Innocent《Chelley》

Chapter 7

It was the most fitting grave that she had seen for him. She had no idea if plugging the SLEEP wire back in would return him to his old self, or whether he would suffer permanent memory loss, or whether he would even wake up at all. He had been so damaged; it was hard to predict what would happen.

Chell pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were now beginning to trickle down her face. She had to think.

It was easiest to just leave him there, to not touch him, but he looked so profoundly inhuman, sprawled out on that chair; his limbs were going ways they weren't meant to go. She wanted to move him, but the thought of having to pick him up kept her where she was.

She heard Wheatley walk towards her.

Then she felt his hands on her wrists. He gently pulled her hands away so that he could see her.

Wheatley's face was strangely determined. It was hard to take Wheatley seriously when his features were set like that: he looked like a child, not a man. But his eyes were focused on hers, and she wasn't feeling well, so she let him speak to her.

"This is actually a great turn of events," he said, holding her wrists tightly. "We can actually focus on fixing him now. He's not going to struggle when we try. This is going to be easy." He gave her a frightened smile. "Alright? No need for the tears, love."

Chell stared at him and shook her head slowly.

"What do you mean, no?" Wheatley's smile disappeared. He let Chell pull her wrists out of his grip. His eyes were wide with disappointment. "Don't you want to see him fixed?"

She turned and looked at Space. Though the smaller core's mouth was gaping open, his eyes were still and peaceful underneath his closed lids.

It took a lot of strength, but after a few minutes of tense silence, Chell shook her head no.

Wheatley's voice held a note of frustration in it. "So you just want to leave him? Out here, where the birds can get him?" The frustration began to turn into a simmering anger. "This ship might explode or something. He might get burned to death. He could die!"

Suddenly Wheatley pushed past her to get to Space's body. Before Chell could stop him, he picked Space up and held him to his chest. Space's body, limp as a ragdoll, sagged in his arms, and his head lolled on Wheatley's shoulder, but Wheatley held him up as gracefully as he could.

He growled, "I can't let you leave him here, Lady. I don't know how much you know about robots, but I, being one, know more than you. And I say that I can still fix him!"

This was Space's resting place, Chell thought to herself. He had been happy here. It would be cruel to let Wheatley take him away.

An anger rose in her to match Wheatley's.

She imagined Space waking up, terrified out of his mind, wondering where on Earth he was. Assuming he didn't have memory damage, he could escape and try to go back to the ship. He could get lost: he wasn't the most focused core. He could get stuck in the wheat fields and never return.

He could wake up and not recognize Chell and Wheatley: he would only know that he was in a strange place (not Aperture) with strange people. It was questionable that Space would even remember what a human was.