"The silence isn't so bad,

'Till I look at my hands and feel sad.

'Cause the spaces between my fingers

Are right where yours fit perfectly."


Wheatley couldn't do much in space.

He could watch Space Core mutter things when he was in his line of sight, saying words that were lost to him. Wheatley could see the moon's surface, covered in craters and mounds. He could see Earth.

Now Earth was really far. In fact, he wasn't even sure how an Aperture Handheld Portal Device could fire far enough to reach the depths of space itself. And of all the chances! It hit the moon!

He supposed he was lucky on that front. It could've kept going and hit God-knows-where out in the vast complexes of the universe.

The ever-looming silence also did a number on his internal systems. He wondered for how long they were reaching out and looking for a signal. There was nothing to hear, only things to see.

Sometimes, the silence of space wasn't bad. It was just dull. He wondered what Space Core was talking about sometimes while he muttered to himself. Sometimes he wondered about what could've been different.

Lifting his hands to his face, slowly pushing through the lack of gravity, he stared at them, trying to think about what he should've done to change things.

Chell took his hand when he led through the cracks in walls, swinging down a broken management rail, and when it was time to say good-bye.

She refused to let go of his hands.

Chell, who had been desperate to stay alive, clung to his mainframe like a lifeline, because he was struggling to pull them both back.

Wheatley woke up to that sight when he was pried from the chassis's hold. He was suddenly looking into her face, that face he had fallen in love with before Hell took him away.

He was looking at all of space behind her, at her struggling to fight the lack of oxygen and the pull of the vacuum.

Space Core violently flew by, knocking their hands apart. Wheatley felt a sudden lack of her fingers, missing it instantly as her other hand gripped on for dear life –

And then he was let go. Chell was grabbed by GLaDOS, back in the mainframe, while he was left to go into the great expanse of darkness, only lit by the sun.

He didn't die.

That was all. He saw the portal seal shut. And that was that.

He kept staring at his hands, wanting to remember that feeling of Chell's hands forever, the hands that he felt fit perfectly within his grasp.

The hands that, even after all that, refused to let go.