One - Awoken

Everything hurt.

It wasn't an exaggeration; every body part, every nerve, was on fire.

They sat up. Opening their eyes took a large amount of effort, and by the time their hazel irises had adjusted to the sudden light of the room, they were already exhausted. They wanted nothing more than to lay down and go back to sleep.

But something was poking at them in their mind. Something wasn't quite right, and they couldn't quite remember.

Who even were they?

Searching their mind proved fruitless. They really couldn't remember their own name. Or anything, for that matter.

Their eyes scanned over the familiar - why it was so, they didn't know - torn and frayed yellow wallpaper with disdain. It was mostly a pattern palm trees going on in an infinite square around the room, but on every other one, there'd be a treasure chest. It was sickeningly familiar and it put a knot in their stomach.

After a while of sitting there in silence, they swung their legs over the bed and rubbed their eyes. The pain was subsiding now; it wasn't as strong as it had been. Dull, would be the appropriate word, they supposed. A glance up was met with a closet, which they wanted to open on instinct, but didn't. Standing up seemed like an awfully large amount of work for their groggy mind and limbs to comprehend.

Another familiar thing was the cold of the room. It chilled them in a not-so-friendly way. A friendlier way, they supposed, would have been when you go outside and play in the snow. A friendlier way would be when small snowflakes made themselves known on the tip of your nose every now and then, as they fell from the sky in a calm succession.

It would have been nice to be outside, wherever that was. It sounded better - in their mind - than stuck in a cold, small square room. Inside.

'Trapped' was the word they associated with inside.

Suddenly, there was knock on the door, and a voice to go along with the tapping. It wasn't theirs, and it wasn't familiar. But it was comforting. To hear someone - or something - else, other than the ringing in their ears, or a prolonged silence.

"Hello? Is anyone in there?"

What accent, They wondered briefly, is that? It didn't sound like the person - thing, whatever - had said 'hello' at all. A closer guess would have been 'hullo'. The 'e' was sharp sounding, and the voice, in general, was smart sounding.

How someone could sound smart, was a curious thought.

They pushed themselves carefully from the bed, and immediately found that standing was more than a little difficult. A slight wobble sent them falling back onto the bed; it gave them a sense of determination. To do such a menial task as standing was hard for them, and for some reason, it frustrated them.

They tried again with more success this time. Wobbly as their legs were, at least they were standing. Another few minutes passed and they had made their way to the wooden door with the golden handle. A thought then occurred to them if it was safe to open it.

Who knows what could be waiting for them beyond the familiarity of the cold room they'd been in for what felt like forever? Their whole life, maybe? Did they ever even have a life outside of those ship-decaled walls?

As if listening to her thoughts, the smart-voice spoke again.

"Hullo? Is anyone in there? I really hope there is, honestly, or I could be in some seriously hot water. Metaphorically of course. Or not, you know, it's hard to tell with Her, and would really like to get out of - OH!"

Halfway through his rambling, the door was opened, and the person standing there looked horrifyingly not healthy, and it frightened Wheatley considerably. Dark circles sat under their hazel eyes, and their blue hair sat frayed and unkempt on their head. At one time, the robot thought, this person must've had a more well-kept hairstyle, and maybe, perhaps, the blue was brighter.

Blue, Wheatley thought to himself, was a nice color.

"Oh! Good, you're awake, brilliant!"

The ball-shaped robot moved along the rail on the ceiling. The robot - the he, they were going to call it - then turned to look at them with as much positivity as his optic could muster.

"You look t- AH, um, you're looking good, looking good actually," He nodded and, from what they could tell, his optic squinting was reminiscent of a smile, "Are you okay? A-Are you - "

They opened their mouth to speak.

"Actually, don't answer that, I'm sure you're fine!" The robot nodded, which sounded like a small metallic 'whirr' of a sort. "There's plenty of time for you to recover. Just take i- "

The circular robot, which they had taken a liking to, was interrupted by a gut wrenching familiar voice.

"Please prepare for emergency evacuation."

That didn't sit so well with them. In fact, it wasn't sitting at all inside of them. It was more or less bouncing around inside of their chest, closing up into a ball of something that just felt wrong.

"STAY CALM! Stay calm!" The robot's optic eye widened in shock, and the tone of his voice suggested that maybe he was trying to tell himself to do that as well as them. "Prepare, it's all the same, prepare, it's all fine. Alright?" That last sentence confirmed their suspicions.

"Don't move, I'm going to get us out of here."

Jordan's concept of out must have been completely different than Wheatley's. That must have been it. There was no way - no way - that this place she was in, this 'facility' was as large as it seemed. How many people had they held here and tested? What manner of horrific things had Aperture put these people through?

What had it put them through? Their memories were all a blur. Something about a bad place, a safe place, cake, a song. It was driving Jordan insane.

The only comfort was the companion Jordan found in Wheatley. His calming voice guided them, helped them - albeit his help was a bit controversial as being defined as help -, and seemed like he genuinely wanted to get them out for their safety. Wheatley was Jordan's constant. Reliable. He never went out of their view for long, and when he did, he always came back. Always.

"Okay, listen, let me lay something on you here - it's pretty heavy - they told me, never never ever, to disengage myself from my management rail, or I would die." Jordan listened, their grip loosening on the portal gun slightly. Wheatley was looking around nervously, as one would expect when one was going to do something that might get them killed. Unless they were a thrill seeker, then, well...but Wheatley didn't seem like a robot to put himself in danger for a rush of adrenaline. Jordan didn't think that was thing with robots, anyhow. "But were out of options here, so...get ready to catch me."

Jordan placed the Portal Gun they'd been holding safely on the ground and moved under Wheatley, their arms already outstretched.

"Alright, on the off-chance that...I'm not dead the moment I pop off this thing." Jordan nodded and flashed Wheatley what they hoped was a reassuring smile. "Alright, on three."

"Ready?" Jordan nodded again.

"One..."

"Two..."

"Three!" The robot backed off, shaken, and shook his core frantically, "That's high, w-it's too high isn't it, really, that?"

Jordan smiled again, this time out of amusement.

"Alright, going on three just gives you too much time to think about it," Wheatly moved closer again, and Jordan positioned themselves under him. "Let's, uh, go on one this time."

"Okay, ready?" Jordan nodded once more. "One!"

"Catch me catch me catch me! OH! You - you caught me." Wheatley peered up at Jordan happily, and they returned the expression. He hadn't been expecting to be caught, really, and it surprised him. "I...am not dead! I'm not dead!" Jordan responded by giving a small, gentle hug to the circular core, and picked up their Portal Gun as they positioned him under their left arm. "Ah, hahaha! Plug me into the stick in the wall over there, and I'll show you something. You'll be impressed!"

Jordan smiled down at the ball. They already were impressed, in a way. This sentient ball of skittery, bubbly self doubt had impressed them. He'd given them a name, after all. They'd asked for one, up front, because they couldn't remember their own.

Wheatley had stared at their face for a while, like he was taking in every detail, calculating, searching, and then finally, deciding.

"Jordan," He'd said, as sure of himself as he'd ever been, "You look like a Jordan."

Then Jordan they would be.

Wheatley was perplexed. They looked down at him with a fondness he hadn't witnessed before. Well, he'd witnessed it. Glances in the hall from scientists towards scientists. They however, unlike Jordan, never stopped. Always had somewhere to be, somewhere to work. Jordan was just standing there, staring at him with a small, fond smile. They took time to look at the little things. Noticed every detail. Wheatley had found Jordan staring at some light that shone in rays between some panels in one of the old decrepit testing rooms. Normal to him, nothing special, but when he'd asked what they were staring at, they'd simply replied, 'It's pretty.' That was all there was to it.

He took this chance to really get a good look at them. Jordan - he was rather proud of himself for coming up with that - had freckles that lightly dusted their cheeks with no pattern. There were two, bigger freckles - beauty marks, he thought - one just below their left eye, and another father down their cheek on the other side. They didn't smell either - of course, he wasn't even entirely sure he could smell - which he'd always hear from Her. That humans were smelly, squishy, and useless. But Jordan. Jordan wasn't useless, he decided. They were getting the both of them out of there, weren't they?

Wheatley could learn to like putting a smile on their face. They deserved it, as far as he was concerned.

As quickly as the shared moment between them had begun, it passed. Jordan suddenly seemed to recall that they were, in fact, escaping, and not taking a leisurely stroll through a park. With a determined push, Jordan had plopped Wheatley on the stick, per his instructions.

"Alright then, lemme just, actually, you know what?" Jordan tilted their head at the robot. "Could you turn around, like, really? I can't do it with you looking."

They turned, heard a sort of clicking noise, matched with a short pop.

"Aha! There we go. Door's open - don't forget me, please!"

They wouldn't forget him, Jordan mused to themself, not ever. The idea was laughable to them, actually. Jordan tugged gently on the sphere - he was babbling about something something best hacker something something - and when that didn't get Wheatley out, Jordan stopped and caught his attention with a wave of their hand.

" - Not that I'm anywhere near as good at you as problem solving - oh, yes? What is it? There's nothing wrong, is there?"

"Will it hurt you if I tug harder?"

Their voice was small and meek, Wheatley thought, among other things - those other things being calming and soothing - but it was loudest where it counted. Not in the volume of course, but the words. Nobody had ever expressed concern for his well being. Nobody had ever cared. He'd slid down the halls on his familiar Management Rail for as long as he could remember; nobody paid him any mind. But when they did it was often unpleasant. Plugging him into places he didn't want to be, the most frightening of the experiences being where Wheatley was plugged into Her. And then after that, when there was only Her, was something Wheatley didn't like to think about. She was awful in every sense of the word. She had called him a moron on more than one occasion before the human had destroyed her and left. Jordan was nothing like Her, though. Jordan was soft, gentle, and kind. Wheatley found comfort in that, as well as reassurance that they didn't think he was a moron. Unless they weren't saying it out loud and only thinking it.

"Well, um, we don't exactly have any other choice right now, so um, go ahead. Pack a good wallop. Pull me right on out with all of your brute - "

POP

Wheatley was out and back under Jordan's arm before he could say 'hopscotch'. Which had no relevance here, now that he thought about it. Briefly he wondered why they preferred carrying him in their arms instead of with the Portal Gun. It would've been easier on both of their ends. He wasn't complaining though, no. Quite the opposite; he enjoyed being held this carefully, almost like Jordan was afraid they'd break him.

He wondered, for a moment, if perhaps, say, there was a test involving hopscotch. How tightly would Jordan hold him then? Would they use the gun? Use his handle instead of wrapping their arm around him in a sort of...permanent human embrace? Or would they use him as the rock to keep track of where they'd land, and discard him after the game was over?

No, he'd decided, they wouldn't do that.