They were running, just like before, running with hell on their heels and the sound of their footsteps echoing like the heartbeat of a panicking animal down the hall. They couldn't stop, not with Her fury blazing behind them and her hand like a vice on his wrist. Everything was dingy and grey save for that one constant of orange, but it was too blurry, something was wrong and he couldn't see as well as he thought, and then the corner came too fast into view and he tried to stop her no there's turrets, luv, don't turn the corner you'll get shot STOP—

And then he overshot the distance just like before, saw her dive to the ground and tried to slow down himself but not before their red eyes found him, and suddenly the floor felt a lot harder and his chest hurt a lot more than he remembered and he tried to stand up I'm supposed to save her but it hurt too much and everything twisted and warped in his vision. Her Voice was everywhere at once, pounding into his skull as the red spread onto the concrete, malicious and terrible and victorious—

"I warned you."

He couldn't breathe, and three gleaming crimson eyes stared down at him without pity, and he couldn't see her at all, his one constant had abandoned him and now the world was dimming, spinning, but Her Voice was painfully loud and slow, and he could hear every word and every hate-filled syllable—

"That's what you get for being human."

"AAAH!"

Wheatley woke with a start, eyes snapping open in the pitch of early morning. For a few panicked seconds he forgot where he was: everything around him was just dark shapes and blurs until a dim shaft of moonlight came into focus a few feet away. He scrambled for the glasses Doc had made with a clumsy hand, shoving them on his face and nearly taking an eye out in the process. He calmed down as he recognized the landmarks: the big table with a faint coat of flour still on it, the radio sitting on the windowsill, the kitchen door, the stairs. He shuddered in relief, sinking into the couch and releasing his death-grip on a throw pillow.

It was just a dream.

He wasn't really back There, not really, it was just a trick of the mind that had finally come back together again after being ripped and torn and hurt and healed all for the sake of science. The simple living room he was in, the fact that he could hear how ragged his breath sounded in the moment he woke up, the moon barely a sliver in the sky instead of full and hollow—this proved what was real. "There" didn't exist anymore, as far as Wheatley was concerned. It may have existed once, in memories and a past he couldn't deny, but it was gone, *ding*, right off the map. His world was Eaden, and Chell. That was all he really needed.

This was the first time he'd ever dreamt about it, though. In the few days it had taken the entire population of Eaden to shuffle back to their homes from the wheat fields, whenever he'd had to sleep it had just been blissfully quiet and peaceful. Of course, he often had to catch up to the townsfolk who somehow decided it'd be a grand idea to keep moving and not tell him, but nothing had ever tried to disturb his sleep.

But this…this was terrifying. It was like watching the monitors or the security camera footage, but he was actually in them, and no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to, he couldn't look away. He'd been without a normal human dream for so long he'd forgotten that they could get so…twisted. The worst part was it felt so real, too.

Wheatley sat up, running a hand over his chest to check for any bullet holes. He was still wearing some of Garret's old clothes from the box he'd donated the day they came back, nothing special save for a few rips in clothes he must've worn working on Foxglove. They were just a tad loose, too, but Wheatley was grateful for anything to wear that didn't have an Aperture logo on it. He took another deep breath and stretched out on the couch again.

Thunk.

He looked up. It sounded like something had fallen upstairs. He was tempted to ignore it and just try to go back to sleep, but the last time he'd investigated a mysterious thunk from upstairs…well, it had been important. He stood up, stretched, and made his way up the stairs trying desperately to avoid all the squeaky spots (but failing miserably). When he got to the top of the stairs, Wheatley saw a pale yellow light coming from the crack under the door to Chell's room. He started to panic but remembered that if it was indeed deadly, scalding fire—the kind that burned peoples' houses down—something would be smoking by now. Still, he was preternaturally cautious sidling up to the door. It was closed, but the sound of something shifting among fabric could be heard through the wood.

He knocked softly. "Chell?"

No answer.

Wheatley nudged the door open a smidge. "Chell?" he murmured again from the doorway. When she didn't respond again, he ignored all statures of grace and common courtesy and decided to barge in anyway.

She had her back to him, tangled in a net of bedsheets and blankets on her mattress in the corner. Her room was just as plain and sparsely decorated as he remembered: wood paneling, no rugs, barely anything soft to lie on except the (occupied) mattress. Scanning the far wall uncovered the culprit of the thunk and the glow; somehow, Chell had knocked the small pebble lamp off the corner of her bed and onto the floor. It sat there, lopsided, a black electrical cord threading from the base back to an outlet along the wall. Thankfully, it was the sort of lamp that was used to a temporary beating, and Wheatley was relieved to see it showed no signs of smoking or otherwise spontaneous combustion in the near future. Checking to make sure Chell was still sleeping, he performed an encore of his awkward let's-try-not-to-step-on-any-creaky-floorboards dance, snatched up the lamp and placed it delicately on the corner of the bed again.

She shifted, making a noise of protest. Now that she was on her side facing him, Wheatley felt a twinge of pain in his chest, right there, at her state: clutching the folds of a blanket close to her, her knuckles nearly white from reluctance—or refusal—to let go. Her dark brown hair messy from constantly turning over in her sleep.

She looked like she was about to cry.

Catching himself before he could shout at her like the last time, Wheatley settled for a much quieter approach: carefully, like someone petting a stranger's dog that did not know whether it would bite him or not, he put a hand on her shoulder.

Several things happened at once. Her eyes snapped open, looking straight at him. Startled out of his wits, Wheatley stumbled back a few steps and tripped over his own feet while Chell sat up, drearily, rubbing her face with the back of a hand. Ordinarily she would have permitted a laugh (or at the very least, a smile) at Wheatley's antics, but something stopped her before she could—

It seemed a little too real to be a true dream, and besides, That Place was buried miles away, self-sufficient I thought you were done torturing mecontent to turn under the earth under their feet under Her eyes—

"Take a good last look."

The sun was dying and her sun was dying and everything was too vivid, too red, the field too golden this can't be real this can't—

"You did this to him, you know."

And she tried to hold on to him, to keep him from going don't leave me PLEASE but he was slipping, he said something but she couldn't hear, because everything around her was choking in life and She came from below the earth to taunt her, ridicule her, make her see the outcome of a bad decision—

"How does that make you feel."

"Chell?"

She looked up.

Wheatley was still sitting on the floor, legs folded beneath him, but once he figured out she wasn't going to hit him or otherwise freak out he scooched closer until they were about eye level. Eyebrows scrunched together, the stratosphere in his eyes betrayed overwhelming concern and fear. She tried to smile, just to reassure him that she was fine, it was just a dream, but something caught in her throat and she looked away.

"Are you alright, luv?" he said softly.

Chell started to nod, gave up, and shook her head, still refusing to look him in the eye.

"…Do you want to talk about it?" He tried for a grin, the nice kind of smile that told someone nothing was as serious as they made it out to be, that all anyone needed on a bad day was to smile and everything would be alright, but it fell flat. She still wouldn't look at him. Thinking she needed to be left alone, that maybe he did something wrong without even realizing it, that yet again trust Wheatley to have messed things up, he slowly got to his feet and headed for the door.

She had to take a shaky breath. "Wheatley, I had a dream where…you died."

He stopped. He turned to look at her, taking in her broken expression and knowing this was his price; sure, the whole 'being human' thing had its ups and downs and more than its fair share of getting used to, especially after years of false reality and a shaky whirlwind of a week trying to make amends, but somehow his brain had glossed over the mortality bit. Humans died. They died all the time, from natural causes like disease and old age and neurotoxin. They died from each other, from violence and war and guns and bombs, and even aliens according to history. But somehow, Wheatley had never thought to apply the death truth to himself, and the fact that it was a real threat and that it could cause this much pain floored him.

"W-well, uhm," he fiddled with the corner of Garret's old shirt, trying to come up with the words that would make everything better, "well, I, guess what! Still alive, haha, still right here in, uh, your bedroom, not considering dropping off the face of the planet anytime soon—or ever, ever actually, definitelynot planning on it. Wouldn't really be fun, especially with all that empty space up there, not my definition of a good time, but ah, nope, still living, right here, in the flesh— " he slapped the palm of his hand against his chest for good measure— "ow, so rest assured, Chell, I'm not leaving you." He offered a shaky smile.

She seemed satisfied with his answer and gathered some of the blankets around her knees. Taking this as a second cue to exit, he turned for the door again.

"Wheatley." He looked back. Her eyes were still scared, even when the rest of her body seemed lax. "Don't go."

He walked back over to her bed and sat down, back against the wall and legs stretched out in front of him. Chell moved over to the wall and leaned her head against his shoulder, fingertips catching part of his shirt. Trying not to get his arm trapped and pinned to his side, Wheatley edged it out from behind her and draped it over her partially-blanketed form. Within seconds she was asleep again. He smiled.

He wasn't going to kid himself: humans died, and they died all the time. But for a while, or at least that night, Wheatley felt invincible.