Making amends

There was... Grass beneath her feet. She had walked for miles, and she had just come to an open space. The stars shown down through the break in the trees. Chell stopped and stared into the dark heavens. The moon was bright and full, spreading a glow over her face.

Chell closed her eyes and whispered the first word she had said in years. "Wheatley." He was out there somewhere, her robotic friend. He was floating around in space, lost to it's emptiness.

"HA! I knew someone was alive in here. AH! Oh. My. God. You look terrible - ummm... good. Looking good, actually."

Wheatley had been the first robot that hadn't immiediatly placed her into a testing chamber. His first thought when he saw her had been 'Escape!'. Sure, he hadn't been the smartest robot in the facility, but it was what he was that let her trust him. He was a personality core that had been made to keep GlaD0s in control and that's just what he had done. He had done so, and stopped her reign of terror. But the core it's self was corrupt, not the personalities placed in it.

"Most test subjects do experience some, uh, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now, you've been under for quite a lot longer, and its not out of the question that you might have a very minor case of serious brain damage! But, don't be alarmed, alright? Uh, although, if you do feel alarmed... Try to hold onto that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being told that you've got brain damage!"

Chell sat down slipped off her boots. After all that had happened, she was horribly tired. She laid back and continued to look up at the sky. She watched as a small, almost unseeable dot moved slowly across the surface of the moon.

"Some of my best friends are actually orphans..." Wheatley's voice echoed in Chell's head. He had been in the corrupt body that controlled Apeture then, and still felt some obligation to recognize her as a friend.

Chell closed her eyes to sleep, vowing that in the morning she would return to the facility and retrieve her friend from his orbit around the moon.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The space core cheered. "So much space. Need to see it all!" It spun around happily, not paying attention to the personality core besides it.

"I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back. And not just 'cause I'm stranded in space..." Wheatley spoke sorrowfully. He gazed down at earth which showed beneath them.

"I'm in space!" the space core yelled out full of ignorant joy.

Wheatley gave a robotic sigh. "I know you are, mate! Yep, we're both in space..."

He watched the space core spin around and around, keeping it's eyes open to see the distant stars. "SPAAAAACE!"

Wheatley looked back down at earth, seeing the continenthe had been on before. "Anyway, you know, if I was ever to see her again, do you know what I'd say?"

"I'm in space," the space core stated for what seemed to be the umpteenth time.

"I'd say, 'I'm sorry.' Sincerely. I am sorry - I was bossy... and monstrous... And, I am genuinely sorry." Wheatley muttered, knowing and hating his error. The space core continued his rant about space, leaving Wheatley to whisper sadly, "I miss Chell..."