Freedom. The word swam dreamily through her head, pounding in her ears and running through her veins, making her feel, for once, carefree. Freedom. No worries. No homicidal, murderous AI computers hanging over her head making death threats and calling her a lunatic. No need to be careful on every step, with the knowledge that just one wrong move would end her life crushing down on her shoulders. For the first time she could remember, she was free.

Free. FREEEE! Oh, what a great feeling that was! It was like- it was like... Never mind, she was finally free! It was like that first breath of air after being submerged in water a long time, but imagine that amount of time times a thousand, and that's what it felt like. Such a marvellous, wondrous, amazing feeling that she would of yelled it out loud to the world had she remembered how to use her own voice. Contrary to GLaDOS's belief, Chell was not, in fact, a mute. She had known it from the very first time GLaDOS had first spoken to her, when she had woken up in a strange glass box wearing a strange orange jumpsuit surrounded by strange, plain furniture. She had just decided not to respond, thinking at first it was just a synthesized voice that everybody else heard when in the same predicament as herself.

Unfortunately, after a while she realised that it was genuinely GLaDOS speaking and that she could respond if she had wanted to, but her voice had become so underused she decided it would be better to leave GLaDOS thinking she had always been a mute. But GLaDOS wasn't there anymore; Chell was free. Free to speak. Free to do whatever the hell she wanted do. Completely and utterly free, away from that retched place, welcomed back into the world where not everything was artificial, and into the sunlight for what Chell remembered as her first time. After all, Chell had no memories before she had woken up so long ago, and didn't really care much for them either. She might decide she doesn't want her memories once in possession of them, and was ready to start afresh. And what was better than your first breath of clean, non-recycled air?

Nothing. That's what. Apart from maybe a freshly baked chocolate cake after blowing up your arch-nemesis. But other than that, no-one, no-one would be able to even consider believing how fantastic it felt to feel fresh air run into your lungs. To see the wind lazily whispering through the trees, and the sunset dancing playfully on the tips of the wheat in the horizon. Just to see things move naturally, without being controlled and told to move by a corrupted AI.

The sunlight was warm on her face, streaming down her nerves and causing excitement to bubble up inside her. It was strange; like bathing in an ethereal light. The only warmth and light she recalled ever experiencing were from the solid glares of the electric lights or the steady, mild heating of the Enrichment Centre. Sunlight was so, so different. So much more natural.

Chell closed her eyes and felt peace for the first time in a long time. She hugged herself tightly, wallowing in the gentle feel of the breeze stroking her bare arms. She smiled, and let a small laugh escape her lips. It was quiet and hoarse due to her lack of voice, but it was a laugh, a sound, and was there nevertheless. And this time she actually had a reason to be laughing for.

Then she ran. She ran away from the falling debris surrounding the lift that went back down into Aperture, away from testing and cake and portals and power-crazed computers, into the life she had only dreamed of living. She let the wheat stalks caress her skin, enjoying the feeling of organic life at her fingertips. Chell was laughing all the way. It felt great.

Of course, it felt as if she had been running for hours, but after hearing a whiiiizzz! quickly followed by a thud she opened her eyes to find that she had been running in mere loops still in sight of the old, worn-out shack that was the Aperture lift, so out of place in the wheat field. She cautiously began walking back towards the source of the noise, which ironically was in the direction of the lift. When she appeared in the clearing out from the edge of the wheat field, she was greeted by the ever-welcoming sight of the Companion Cube. Her Companion Cube.

Her heart leapt in her chest – she was so happy to see it! The little pink hearts on it's sides were like music to her eyes. Wait – that doesn't even make sense. Oh well, she had her Companion Cube! Chell ran towards it, wrapping her arms around it's bulky frame and pressing her cheek against it's metallic side. She sighed peacefully against it. "Thank you, GLaDOS," she murmured, surprising herself at the sound of her own voice. It appeared that the computer had had some generosity in her after all; she had the decency to shoot Chell's Companion Cube back up the lift. After being turned into a potato and having to work alongside Chell in order to overthrow Wheatley, Chell guessed GLaDOS now held a shred of respect for her.

Letting out another contented sigh, she lifted the companion cube in her arms and began slowly trekking away again. She had now gotten over the thrill of being outside again and had decided to start acting serious about her situation. She was in the middle of nowhere for all she knew, and had no means of finding where the nearest civilisation was, if it even existed, or a way to get there if it did. She didn't even know what year it was! After calming the surging excitement of being free, all the horrible memories of the experiences she had had in that awful place began to resurface. The sun was going down now, and Chell still had not found civilisation. She sat down on her Companion Cube, exhausted, and began to think.

She pulled her jumpsuit sleeves up over her shoulders and zipped it up, shivering. She needed to find shelter soon, and her arms and legs ached from walking all this way carrying a heavy cube as well. After regaining her breath, Chell started inspecting the burns on her arms. They were dark and ragged and foreign compared to the rest of her smooth, tan complexion. She sighed heavily, brushing her dark fringe away from her face. Looking up at the starry night sky, she stared hopelessly into the eternal, over-whelming beauty of it and wondered how the blackness never seemed to cease.

She wondered if Wheatley was up there somewhere, drifting aimlessly around in space. Part of her felt pity for him, a very small part, because no-one should deserve to spend a lifetime up in that endless emptiness with no means of getting down until the day their battery runs out. But another part of her, the bigger part, felt gleeful in the thought that the little this-word-shall-not-be-recorded-here finally got what he deserved. Chell scowled. That traitor.

He had been corrupted with power, driven crazy by GLaDOS's body. He had broken the friendship with the only human, no, scrap that, the only person to treat him with respect, as an equal. And now he had none. Chell smirked to herself at the thought of him floating around endlessly in space with only Space Core as company. She thought back to when she had been happy, glad to have sane company who, granted, was a little annoying at times, was not only was good to be around was trying to help her escape as well. When he so brutally betrayed her, she had to ally with GLaDOS, and it left her distraught, hurt and empty.

Now Chell wanted nothing more than to see her get her revenge, which was what she had got. Sure, she knew that it wasn't entirely Wheatley's fault, as the computer mainframe had broken, and was programmed to corrupt any cores plugged into it. But she was still human, and she knew she could never forgive him for what he had done. Well, if she tried, it would be very hard.

After a bit, the cold started to get to her. She wasn't used to it, and it chilled her to the bone. Chell decided she would have to get up and find shelter and rest for the night, if not civilisation, so she would continue her search in the morning. Because a wheat field had to be near a town, else there would be no point for it, and it had to end somewhere. But for now, shelter was her first priority.

Heaving a sigh, she picked herself up and hauled the Companion Cube into her arms. Night had fully settled now, and the darkness was new to Chell. Although in her more recent adventures with Wheatley, Aperture had become dark and shadowy, Chell was still used to an endless amount of artificial light, and the ultimate blackness of the outside world at night was slightly overwhelming.

Eventually, her legs began to ache. It wasn't exhausting or tiring, as Chell had become quite fit from all the running in the Enrichment Centre. Memories of the suffering she had got from that place formed in her mind. She knew that they would be plaguing her dreams for a couple of years to come.

Her situation was beginning to look hopeless. It was night, and the exhilaration from being free had died down now she could no longer see the sun, or hear the chirruping of birds, and the breeze she felt was now harsh and chill. The only sound to comfort her was the low hum of crickets. Fireflies danced merrily, a sole source of light against the shadows. She couldn't help a smile in spite of herself.

Chell decided that she was already tired enough, so the pain in her legs couldn't get any worse, she needed to find a place to rest soon, and it would help keep her warm, so she began to run. Her arm muscles protested from the heavy weight of the Companion Cube, but she kept going, allowing the stalks to slap painfully against the bare skin of her arms. All the running began to warm up her body again, though, so at least that was good.

She blinked away a single tear from her eye, and whimpered as she ran. She wasn't sure why the tear had come, but from all the emotions she had experienced in the last few days, (or any amount of time really; it was hard to tell underground,) she knew it wouldn't be able to stay caged up for much longer.

Her leg muscles now burned and sweat began to trickle down her forehead from the extra weight of the Companion Cube. Chell was mere seconds away from collapsing, trembling, to her knees when all of a sudden she burst out into the open from the edge of the wheat field. Her eyes widened in a temporary surprise at the sudden change in surrounding, but before she could register it fully they snapped shut, the Companion Cube fell from her arms, and she plopped down to the floor, regaining her breath.

When she had finally stolen her breath back, she pulled herself up from her knees and blinked a few times, grasping her surroundings. She was in a small clearing; there was hardly enough room even for the old, abandoned barn-house that was looming condescendingly over Chell. It's old, empty windows stared bleakly from their stops, like sad, hollow eyes. The wind whistled through it in very much the same way water trickles down one's throat. Flaking red paint was peeling on the walls.

Hope sparked like a flame deep inside of Chell – she had found shelter. Not quite the place she was looking for, but it would last the night and would keep her alive long enough for her to find proper civilisation. If the barn was here, a town couldn't be too far.

Filled to the brim with new energy powered by relief, Chell immediately started searching for tinder, or anything that would be good to light a fire, anyway. As she was surrounded by a wheat field, that was the easiest option, and after retrieving a good amount of wheat and carrying it inside, she was granted further happiness upon the sight of old planks of wood lying around the barn. There was a large pile of hay in one corner that looked comfy enough to sleep on, and with some loose stones she had found outside she would stop the fire from spreading.

Fuelled by the idea of potential rest, Chell set to work at setting the wheat with some added hay down on the dusty floor in what she hoped was the best position for starting a fire. Once it had got going, she added the wooden planks and was soon watching with joy as the welcoming, orange flames lashed their fiery tongues against the blackness, painting the floor with dancing shadows. It emanated warmth, and Chell shortly found herself perched on the Companion Cube at the edge of the haystack that would serve as her rest for the night, and held up her chilly hands for the strength of her makeshift fire to aid.

The heat coursed through her veins, streaming down her body and sending life back into her fingers and toes. When satisfied with her current circumstance, Chell's eyes began to droop from the serenity and peacefulness of it all. The warmth of the flames was so calming, that she slowly trudged to the haystack, arranging it around her to make a comfy bed shape, before resting her head against her hands thinking about the day's events. The safety of the fire and the familiarity of her Companion Cube lulled her off to sleep, with a happy dream of freedom, even though deep down, Chell knew the following nights would be nightmares of her experiences in the Enrichment Centre haunting her sleep.

{O}

GLaDOS blinked her optic in boredom as once again, Blue and Orange had failed to successfully complete a test. The past few months had especially tedious without her only human test subject to mock and torture, and the days began to become a blur as GLaDOS repeated the same routine day in day out, with no need to sleep or do anything but test. The Enrichment centre had been mostly restored to as it once had been, and GLaDOS was no longer... well, insane. She was still mean, sarcastic, sadistic, but murderous? Unless it was that moron, Wheatley, GLaDOS no longer had the desire to beat every living thing to a pulp.

She was beginning to miss Chell. As much as she hated to admit it, during the time when she had been a potato she realised how harsh she had been to the one person who wasn't actually a lunatic, or fat, or even a murderer, because now GLaDOS understood that Chell's actions were completely just. She knew this because she wanted to do the exact same thing to Wheatley. Honestly, how dare he turn GLaDOS into a potato!

So although she was still cold, harsh and ever so slightly overpowering, she had now developed 'feelings' and actually felt somewhat bad for all the things she had done to Chell, and missed having a human to perform her tests rather than just two robots who could never die. Where was the excitement in that?

She also felt a very, very, very angry feeling towards Wheatley. Not only for putting her in a potato, but for threatening her favourite test subject as well! Still, there was another, much smaller, feeling that snagged at the corners of her artificial mind. It was pity, for the poor moron who had been condemned to space until his battery died, which would be another few decades yet, because although she persuaded herself that he did deserve what he got, it was also partly the fact that her body had been previously corrupted by herself.

Yet even so, she pushed these 'feelings' to the back of her database, so she could concentrate on the more important things, like testing. She felt like she was damned to an eternity with ATLAS and P-Body, who couldn't even give intelligent conversation. How GLaDOS longed for someone to talk to. Yes, Chell couldn't actually give conversation either, but it was better than those two idiots.

GLaDOS would even be willing to retrieve the moron from space if she knew how, because she knew that after a couple of years of name-calling and exploding and then reassembling, she could find it in her to forgive him. As much as she hated him with all her non-existent gut, anybody she could have with her to spend eternity with would be fine, so long as nothing out of the ordinary happened. Sure, it would be interesting, but whatever the consequences would be would probably be too dire to think about.

She decided to work out some formulas to keep her occupied. It was easy, and she had done them so many times before in the six-month period since Chell left, but it kept her mind occupied and that was fine with her. Of course, she hadn't been completely uncreative, as she had been working on some more complex android bodies for ATLAS and P-Body, and they were nearly done. Maybe then she would actually be able to say something and have someone respond. That would be nice.

Fortunately, GLaDOS's wishes were granted. She was interrupted from her thoughts when there was a loud crash! and she saw on the video feed ATLAS scattered over the floor of the test chamber, disembodied and broken. P-Body was running around frantically, waving her arms above her head and crashing into walls. GLaDOS sighed into the announcement speaker.

"Well done. You have failed me... again," she said in a bored, monotone voice. "If you want to start testing again, I suggest you head over to the Repair chamber." When seeing that neither of them moved, she said, "Oh. You can't move, because you are broken. Orange, take Blue to the Repair chamber. And I would hurry, because if you don't, I will blow you both up."

P-Body jumped on the screen, obviously panicking. GLaDOS watched in a half-amusement as she attempted to gather ATLAS's parts, before hurriedly completing the test as best she could by herself and hurried out of the exit, ATLAS still broken in her robotic arms.

GLaDOS sighed again at their incompetence to do anything right. She desperately needed something different to happen, or she would probably shut down from lack of malfunctioning. The past few months without Chell had seemed to stretch on forever, and GLaDOS was sure the boredom would kill her one day. She decided to check the Update screen to see if there was anything she needed to sort out, just to keep her busy, even though she knew that there wouldn't be any. The last update she had received was five months ago when it was alerting her that one of the toilets the scientists used to use was blocked.

GLaDOS had not been happy, and had dropped a Weighted Storage Cube on the toilet for good measure. But, to her surprise, there was an update on the screen. This was the part where one of her wishes came true.

In beeping red letters on the screen was the sign, APERTURE PRODUCT FOUND 187.50321 MILES AWAY. ACTION RECOMMENDED. Now this was new. GLaDOS swivelled round on her cables to face the screen fully. Delving into the matter further, she discovered that an Aperture product had randomly popped up on the Earth's surface in, leaving no trace as to how it got there. GLaDOS, being clever enough it couldn't have just appeared from thin air, knew what the object was and didn't want to admit it.

After seeing more details on it, another sign popped up. ACTION REQUIRED. APERTURE PRODUCT COULD GENERATE POSSIBLE HAZARDS. DESTROYING RECOMMENDED. BLOW UP OBJECT? GLaDOS groaned internally. No, she didn't want to blow it up! Because she knew that the object was probably the moron. Or Space Core, but it was more likely Wheatley. She knew she couldn't leave it there, but she didn't want the traitor in her sight again. Then again, she couldn't blow him up either, as she might be destroying her only chance of conversation.

So she decided to take action. She couldn't do anything, no, but ATLAS and P-Body could. It was a good job she had the near-complete android bodies available. Switching the camera feed to the Repair chamber, she watched impatiently as P-Body posted ATLAS's parts through the Reassembling machine and as he came out a few minutes later, fully repaired. P-Body jumped in delight and ran towards her partner, wrapping him in a tight hug and shutting her optic. "Careful. You don't want to destroy him again, do you?" GLaDOS said.

The robots pulled apart, and looked back up at the camera, awaiting further instructions. "Get to the Central AI Chamber. Now. There's a job I need you to perform. And this time, there can be no failures," she growled. They squirmed on screen before racing to the door, tripping over each other. It was a while before they arrived, and by then GLaDOS's patience was wearing thin. She had summoned the android bodies forward and plugged them into the Core Transfer Receptacle, having done a few last-minute tweaks to get them as close to complete as she could.

The round Aperture automatic door opened with a zip and ATLAS and P-Body ran in, rushing hurriedly. GLaDOS said nothing, but watched as they looked up at her, and her unnerving silence, to the Core Transfer Receptacle. Realisation set in. Their optics widened visibly and they both charged towards the door, hurrying to get out as fast as possible. They were met with the unpleasant sound of the door snapping shut and turned, trembling, to face GLaDOS and the evil Core Transfer Receptacle.

"Get in there," GLaDOS barked. "Now."

They winced, and miserably trudged to the Core Transfer Receptacle in the centre of the chamber. Plugging themselves in with a sigh, they looked forlornly at the bodies they would be transferred to. As GLaDOS missed human company the most, she had done her best to make the android bodies as human-looking on the outside as possible, and had succeeded. The bodies could talk, but could not eat or sleep or breathe, as they did not need to. The skin on the outside was soft, but underneath that were layers and layers of metal panelling and beneath that, the wiring and inner circuits.

Artificial hair had been sewn into the top of their heads; P-Body a reddish-gingery colour and ATLAS had a very light, platinum blond. Their skin was a pale white. As GLaDOS did not have the ability to create anything but perfect creations, let alone humans, their facial features were perfectly formed and plain. They had a well-curved chin and high cheekbones, and in P-Body's case, full, elegant lips. P-Body's body was also more feminine than ATLAS, giving them the appearance of male and female. At the moment, the android's eyes were closed and blank.

"You have a job to do." GLaDOS informed them. "I will explain the full details after the transfer, but you will require these bodies to perform it. Transfer undergoing. Be prepared for pain. A lot of pain. In fact, the most horrible, torturous pain you will ever experience in your pitiful lives. But it will only hurt a little bit."

Then she switched the transfer on, and it started. Had ATLAS and P-Body had the ability to speak, they would have let out blood-curdling screams, but the most they could do was twitch and fizz and widen their optics as electrical sparks jumped out from their old bodies as their cores were placed into the androids. The lack of screams made it a lot easier for GLaDOS to watch, as often she did not like witnessing the pain cores experienced from that blasted Core Transfer.

Eventually, to ATLAS and P-Body's relief, the transfer was complete. They opened their new eyes and peered around at the room, getting adjusted to the new bodies' cameras and mainframes. These eyes were smaller, and the view was different, but at least there were two eyes. And now they had mouths! They were both looking forward to testing out the ability to speak later on. These new bodies were also easier to use; their movements were so much smoother and easy-going. To anybody else, they would have looked like ordinary humans. But to the above-average in intelligence, they would have noticed a slight jerk in their movements, and the slight brightness of the eyes, and maybe even the faint whirr that emanated from them if you listen carefully. But GLaDOS knew that despite ATLAS and P-Body's stupidity, they were clever enough to stay clear of humans as much as possible.

After rolling their robotic tongues around their mouths a bit and stretching their new arms, ATLAS and P-Body stood to attention in front of GLaDOS's optic, twitching every now and again as they got comfortable in their new bodies. When they had settled, GLaDOS spoke. "Well done. You managed to complete the transfer without self-destructing in pain. I hope you enjoyed it. Also, I think you will be happy to hear that I lied when I said it would be the most horrible, torturous pain you will ever have to experience. You will have to do it again when you complete your mission to go back into your old bodies for me to finish these, and then again when I have finished them. Isn't that funny? You actually thought you wouldn't have to experience that amount of pain again. You did. I could see it in your faces that I so cleverly crafted. Well, I can now tell you, you will experience that horrible, torturous pain again. Ha ha."

ATLAS and P-Body's shoulders visibly drooped. "Anyway. The babbling moron from space has returned, and it's your job to collect him. He landed in the centre of Utah. Take this map I constructed to take you there," a robot arm dropped a piece of paper in front of them. A very, very complicated looking piece of paper, so much in fact that when they inspected it closer they could not decipher it all, but decided not to tell GLaDOS. She just continued, regardless. "As these bodies are more complex than your old ones, they can only stand up to 100˚celsius and only have enough charge to last six months. Don't go near water, don't overheat, and don't fail me. If anyone asks, you are siblings by the names of Piper and Alex. Don't tell anyone where you come from, and at least try to act human. You need to bring the moron back to me unharmed within six months or I will blow you up, and this time I will not bring you back. Understand?"

ATLAS and P-Body nodded frantically. "Unfortunately, you cannot take your Handheld Portal Device with you. Take this," an arm dropped a bundle of dollar notes GLaDOS had printed, "and be as quick as possible. Now leave."

An Aperture lift leading up to the outside world dropped from the ceiling and fell into place on the floor with a hiss. With a brief hesitation, ATLAS and P-Body gathered their strength and ventured into the lift, looking far braver and dramatic than necessary. GLaDOS rolled her optic and sighed as her only remaining test subjects disappeared from view into the world, leaving her completely and utterly alone for the first time in a long time. She was almost looking forward to seeing the moron again.

Almost.

{O}

"SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!" Space Core cried, for the trillionth time, blinking it's optic in glee and wriggling excitedly in it's orbit. "We're in space, we're in space, we're in spacey, spacey space... WE'RE IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!"

Wheatley sighed; he would have attempted to shut him up, but he had lost count of how many times he had tried that and all of them had been fruitless and had helped him come to the conclusion that no matter how many times he tried to keep Space Core quiet, there was no stopping him. Wheatley couldn't quite get his 'head' round the fact there literally was no going back. He was to be stuck up here with only a bumbling idiot, who couldn't get over being in space, until his battery died and he would become another piece of man-made junk floating around in space.

It was almost physically painful to think about why Wheatley was up here in the first place. He had done so many terrible, terrible things to the only person who treated him with respect, and it wasn't even him thinking. It was the computer mainframe he was plugged into, corrupting his thoughts and coaxing him with power and vengeance against someone who had never actually done anything and someone who had called him a moron regularly, but other than that had done nothing against him.

Still, he knew it was added to the fact he was also incredibly fed up with being insulted and mistreated, but he had never minded much before he had been given the power to do something about it, to actually get his revenge on something he didn't even need revenge on. He had been driven power-crazy, and it had caused him to want to kill and torture his best friend, his only friend. But she wasn't his friend anymore, and never would be again, would never want to be again. That hurt Wheatley more than he could put down in words. Whoever designed robots with feelings this... well, human, must have been one horrible little fellow.

Looking back at his actions now, he was disgusted at them. It was almost hard to believe he had been the one to do those awful things, that it was all him. It was gut-wrenching even though Wheatley had no gut to think that he was even capable of such things. And he hated the fact he would never be able to apologise. That was his last wish, and it would never happen. Never. Ever. Nope, not gonna happen.

He would be stuck up in space for the rest of his days while down on earth, Chell would be going on about her daily life, trying to forget the traumatizing experiences he had caused, thinking that he was a murderous traitor. She would live out her whole life never being able to know that he was sorry, never knowing how desperately he wanted to make amends for the wrong he had committed. It was such a horrible thought Wheatley wished his battery would die soon. He no longer had any point to living, as Space Core was too entranced by space he wouldn't miss his company much.

Great. No-one alive actually liked him. Maybe self-destructing would do the trick, if he actually knew how. But maybe he should carry out his punishment like he deserved – to stay stuck in an endless space until the day his battery died, which, as his settings had informed him, would be another 14,429 days. He had only been in space 181 days.

If only he could say he was sorry. Then at least he could shut down happy, with the knowledge that he was forgiven, and that Chell knew he was sorry for so ruthlessly ripping their friendship in half as easily as ripping a sheet of paper. Wheatley wondered if she remembered him, or if she thought of him often. If she did, it was probably evil, tearing-Wheatley-apart thoughts anyway. So no hopes there.

Wheatley was interrupted from his thoughts as Space Core said something slightly different to his usual space-fascination spouting. "Do you like space?" it asked curiously. Wheatley rolled over in space to face the little core. "What?" he managed, his voice modulator crackling like on old radio from lack of use. "Do you like space?" it repeated. "I do. I LOVE it! It's big and black and endless and big!"

"I-uh, think you may have said 'big' twice, there, mate."

"Big! Space is big! Space is big and black and endless. That means it goes on-" it paused dramatically, "forever!"

"I think you, ah, may have something broken," Wheatley said, although he knew that Space had nothing broken; he was like this normally. He was just curious as to why scientists could be stupid enough to create such an annoying core in the first place.

"Why are you not happy? I'm happy. I'm in SPACE! Why are you not happy if you're in space?"

"Well, I don't think everyone likes space as much as you do. Yes, that's it. Not everybody likes space."
Space Core looked confused. "How can people not like space?" it asked.

Wheatley decided not to answer. It wouldn't do much anyway. So he 'sat' and drifted off into his thoughts, the incessant rambling of Space Core sounding distant in his Sound Modulator.

Once again, he was awoken when Space Core probably said the most unlikely thing Wheatley ever expected it to say. "I'm bored of space," it said. Wheatley spun round and stared at Space Core in shock.

"You're what?" he snapped.

"I'm bored of space. Nothing interesting ever happens."

"You weren't saying that a minute ago."

"Space isn't everything I thought it would be."

"Took you six months to work that out."

"It's just big and black and endless."

"Yes, yes it is."

"I wanna go home."

Wheatley paused. "So do I, mate. So do I," he said forlornly after a brief moment's hesitation.

Space Core sighed and stared around blankly. "I miss Earth."

"Yeah. Earth was good."

Frankly, Wheatley was at a loss as to how the little Space Core had managed to grow bored of something it was programmed to be infatuated with. But Wheatley decided not to think about it too much. He had other things to think about, even though it was all he had been thinking about since the very first day he was confined to the wretched area called space.

What Wheatley didn't know, was that he was about to get what he wanted anyway. He had trailed off into his own thoughts again, and was so rudely jerked out of them, when something else unexpected happened. There was a loud squeal from behind him, and he wasn't sure if it was delighted or terrified. He desperately hoped it was the former. "What's wrong? Are we going to die? Oh, please tell me it's something life-threatening!"

"I don't wanna go back to Earth anymore!" Space Core said happily. "Space just became interesting again!"

If Wheatley had hands and Space Core had shoulders, Wheatley would have shook them violently as he looked into Space Core's optic and demanded, "What? Just tell me, what. Is. Interesting?"

If Space Core had a mouth and hands, it would have smiled gleefully and pointed at somewhere next to Wheatley as it giggled, "Meteorite!" as if it were pointing out a bunny.

Wheatley swivelled round on his axis and his optic widened at the sight of a big, fiery rock shooting at the speed of light straight towards them. Half of him was immensely happy - he was most likely going to die when it hit and he wouldn't be stuck with horrible guilt anymore. But the other part was terrified – he wasn't ready for this. He had wished for it earlier but he needed to be prepared first!

So he braced himself for impact. He would get whatever was coming for him, no matter the consequences. At least there was a large possibility that this was all going to end soon.

However, it didn't end quite as Wheatley had expected it to. The meteorite was getting closer, he could hear it now. When he could swear it was milliseconds from impact though, he didn't get squashed like he thought he would. Instead, there was a horrible feeling of adrenaline in his circuits which made him wonder for a split second why scientists even gave cores the ability to feel adrenaline, but the thought was quickly blown away when there a was an ear-splitting whoosh! and an intense heat began to squeeze through the cracks in Wheatley's panelling. He had to completely shut his optic to stop it from falling out from the speed.

After a long time of this horrible feeling, Wheatley had managed to piece together what was happening. The meteorite had missed him by millimetres and he had been whisked into it's path from the speed and was now currently flying to wherever the meteorite was headed alongside it. There was probably little to none chance of him escaping the grasp of this thing unless it hit some unfortunate planet, and Wheatley guessed Space Core wasn't with the meteorite with him.

Oh well. The poor fellow was probably content with staying up in space now it had regained it's interest, at least for another 181 days. Maybe if it was lucky, another meteorite would fly past. Wheatley would have felt sorry for it, but he was more concerned for his own well-being to worry about that.

All of a sudden, there was a ghastly calmness and the meteorite seemed to slow down with a jolt. A brief moment of an atrocious heat a hundred times worse than the last one shot through but only lasted a nanosecond before it felt like Wheatley was flying.

Eventually, he summoned the bravery to open his optic a crack, just to see what had happened, and was met with what he wasn't sure was a pleasant or unpleasant surprise.

What looked unbelievably closer than usual was a getting-larger-by-the-second planet that was big, blue, watery and familiar from the images on his database.

Part of him wanted to yell out with happiness.

The other part wanted to tremble in fear at the sight of water.

Apparently water covered two thirds of the planet's surface.

Wheatley did not like water.

A/N. I'm quite happy with this chapter. There may be many mistakes as it's been a while since I've played the game, but please tell me and I shall try to sort them. Please review, I'm dying to know what you think! Tell me if you think I should continue or not. Thanks! :)

~Franki