Chapter Text
Finding home
If only she had held on to him for a few more seconds.
That was all it would have taken, and he wouldn't be here in cold, empty space. He could have made it up to her! He could have made things right.
He could have done the right thing in the first place. If he hadn't been such a coward. If he had thought of himself less and thought of her more.
Now she was the only thing he could think about.
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Meanwhile, on earth, Chell was thinking about Wheatley an awful lot too, but not consciously. Every night, she woke up to dreams of bright blue, iris-esque light and portals. She had escaped Aperture's facilities nearly a year ago, but some scars don't heal easily. GLaDOS had left plenty of those.
After escaping, Chell had traveled on foot for a ways before stopping at a small town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and forests. The townsfolk were gracious enough to help her for a couple weeks before she was able to support herself. Going from no support to a whole, albeit small, town helping Chell shocked her. She was used to being alone, even preferred it. Now she was surrounded by all sorts of people. Like Mrs. Rodriguez, the older woman next door who always asked Chell for help bringing her groceries inside, or Max Easton, the eight year old boy who loses his ball in Chell’s yard nearly every day, or even Chell’s coworker, Mae Sevel. However, Chell remained her typical, solitary self.
She was trying to get out, however. She got a job at the local horticulture services center in town. The office building connected to a greenhouse and protected forest. Chell spent most of her time outside, studying the local wildlife and occasionally writing reports for the higher ups.
Mae was about the only "friend" Chell made at the horticulture center. The pair looked completely opposite of eachother, with Mae having blond, curly hair and more round features. However, the two shared a love for being alone and outside. Mae tried to get Chell to join clubs and organizations in the community, but to no avail.
As for hobbies, Chell hadn’t had free time in twenty years, so she had to start from the ground up. She had tried baking, reading, all sorts of crafts. Chell was good at them, even enjoyed the action, but sitting in one spot for that long? It made her restless. She was, however, a fan of the forest paths surrounding her town. There, Chell could find an infinite amount of paths to jog down each evening, regardless of the weather. Hence Chell's daily "schedule" began. Waking up at dawn (something she wasn't used to after years of artificial sunlight and cryosleep), going to the gym, working her 9-5, "relaxing" over supper, and jogging a few miles until the sun went down.
Life in a small town full of nature was a change from Chell’s previous life in sterile boxes. Millions of things were happening all the time, even in the quiet moments. Crickets, birds, and rustling plants accompanied Chell on her nightly jogs, the boxy AC unit in Chell’s backyard buzzed constantly in the summer, even the idea of having a backyard was new to Chell. Having any personal space at all was an alien concept.
Chell wasn’t fully sure what to do with her house when she first moved in, she was too focused on getting a job in order to pay for it. However, pieces of furniture, mainly garage sale items from neighbors, made their way into her home. The walls were still landlord off-white, and everything served a purpose, even the rooms Chell had deemed useless. The second bedroom was changed into a place for her to work in, and the basement was furnished to be a second home in case of an emergency such as severe weather. Yet, the house felt too big for Chell, almost like the house was still empty.
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Wheatley's world was equally as empty, save himself and good old space core, or Aldrin as he had named himself. Wheatley found the move a bit pretentious, but to be fair, Wheatley wouldn't have liked being called "Intelligence dampening sphere" all the time.
I mean, space wasn't the worst thing to be stuck in. There were plenty of stars to look at, a couple planets, big old moon. Aldrin knew enough about space to entertain Wheatley and then some.
"Hey, uh, tell me about that one. The cross looking constellation"
Aldrin's orange light flashed in excitement. "That is the swan constellation, also known as the northern cross. In contrast, Crux is the southern cross. The northern cross includes the stars…"
Wheatley drifted off into his own thoughts at that point. He was proud that he had guessed it was a cross, but the list of stars bored him. He heard the stars had stories behind them, nonsense he thought. Stars were just stars, even if they make funny shapes. How was a cross a swan anyways?
Turning around, Wheatley saw he was extremely close to the moon's surface. Close enough, in fact, that he could scooch his way to the surface.
Despite all the hype around it, Wheatley wasn’t quite sure what he would do on the moon. It had more gravity than the rest of space, but it was only 17% of earth’s gravity.
Wheatley hated to admit it, but he reminisced about his time on earth a bit too much for his liking. Caring for all the test subjects wasn’t that bad, just really quiet. The other cores weren’t bad either, despite all their flaws. Maybe he had been too harsh on Rick, he was a decent fellow. At least he could carry a conversation, unlike Aldrin. He even missed the scientists, in a weird, messed up way. Yeah, they had created him to be an idiot, but he had risen above that (or at least that’s what he told himself). At least they needed him, until they made the “new and improved” cores that is.
He even missed the chambers they put him in randomly! Whether or not they were lying to him about the chamber’s purpose didn’t matter, he just wanted something to keep him occupied other than his mind. The scientists usually said something about Wheatley testing if the chambers were functioning properly, regardless of what the purpose on the label said. Someone needed to make sure the chambers worked and the human test subjects couldn’t be plugged into the meter tall devices.
But in space, there were no core chambers in sight. Only a couple stars, planets, and the moon that was slowly getting closer to Wheatley. Eventually, he landed, or at least as much as you could in a low gravity environment.
"Haha! I'm on the moon! Surrounded by rocks! They are all the same…"
Before he could make more commentary on moon rocks, a metal clamp grabbed one of Wheatley's handlebars.
"W-what is this all about! Excuse me- oh!"
In front of him was not the giant, metal monster he expected but rather a lunar rover. On the side was the name, engraved in the metal and painted in silver. T.S.H. - Black Mesa. Wheatley tried to flail his way out of the claw, "Oh no, no no no. I've heard enough about you guys to know better. Now let me go at once!"
On earth, two young scientists stared in awe at what their rover was streaming to the base on earth. One leaned over to the other.
"Do we need to tell the boss?"