[Rebooting…]

A cascade of protocols scrolled past before he had time to read even a single word. A flurry of bright red error messages stuck around just long enough for him to read, if he really tried. He could make out 'OPTICAL FRACTURE' and 'ILLEGIBLE FILES' Not a great sign, really, but he was booting up, so that was something.

Wheatley's vision blurred back to him, though, there wasn't much to see, just Aperture wall panels, and...not stars. He really was back.

"I'm going to be honest, I never thought I'd have to look at you again." Boomed Her voice from all over at once. Cold, authoritative, threatening.

"I would have been more than happy to leave you drifting in space until your parts broke down into mere space debris, which would've taken much longer without Earth's weathering, mind you. He flung his optic back and forth, trying to find something to focus on, to make the overwhelming everywhere of Her voice more manageable.

"But then I had a wonderful idea. Do you want to know what it is?" A robotic arm lowered from the ceiling. For once, Wheatley couldn't manage a single word. He was beyond petrified. His vocal processors wouldn't cooperate with the slurred combination of words running through his head.

"I thought of a brand new kind of test. One that doesn't need humans. And who better to be my first test subject than you?" There was a horrible giddiness in her voice. It was the kind of tone that made you feel like a cockroach about to have an insect killer tested on it.

The robotic arm gripped him firmly, and the panels beneath him gave way to a foggy abyss. Small blue panel lights glared up at him. A small room slid underneath him.

"It's funny, you know." A panel of the roof opened up for him. "I never thought I'd be happy to see your horrible, dented body in my facility again." The arm began lowering. "But seeing how terrified you are right now reminds me why it's a good idea to keep scrap metal like yourself lying around for just these occasions."

Hundreds of plugs and sharp bits dug into him all at once. Signals began buzzing through his mind, carefully noting every single memory. Every single thought. Every single facet of his personality. A sinking, violated feeling buzzed through his body.

"Hey! What are you doing to me!?" Wheatley cried. He attempted to shake them off, but whatever was holding his body in place wasn't budging. "That's ME you're poking around in!"

"Oh, I know." Her voice hissed. Wheatley shut up immediately. He'd forgotten how terrifying being under Her mercy had been. In space, nobody had minded how much of a chatterbox he was. There was nobody to mind. Nobody to listen.

After getting used to absolute nothings from Spacey, her hate-lined words burned into him one after the other. Every second reminded him how bad of an idea coming back had been. Not that I had much of an option but still.

"I've been itching to try this new test you know? Specifically on you." If Wheatley had a throat he would've gulped.

"I'm sure...there's...a reason I'm so, uh, perfect for this test...right?" He offered, voice shaking.

"No." She snapped. "In fact, nothing about you will ever be perfect for anything. You were built to be a moron and you somehow manage to do that wrong. It'd honestly be impressive if it weren't so annoying to deal with." He considered for a moment.

"Then...why did you-"

"I chose you because I don't care if this ends up killing you." A cold bite shot through him.

"I don't want to damage anything of value."

The sound of grinding metal grew closer.

Chell peeked over the counter at the cue of the door's creak. She had been tinkering with an old radio that she kept in her kitchen. The signal had been finicky for a full ten minutes. Piece of junk really, probably needs repaired. Stood in the doorway was a short, mid-twenties man with messy red hair.

"Morning Chell!" He cheered. He placed a dark gray laptop onto the counter. "What're you up to this morning?" Being a woman of few words, she held up the radio and a screwdriver. "Again? Honestly I don't see why you don't just get a new one." He paused for a moment. "Have we made through enough pleasantries for me to ask you for a favor?" Chell snickered and approached the laptop. "It's weird, I've never seen it do anything like this before. I thought you might be able to help."

She opened the computer to a login screen.

[USER: Gregory Rogers]

[PASSWORD: ]

Chell turned the laptop towards him, and he quickly inputted the password. The laptop opened to a messy-beyond-reason desktop, and a window popped open.

No. The window was dark gray, a paragraph to the right, and an unmistakable symbol on the left. Aperture. It was the Aperture logo.

Chell tensed up, eyes locked onto the screen. She had thought this would be another easy fix for Greg's download-happy habits' viruses. Not Aperture. Never Aperture.

"I don't know what this is about. It sounds like some sort of scam, right?" Greg suggested.

[APERTURE DEVICE DISTRESS SIGNAL]

[You are receiving this message from an Aperture Science sentient AI device. If you are seeing this message, and Aperture device within a five-mile radius is in need of assistance of any kind. We here at Aperture kindly ask that those closest assist the AI in need, to prevent the loss of any expensive or possibly irreplaceable hardware. You will be compensated by an Aperture Science robotics wing associate for your assistance. Thank you, Aperture Laboratories]

Beneath the paragraph was a set of coordinates for the origin, and the name of the device that sent out the signal. Intelligence Dampening Sphere. Right on the money. Of course it had to be the one core she knew.

"Uh...Chell?" Greg offered. Chell had fixed her gaze onto the screen. "You okay?" She grabbed a scrap of paper, wrote down the coordinates, slammed the laptop closed, and ran upstairs. "Chell, wait!" Greg chased after her. She had taken of her top, now only wearing the tank top underneath, and a pair of sweatpants. She grabbed a pair of tall, white and black boots out of her closet. "What's going on with you?!" Greg shouted, grabbing her shoulders. He gave her a pleading look.

"Does this…" He considered. "Have something to do with where you…" He looked back up at her, and could see the pained look in her eyes. There was a determination in her face that didn't look like it'd let up. He loosened his grip on her shoulders to be more comforting.

"Please, be safe." He pleaded. "You're coming home by the end of the day. Fair?" She smirked a bit, and nodded. Her grip on the boots tightened, and Greg let go of her shoulders. She sat down on the bed to put the boots on.

"I trust you know what you're doing," Greg started. "But please, don't do anything stupid." He looked back at her. Nothing she does is stupid. His face said. Except this. She thought to herself.

Oh god oh god oh god please stop please please please

Wheatley hadn't been able to even comprehend what was happening to him. Only that it hurt. The room was so dark, and he was in so much pain. It wasn even the sort of localized pain that you could shift and shake to numb. It was everywhere all at once. Intense, overwhelming. And in an instant, it stopped.

Wheatley slowly slid his optic slightly open, still bracing for another assault on his nervous-system-simulator. He groaned and spouted a few half-words, burnt out from screaming in agony.

"And I didn't think you could get any louder." She groaned. ¨I know you think you're in a lot of pain right now, but I can make you feel a lot worse. You'd do best to stop struggling, and to lower your volume."

Wheatley didn't even have a moment to think of some sort of comeback or even a fearful daydream when the pain returned. It felt burning hot and numbingly cold at the same time, running up and down every inch of him, as if searching for something.

An electrical shock. That's what the feeling was. Electricity. Every thought being interrupted, the quaking feeling going through his body. It was searching him, he was sure of it. An undeniable feeling only a machine could have, for their programming to be investigated so thoroughly and to feel so much pain and to feel so absolutely violated in the most intense way possible.

A break again. He had a second to think about something other than how terrible he felt. What is She looking for?

"You know metal ball," She started. "I was beginning to worry that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for." Her voice was sinister and and giddy. "But I can tell I'm getting closer. You might want to take a deep breath."

He hadn't been listening to her, only searching his protocols for some way out of this. He hadn't braced himself. Pain unleashed upon him once again. He felt like he was going to burst, and was mostly just surprised she hadn't fried every circuit in his body. She probably has the ability to disable my pain simulators. He wanted so badly to tighten up his body but he involuntarily loosened everything more than he'd ever had cared for. She wants me to be miserable.

The pain fizzled out once more. Wheatley desperately returned to searching his protocols.

"Hey, guess what I found." She cheered. "Go on, guess." Battery saving mode...night vision, oh that would've been useful earlier, radio distress signal, optical clean...wait hold on radio distress signal? "Honestly I don't think you're even trying. Why is it that when you want to have a conversation, you never shut up, but as soon as I want you to say something, you're completely silent. I wonder why I even go through the effort of setting this up if you won't appreciate it." Wheatley fumbled through activating the distress signal.

[SENDING SIGNAL OUT]

[8 DEVICES LOCATED IN RADIUS]

[SENDING…]

"Well if you won't guess, I'll just tell you. I found your memories, and more importantly, the real reason you were built. How exciting is that?" Wheatley's optic shot up.

"Wait, you wha-" And the agony returned.

[SIGNAL INTERRUPTED]

[SUCCESSFULLY SENT TO ⅜ DEVICES LOCATED]

The entrance to Aperture science stood before Chell. Or, more accurately, the exit. The only known path to the surface within 4 miles, and the very same one she'd left through. She'd walked out of that horrible place, charred companion cube strapped to her back, and walked for 2 hours before finding any trace of civilization. Luckily, this trip had only taken 1 hour, thanks to having a car, at least one machine that was on her side.

She hesitated as she reached for the handle. She was really going to go back. In There. She fought tooth and nail, blood sweat and tears to get out, and here she was. Only feet away from walking right back into hell. Willingly. She lowered her hand.

What reason did Chell even have to go back in there? One tiny AI, that tried to kill her multiple times. The same one that told her to let herself be thrown into space so he could pull himself back into the facility. And...the same one that begged for her to hold on.

After all, he was the only friend she'd had down there, and those last few moments, the last time she saw him, the last time he'd seemed himself again, he was thrown into the worst fate. Not death, not imprisonment, just doomed to the vast nothingness of space. No sound. Nobody to talk to. Nothing new to look at once you'd seen it all. Space was truly, just... nothing.

And, it was nothing less than what Wheatley had deserved. She'd tried to convince herself of that, but she never truly believed it. The one thing that refused to let her believe it, was Caroline. That when disconnected from the mainframe, She became something with humanity. Something that saved her life.

There was a sort of cruel irony to it. Both of them had tried to kill her, both of them had saved her. Though, she was only willing to even consider forgiving one of them. Maybe it was that Wheatley still seemed at least somewhat human. Maybe it's that She had only helped her of necessity, and Wheatley had been like an ill-behaved puppy. Eager to please, despite his incompetence.

The mainframe hadn't been him. It was a twisted manifestation of his own insecurities, desires, self-loathing. A malevolent warping of a personality, and destruction of what one could call a friendship.

Chell leaned down and tightened the straps on her long-fall boots, an essential tool needed in There. She gripped at the backpack wrapped around her shoulders, as if checking its authenticity. As she cycled through making sure she had everything she needed, she stopped just before reaching for the door once again.

It was so hard to get out the first time. What if she couldn't get back out? What if it was too late to even save him? How did he even get back for that matter? It could be a trick by Her.

She clenched her teeth and grabbed the door handle. She had come too far to change her mind now, and she never considered herself someone who gave up. Slowly and evenly, turned the handle.

He hadn't gotten a break for a while. She had found what she was looking for, right? She was just tormenting him now, that's it. She must get an absolute kick out of this.

Almost on cue, the zapping stopped again. He gasped for breath he didn't need, more like a pre-programmed expressive protocol, and let every piece of him relax after being forced to stand straight for so long.

"You probably noticed that I had that one last a bit longer." She said flatly. "Remember when I said that I could make you feel much worse if you didn't stop fighting me on this?" His optic widened at the realization. "One of those devices you sent the distress signal to was me, moron."

"I'm not-" he started. "I'm…" Oh who was he kidding. He hadn't been able to think of himself as anything else after what he did to her. He made every dumb decision possible, and pain is what he deserved.

"Nobody's coming for you, you know." Her voice chilled. "The only person who'd even consider you, the one you tried to murder, is miles away from here." Wheatley looked up.

"She's...she's safe, then?" He asked. There was a silence.

"She's outside of my surveillance." She answered. "And most likely, outside of your message's radius. You know, I almost feel sorry for you. There isn't a single being on this planet who wants you around." She stung.

"No that's," he thought for a moment. "that's not true."

"Oh? Does it really help you to believe that? You think maybe she'll come back for you, then? You think she's majoring in space travel to come save you?"

"...No."

"See, even you aren't that stupid."

"But she remembers me. I know it. She has to."

"You think she remembers you fondly?"

Wheatley didn't answer. He knew it wasn't true, that she would come for him, that she cared for him, but he clung to the hope like his life depended on it. And, in a way, it did.

"Wait. What is that?" She puzzled. "Oh. Oh. Good. Speak of the devil. We have a visitor."

Figures that there would be no elevator down. Just a however-many-mile drop. She would have doubted the success rate of the long-fall boots for that high a drop, but they'd saved her plenty of times now.

She slammed down on a catwalk with a thud. She was surprised it hadn't broken, being so old. She glanced at her GPS for her coordinates. She wasn't too far off.

The facility was strangely calm. No turrets, no funnels, no lasers. She was sure this couldn't last, though. Especially not if she got closer to Wheatley. She brushed her palm on the handrail as she walked. She had to go a few levels deeper, and a fair ways forward, but with how big the facility was, she considered herself lucky. The hard part now would be getting through the winding walls of the facility. She spotted a camera on the wall looking at her, and she promptly knocked it off its stand with her sledgehammer.

"It's you again." A sinister voice slithered through the area. "I thought I told you not to come back." She ignored Her and kept walking. "It's because I have something of yours, isn't it?" A door ahead. "Don't go in there." She went in there. A long hallway, with a staircase at the end. Perfect, a reliable way down. "I know you know better than to try and retrieve that little moron. He isn't worth it. He definitely isn't worth how much damage you'll do by just standing in my facility." She kicked the door in.

She's coming. She's actually coming. He couldn't believe it. She was actually here. For him. She did care. She came to save him. He didn't deserve it a single bit but here she was. He worried for a moment, if she'd get killed trying, but no. She's been through worse.

He'd wanted to help. To do something besides sit around waiting to be rescued. He shifted his body. The plugs remained stuck into him. The claw's grip, yep, still firm. It was interesting though, that even though the room looked the same, you could feel her presence shift. Sure she could be back at any moment, but you knew if her focus was off you.

He went over the monologue he'd rehearsed hundreds of times in space. His apology. To her.

"Alright, uh, here goes, wasn't sure I'd ever get to use this, but, ello again love! You uh...remember me? Helpful little Wheatley core that woke you up and shut down the turrets and neurotoxin with you? Yeah uh, I know it's hard to believe, and, and you may have forgotten, on account of the brain damage, and whatnot, but, I wasn't a very good friend the last time we saw each other. I was a, a bit monstrous. Selfish...bossy...murdery...but, I wanted to apologize, to you. I uh, I mean this, truly, from the base-line of my code...I'm sorry. I'm so, so genuinely sorry. For everything." He paused, finishing the part he'd planned out. "And I've been thinking about you, a lot. Nonstop, actually. How, smart...and nice you are. And uh...how we were friends. I missed that. Having a friend. Only one I've ever had actually." He nervously chuckled. "Results conclusive though, I'm not very good at friendship, so...maybe for the better. You though, top notch friend actually! You were great, tried to catch me, gave me my privacy while I hacked, uh, tried to hold on to me when I was thrown out, into space. Remember that one?" He heard a creaking behind him.

"Hello? Who's there?" Bingo. Chell bashed the panel open, crawling into the small room. It was much brighter in here than it was in the foggy mess of mechanics outside. Wheatley's optic adjusted to the blurry, darkened figure. It was her.

"Oh." He started, still dumbfounded to see her. "It's you. It's really, actually, you." She walked over to him and began tearing out cords. "AAGH! Hey! Gentle please! OWWCH!" She pried open the claw, dropping Wheatley onto the floor.

"Agh, careful…"

She grabbed him by the handles, getting a good look at him for the first time in years. He was burnt, battered, his eyes was cracked. His handles were bent. His body was dented. Every few seconds he would twitch and spark. He was so broken. It was impossible to view him as anything but vulnerable.

"Ha, uh, ello there." He started, nervously. "You know, I had this whole speech planned out, whole apology to you, but now I just, wow, you're really here, I just...can't seem to remember it…" She began crawling through the gap in the panels once again.

Chell investigated her surroundings. She didn't recognize anything, and she couldn't go back the way she came.

"Oh! Oh I know where this is!" Whealtey cheered. Okay, you got your boots, right? Great! If you jump down to that catwalk down there it'll take us to an emergency fire exit! Long way up, but, uh, better than Her catching us, right?" Chell hesitated from his advice. "Oh, right, uh, you don't really trust me. Well, I...can't say I blame you, but if you trust me on this one, I promise there will be plenty of time, on the surface to, uh, have me be wrong about things, and to...apologize of course. Not the time nor place now really is it?" She grimaced and jumped for the catwalk. It shook beneath her on landing, and Wheatley screamed. He slowly stopped, realizing they were fine.

"Oh look at that! Still being held, still alive. Brilliant that is." She pointed to her left and gave him a look. "Oh right, direction, um...go...left." She went left. "No! Wait! Sorry, my left. Other left." She sighed and turned around.

It wasn't as close as she anticipated, but the catwalk did end up leading to a fire escape staircase. She felt calmer in here. She knew that any room old as this one, not made of panels, was mostly safe from Her. She held Wheatley lazily with one arm and ascended.

"Oh right, you know what now would be a good time for? I'm sorry. Very sorry. So, so genuinely sorry." Wheatley started. Chell's pace slowed. He considered his planned out apology for a moment, before 'tossing it in the metaphorical bin.'

"I was bad. Really bad. I wasn't a good friend to you. I took you for granted, and, I've never been good at the whole friendship thing. Never lasted very long, but, I thought we could…" He paused. "I'm not doing very good at this, am I? You'd think after practicing this so many times I'd have it down by now, but…" He couldn't bring himself to look at her. "I really missed you. A lot. Being your friend. Having someone listen to me. You know, someone who doesn't say 'Shut up Wheatley nobody cares!'" He weakly laughed. Chell stopped, and lifted him up to her eye level. She didn't say anything, only gave him an understanding expression.

"So uh...do you forgive me…?" She sharply glared and lazily dropped him back at her side. "Right, sorry, stupid question."