or at least not the same floor. Something foreign but not entirely unpleasant tickled near the top of his head, scattering his thoughts.

Pain. The last thing he remembered was pain, the life being all but squeezed out of him by an invisible vice with all the pent-up anger that was meant for her– the other 'her', (God this was going to get confusing)– behind it.

[Rebooting device. Please stand by…]

The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was a blur of orange, extremely close. But he barely gave himself time to register it, bolting upright as soon as he was physically capable, and panting although it served no purpose whatsoever.

"AAH! Okay, what happened, how long was I out for?" he babbled. Chell, who had been more or less leaning over him, recoiled in surprise, avoiding a violent collision of their heads by a few centimeters as he suddenly sprang back to life.

She scrambled to her feet and leaned down to help him stand, all the while listening to him ramble on in an increasingly panicked manner. As jarring as it was to suddenly be hearing his voice again, Chell found it came as a relief as well. She'd grown accustomed to it in the time she'd known him, to the point where its absence was rather unnerving.

"Ohhh, that's right. We're back here, aren't we," She was trailing behind him, trying to keep up as he paced erratically back and forth. "Well that's just bloody perfect isn't it! I'm sorry, luv, I wanted to avoid this…!"

He suddenly froze, then spun on his heel to face her. "Although really, you could have SAID something, couldn't you?! Just a bit of a heads-up, y'know: You, Her, bitter rivals, just the gist of it! I mean if I'd known, then maybe I wouldn't have–"

Chell's expression dared him to finish that sentence.

He immediately backpedalled. "No! Nonono, nothing like that! I still would've woken you up! ...Most likely. I-I was just going to say that– well, it would just have been nice to know, right? Probably- wouldn't have really changed much, admittedly, at the end of the day… but still. Better to at least be expecting it, I would think."

Her countenance softened, and he let out a simulated breath of relief. A moment of tense silence passed before he said, "So… you're really them, are you? The human that escaped, all that time ago? Well, I mean, obviously you didn't actually escape, did you, if you're still here. But we all thought you had, at any rate. Could almost say you're ah, a bit of a legend, around here.

"…I suppose you're not actually brain-damaged either, are you?" he added, somewhat bashfully. As more came back to him of the incident that had led up to their current situation, he recalled how Chell had looked when She had started menacing them. The seemingly not-quite-there girl who jumped when you asked her to say 'apple' had disappeared without a trace, the façade dropping to reveal a coiled spring, the very definition of tranquil fury. "Joke's on me, isn't it? Thinking this was your- you're first rodeo, so to speak. Poking fun at you like I did– should probably apologize for that, too, shouldn't I? After all, getting on your bad side is, hah, probably not a good idea…"

He was avoiding her gaze, twiddling his fingers around and around each other in his nervous way. The more he spoke, the more he began to look like a frightened rabbit ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. His thought process was clear: If Chell could kill GLaDOS, what could happen to him if he angered her?

She frowned. Did he really think she would hurt him? When GLaDOS had called her a monster... had he believed Her?

He flinched when he felt her hand on his arm, but his rambling stopped and he finally looked at her. She gave him a gentle smile and shook her head.

"Yeah, no. Wouldn't be a good idea at all, would it? Like I said, you've sort of got a bit of a reputation–"

Chell shook her head again. Not what I meant. She paused to think for a moment about how to get her point across…

Finally, she pointed at Wheatley, pantomimed a choking motion around her own neck, then squeezed his shoulder again, giving him a concerned and questioning look. It took Wheatley a few seconds to realize she was asking "Are you okay?"

"Oh…! You- you mean– from the–? Yeah, I'm fine, luv, no worries! It- wasn't actually all that bad, to be honest, the system damage was… frankly minimal, nothing the old self-startup process couldn't handle. Would've thought She could do a lot worse, actually." He was grinning now, and leaned in to murmur conspiratorially to her: "Guess either I'm sturdier than I thought, or She's gotten a bit rusty over the years~."

Chell chuckled, which he realized was something he'd never seen her do before. She somehow avoided making any noise while doing so, too, even though he knew now that she had a voice– although he wasn't likely to hear it again for a while now that She was up and about.

Speak of the devil…

"Oh goody," She said, completely devoid of enthusiasm, from the viscinity of the ceiling. "He's online again. You know, I did the math, and taking into account your personal average, in the fifteen minutes you spent waiting around for him, you could have solved Test Chamber 1 five or six times and then still made it to Test Chamber 8 with time to spare. I hope it was worth it to you, because to me, it just means a lot of wasted time that we'll have to make up later. That's fine, though. We have all the time in the world."

Wheatley looked curiously at Chell, wondering if he'd heard correctly. She certainly didn't strike him as a procrastinator. And yet she'd kept Her waiting for fifteen minutes?

…Because she wanted to make sure he was okay?

Chell met his gaze, her expression unreadable, except for what he swore was the tiniest of smiles playing at the corners of her mouth.

*ahem*

"Remember just now, when I said we had all the time in the world? That was not an invitation to keep standing around and doing nothing."

Wheatley hardly knew what to think. He couldn't remember the last time anyone– much less a human– had expressed any concern for his wellbeing. And he found it especially difficult to understand why Chell, the only human who'd ever succeeded in besting Her, would also care enough about him to bring Science to a standstill for a whole quarter of an hour.

She really was something, alright.

By this time however, it was clear she was finished waiting around. She'd picked up her portal gun again and finally approached the door of the chamber. Before entering she turned and gave him a look. You coming, or what?

He shook himself and moved to join her. "Right! So we're off again then? Yeah, you're right, probably best to get a move on…

"…Hey."

She looked at him.

"Thank you, by the way. For- looking out for me, that is. You really didn't have to. A-and I know you're probably more than capable of getting out on your own, and I know I haven't been much help, so far, but… I'd still like to try, if you'll let me."

He extended a hand and, after a moment's hesitation, she took it, smiling. Her grip was strong and sure, but her hand was soft. For a moment, Wheatley almost forgot to actually shake it. Hah… now wouldn't that be awkward…

The Voice from above startled them both. "SOME TIME TODAY?"