Uh. Hey.

So... 6 months...

Sorry about that.

Yeah I'm just gonna be blunt. This has definitely fallen to the wayside as of late. Not because I've stopped caring about this story, because I do. In fact I've thought about it almost every day. But every time I thought about it, I found myself not looking forward to hashing out more of the story. I wasn't dreading it, but I wasn't excited about it either- and I don't want the story to suffer because I just want to throw a poorly thought out chapter in and get it over with. So I think I'm gonna put this story into the dreaded "hiatus" status- wait for the inspiration to come back to me, as I'm sure it will. Wheatley and the Doctor haven't seen the end of their journey staring at a field of wheat for the rest of their lives, I assure you. Maybe it'll take 6 months, maybe a year. It'll come back, I promise. And I don't make promises lightly.

So here's this last chapter that I've been working on. As before, critique is encouraged (really), and Follows and Favorites mean the world!

After an hour of walking in the field that he and the Doctor began their search, Wheatley realized something.

Walking was awful.

Perhaps if they had been walking for a short while, it wouldn't be so bad- but they had been walking for ages at this point. It felt like days, but he knew that couldn't be right. At least he thought that couldn't be right. Time, like a lot of other things, was proving incredibly difficult to track as a human. It was so much easier before, all he had to do was pull up his internal clock and bam, he had the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond. Granted, some of the bigger stuff like years or months had become slightly corrupted over time, but his basic timekeeping was fine- perfect even. Now he was finding he had none of that innately stored in his memory. He was relying on guesswork now. All he knew was that it had been a long time.

His feet hurt. He didn't know feet could hurt, but they did. They begged him to stop. He bloody hated being human. Hated it to no end.

"Doctor... How much farther do we have to go?" Whined Wheatley to the brown overcoat swaying in front of him.

The Doctor turned around with his face glued to the glowing end of his sonic screwdriver.

"It shouldn't be too long, I don't think. We're definitely going the right way...right?" With a single motion the Doctor spun around with his screwdriver-arm outstretched, turning into a human compass before stopping when his back to Wheatley, then retracted the arm and turned around once again. "Right. My best guess is about another hour until we see life, which considering we've only been walking for an hour isn't too bad."

"An hour?! We've been moving for longer than an hour, we must have!"

"No, it's been an hour... almost on the dot, actually. Trust me, I'm good with time."

"Well, I, uh..." Wheatley stammered uncomfortably, realizing he couldn't actually refute the Doctor's claim. "It feels longer."

He started walking again, looking over his shoulder at Wheatley as he said "I don't doubt it. Getting used to a circadian rhythm isn't going be easy when you're used to a clock."

"A what?" Wheatley caught up to the Doctor so they were walking side by side.

"Circadian rhythm! Not only is it fun to say, It's one of the most crucial things for humans in order to function. It's pretty basic- s'mostly focused on the release of melatonin into the bloodstream as sunlight decreases, but it gets the job done. For most things that need a specific time, they use a watch or another nearby clock."

"Watch, watch..." Something was rattling around in his memory as he thought about it. Suddenly a shroud lifted over a scrap of memory. Two humans talking over a computer, while he was suspended above them.

"Hey, when is that test supposed to happen?" One turned their head towards another.

"12:30 sharp." Said the other, still focused on the screen.

"You have a watch, right? What time is it now?"

The second one looked at a device on their wrist. "12:29 sharp."

The memory fell away as silently as it came, leaving his head uncomfortably empty as he lost his original train of thought.

They continued, Wheatley asking the Doctor how long it would be until they reached whatever he was scanning for, until something in the distance caught his eye.

It was a building. Bright red. A tower, bright metal on the top and red as well. What it was, Wheatley didn't know or care. It was a break. A break! His feet hurt so much, he couldn't stand it. All he wanted was somewhere to stop. He pointed his arm out at directed the Doctor's attention towards the buildings, who had been twirling his screwdriver around and throwing it in the air like a baton.

"There we go!" He said in delight. "Only took a couple hours! Not bad for on foot."

"Not bad for on foot, not bad for on foot...!" Wheatley huffed under his breath. "I don't have any idea how you got to that conclusion. I can't walk for another minute! I think my feet may fall off!"

"Oh, calm down. It's not like we've been walking all day. You're just not used to it."

"I-" Wheatley sighed. "Fine. Let's just get over there already."

After grumbling for several minutes about his foot pain, they arrived at small brown house. It had nestled itself gently between the silo and the barn, making it hard to see from afar. As the pair got closer, the wooden structure stepped out from its hiding place to greet them. It didn't look anything like what Wheatley had seen in Aperture. Nothing was made of wood in Aperture. He wondered why this one was made with such flimsy stuff. Then he considered that this wasn't Aperture, and things were probably allowed to be a little less battle-hardened than in the death-facility.

Huh, 'death' facility. I like that. Certainly fits.

"Alright," The Doctor instructed as they walked up the patio towards the door, "just follow my lead, and don't say anything unless I say so."

The Doctor hit a small button by the door, and inside a muffled ding-dong echoed gently inside. An explosion of sound then tore through the house at breakneck speed, awakened by the bell. The flurry of noise seemed to stop at the door, where Wheatley picked up the sound of two different creatures threatening whatever had disturbed their sleep, their shouting and scrabbling overwriting the other.

"Doctor! What did you do?!"

"It's fine. It's just a couple dogs, pretty excitable ones I'd wager."

"They sound like they want to kill us!"

"They're just barking because they're excited to see us. Now remember what I said, stay quiet unless I-"

Before Wheatley could make up his mind about whether to run from the door or not, a third voice seemed to arrive on the other side. They shouted something in a deep, gravelly voice, and the first two seemed to stop. The door opened to show a 6-foot, slightly portly man; probably close to retirement age. Snowy stubble and a light sprinkling of hair accented his long, tired face as he looked up slightly at the two of them. Sitting at his side there were what Wheatley had to guess were two 'dogs'. Their coats were both splashed with brown and white. Something attached to their behind was spasming behind them, like someone someone waving at an old friend. They kept looking back between the two of them and the man, occasional high-pitched whines escaping from their maws.

"Hello? Who're you?" The man in the door asked tiredly.

"My partner here is Wheatley," The Doctor gestured to Wheatley with a flick of his wrist "and you can call me the Doctor."

"Doctor what?" The man inquired. His voice was unchanged but his left eyebrow had raised quizzically.

"Just the Doctor. We were wondering if you could answer a couple questions for us."

The man looked at both of them inscrutably.

"No." The man made a motion to close the door, but the Doctor pulled something out of his chest pocket,

"Wait-! Wait. Here, take a look at this."

It was hard to tell from where Wheatley was standing, but it looked to be a leather wallet of some kind. The Doctor held it open in front of the man, and to Wheatley's surprise the man seemed content with it.

"Oh, you're researchers. I guess that changes things. Come on in."

The man moved to let the Wheatley and the Doctor into the house.

"Thank you very much." said the Doctor as he pocketed the wallet. "And what's your name?"

"Rob." The man answered. "Rob Carver."

Rob and the Doctor shook hands, the latter thanking the former. Rob gestured at the two of them to follow as he turned back inside.

"Go on- get, get." The large man shooed the dogs away from the doors so the Doctor and Wheatley get inside.

Wheatley walked inside, keeping as much space between him and the dogs, scooting along the doorframe. Their cheery, drool-y smile didn't fool him.

The inside of the building was also made with wood, but at least the floor was made of some grey tile, not unlike a lab floor. To the right was a small kitchen, kept neat despite the mediocre working space. To the left there was what looked like a break room, equipped with two old leather chairs, a couch, and a monitor on the wall facing the entrance. The floor in the room on the left was replaced with a dark green rug.

Rob walked over to the chair closest to the door and lowered himself in.

"Well? Close the door." Rob waved Wheatley towards the door.

Wheatley did as Rob asked.

The Doctor took a spot on the couch, and Wheatley decided to do the same. Then, The Doctor started asking questions.

"Mr. Carver, what can you tell us about the nearest town?"

"It's a town." Replied Carver simply.

"A name?"

"Gladstone."

"What's the story of Gladstone?"

"It used to be a mining town a century and a half ago, but one day a strange fella with a lot of money came in and bought all the mines. Town began to stagnate after that. All the buildings look like they belong in another era. People still live there, but visitors like yourself are pretty rare."

"A strange man? What was his name?" The Doctor queried.

"I dunno what his name was. Just that he was rich."

"You know, I'd love to see this place. For research purposes, of course. About how far away is Gladstone?"

Carver pointed out the window. "About 4 miles east by the road."

The Doctor thanked him and got up, signaling Wheatley to do so as well.

After carefully weaving around the dogs, the two of them left the farmhouse and began walking down the dirt road as the farmer directed.

After another hour of walking, Wheatley noticed something blocky shimmering in the distance.

"Doctor! Look over there!" Wheatley pointed in the direction of the shape in the distance, and saw a brilliant smile spread spread across the Doctor's face.

"What do you know? We're starting to make some progress."

The Doctor picked up the pace, forcing Wheatley to do so as well. He was still unsure of what the Doctor's big plan was, but for now he would follow him. He had to trust that the Doctor knew what he was doing. He didn't really have a choice.

So they walked for another few hours, the specs in the distance becoming larger and more detailed. The road too became more worn and solid, eventually being replaced with asphalt. They were only about five minutes away from the pile of buildings when they were greeted by a small plaque reading:

GLADSTONE

POPULATION 2000

SMALL COMMUNITY

BIG HEART

"Well, there you go!" The Doctor said proudly. "We're here!"