"Well he's about six feet tall, skinny, with dirty blonde hair and he's wearing a blue puffy marshmallow jacket... his age? Um. I would say about late teens... maybe mid twenties. Or so... No this is not a prank call... please… just-!"
Click. Beep. Beep. Beep. Doug threw the pay phone at the receiver and rested his forehead against the call box. Sighing in defeat he searched his wallet for another fifteen cents. He did NOT want to call Chell and admit he lost her little friend. It would most likely be a repeat of when he lost the car, even if it had been towed away, the wrath of an angry mute woman was not a force to be easily reckoned with. He pushed the coins into the slot and decided to go with plan b.
After all; Gordon and Barney are always looking for ways to get out of work, and what better way to get out of work then scouring the entire city for one android human thing. Besides, he couldn't have gone too far in such a short amount of time... right?

Unfortunately for Doug, Wheatley had long legs, the only thing holding him back from running into the abandoned wheat field and highway surrounding the north part of town was the thick frozen snow inside of his shoes and pant legs.
Instead he was a crumbled and exhausted heap on a park bench. A few birds still lingering in hopes that they might be feed. Wheatley fished out the last oil coated potato stick from inside his coat pocket and threw it, watching as the birds flew towards it, practically biting each others heads off for one peck before it was stolen by another waddling blob. That was another thing Wheatley didn't like about being human. Everything was just a blob, a mass of color with no distinctive lines. Even when he was a core he could see clearer than he did now, then with a blue tint to everything. He remembered the first time he was activated, and then forgot it in a snap. It was strange, to just remember something seemingly insignificant but before he could even comprehend what it was, the memory was gone.
He heard a click and felt another quick shock run down his spine. He ran a thick gloved hand down to his rib cage, feeling the metal bars that clung to his skin and back, the machine hummed gently, the heart inside of his skin covered shell beating gently against his chest. In the mostly silent and barren park for a moment he felt safe and calm in a world he thought he didn't belong in. Closing his eyes he focused in on the white noise the machine made, feeling safe as he thought of being a core again, of the time when Chell brought him off of his rail and she rested inside of a crumbling room covered in greenery and paintings and filled with bean cans, but most of all, how he felt when he was big and strong and powerful enough to do whatever he pleased not being restrained by a ridiculous smelly, greasy, human body.

"'Ello? Oi mate, can yah 'ere me?" Wheatley's eyes shot open and he locked eyes with aviators. The face hovering above his was intimidating with a hint of friendliness, his square jaw line covered slightly by a red scarf and below his left eye a thin scar was hidden slightly by his dark glasses. He had a strange stringed instrument strapped to his back, something Wheatley had seen somewhere once before, he was holding a bouquet of red and pink flowers in one hand, and the other was holding out a few slips of green paper towards Wheatley.
"...'Ello there." The man was taken aback, not expecting such a young man to be homeless on a park bench.
"You eh. Yah doin' alright kid?" Wheatley stared blankly. No. Quite frankly he wasn't. He was lost, confused, hungry, cold, scared, weak, and human. His eyes began watering and the man was taken aback. The man put the flowers down besides Wheatley on the bench and hurriedly took out a square red cloth from his pocket as Wheatley mumbled his answers and apologies to the stranger. "-" he blew his nose and tears into the cloth and handed it back to the man who threw the cloth into a nearby can. "…Sos you're lost and can't find your friend?" Wheatley nodded.
"Only we're not exactly friends, I suppose, I did just meet him last night but he DID see me naked and we did talk a lot this morning. Oh but uh hm. I guess we are friends." The man blinked registering what he had just heard. He rolled up his sleeve and looked at the miniature time telling device on his wrist.
"Well... I have some time before I have to see the missus... Why don't I 'elp yah look for your friend?" Just then, the clouds separated partly over the park bench and light shone as a ray over the man's head. Wheatley's face brightened and his eyes grew wide. Be it the divine intervention or just the first time he had seen and felt sun light, Wheatley Pendleton never felt warmer in his entire... life. The man however, didn't know what he had gotten himself into.

Not even two blocks away in the main street area, Barney slurped on his highly sugared over priced coffee leaning against a telephone pole, Gordon Freeman stood nearby, his arms crossed, annoyed by all the attention he was getting despite the humiliating disguise Barney made him wear.
"Gordon Freeman? Hi!" A random citizen shouted from the other side of the road exclaimed. Gordon sighed; he pulled off the humiliating glasses/nose/mustache disguise and replaced them with his own much more attractive glasses.
"You know this is why you have scouts under your command. To do the petty work no one else wants to do. But noooo. If a friend asks for help you have to do it yourself. To make sure you have the job done right. With no questions asked." Gordon gave Barney a disappointed look and leaned against a wall opposite the pole Barney was up against. "You should probably ask him about last night too."

Doug spotted them across the street. He began making his way towards his friends before he spotted Chell rounding the corner nearby, probably on a lunch break and going to the coffee shop where Gordon and Barney were loitering around, and where he was headed now. If she caught him without Wheatley... may God have mercy on Doug's soul. He quickly ran across the snow coated street and before Barney could even greet him in his usual punny way, 'hey look what the cat dragged in!' He grabbed them both, causing Barney to drop his coffee, and dragged them into an alley between the coffee shop and a pet store.

Chell walked into the coffee store, silently cursing whoever dropped their coffee in the snow, for she stepped in it and would need to clean her favorite jeans before they stained.

Doug sighed as he looked around the corner.
"What was that about? By the way, you owe me a cup of coffee." Gordon shook his head, remembering the beer he never received. Doug rubbed the back of his head. "You see... the thing is. Um. I've. Uh. Sort of lost some-thing-one."
"A person? A REAL person? How could you lose a person?" Barney questioned out of minor disbelief that Doug knew anyone else aside from their inner circle of friends.
Gordon once again shook his head and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Gordon pulled on Doug's shirt collar, bringing his lips to Doug's ear he murmured in a tiny, raspy, throaty voice, "Did it come from Aperture...?"
He knew? Nah he couldn't have-of course he did. Gordon knew all.
Doug nodded, knowing he couldn't get a lie past him backed away looking cross and Barney crossed his arms,
"So you're telling me you're the one that took the meteorite last night? It was a meteorite right? The scouts said they only found a crater." Doug fiddled with the buttons on his sleeves.
"Not exactly a meteor."

An hour later and not even a block away, Wheatley and Richard, as he introduced himself, were wandering through various shops and such.
Richard Mundy was a very busy man, and though Wheatley was doing most of the talking he learned that Richard didn't get much time off from his work and took the opportunity while helping Wheatley find Doug to gather various things for his 'Sheila' as he called it.
Whatever it was.
Wheatley carried Richard's bags, feeling obligated to do so.
Richard bought him food and he swallowed it down with a smile on his face as they sat at a small table outside of a food consuming place. Richard paid no mind to Wheatley's humongous appetite and plucked at his banjo idly. The notes the instrument made were strange and unfamiliar but made Wheatley content somehow.

Wheatley was really enjoying his meal and was too busy and preoccupied with listening to the three stringed box to realize an odd pale man with brown hair and oversized spectacles was peering at him from behind a telephone pole in an oddly stereotypical way.

AN: (DISCLAIMER HERE).
Im so lazy i swear ugh.
sorry it took so long to get this out.