This story was actually written a good while ago but I'd forgotten about it until recently. I decided to upload it today when I wondered what would have happened if Wheatley somehow managed to make it back to earth. It was actually an interesting experience, writing dialogue for just one character when there's two interacting.
I also tried to keep what Chell has been up to since Wheatley's absence rather obscure on purpose. I didn't want to go into too much detail for just a simple oneshot.
Hopefully it's up to scratch though! Enjoy!
"Ha! Haha! Ah…! I'm alive! Bloody hell I hardly thought I'd survive a fall like that…! Blimey… Ooh...Wow…where exactly am I though? Ah, what do I care? Beats drifting around in space like a satellite." The spherical robot scanned his surroundings, cracked eyepiece on his monitor moving erratically to take everything in; gold, so much gold. So unlike the steely, cold interior of Aperture. He continued to chatter on; a compulsion- he gave out a continuous monologue unaware that he wasn't in fact alone.
Chell peered into the large hole that had been created from the impact of Wheatley's incredible fall- like a meteor, which Chell had mistaken him for at first, he'd rocketed down from the Earth's orbit (how he'd managed it she was unsure) and crashed. The heat from the fiction caused from the sheer speed he'd travelled at made him to burst into flames, sparks flying up into the golden field and setting some patches alight. She couldn't quite believe what had just happened, but didn't have much time to dwell on it as the little robot spotted her from the bottom of the hole.
"I-it's you!" He called, sounding just as surprised as Chell felt. "Wow, it's been such a long time…although time seems to pass oddly slowly when you're drifting around with not much to do! But, lookey 'ere, I made it back! And I bump into you straight after! Small world! Well, actually, the world isn't all that small. I could see how big it was from my place floating around it, constantly… It's huge! But, yes, that was in fact, a metaphor, so…must have been fate, right...?"
Chell continued to simply stare at him.
"Ohh, that's right. I forgot you don't do the whole…talking thing… but that's alright, that's alright. I just thought maybe you might have learnt something in our time apart…" His vibrant blue eyepiece tilted to look at the ground. "I know I did. I… to be honest, I have in my files the visual of our final moments I caught on my monitor. And after playing it over and over I began to really consider how…well… s-sorry I was…I really am. With all my heart…well… robotic equivalent of—She's gone? She's gone! Oi! Hey! Where'd you go? I was in the middle of – oh there you are…wait…why do you have that..?"
Chell had quickly made her way off while Wheatley had been in mid-speech; in both hands she was clutching a shovel.
"Uh. That would be a shovel. And I…can't help but notice by the look on your face you're not…all together pleased to see me, am I right?" He gave a visible recoil in which the metallic plates of his structure clamped together as her eyes narrowed, worrying about his exterior receiving yet more damage as it looked very much like she wanted to smack him with it. "Y-you're still angry?" She gave a curt nod. "Well, just hear me out, you left when I was in the midd—AH-!" He let out a yelp when his vision was distorted by a pile of dirt falling on top of him. "Think about this! I can't be buried like some kind of time capsule! I'll get all kinds of insects in my mainframe!"
She ignored him and continued to attempt to bury and cover up the large fissure. Wheatley continued to give squawks and yell protests up to her as this continued.
"Chell! Chell! Look-AH-! I may have gone a… little far with the whole…trying to kill you thing but—Ow! There was a rock in that-! But I wasn't in my right mind when I got hooked up to that thing!"
She continued to keep her eyes averted away from the spherical robot, his voice starting to become somewhat muffled and he was covered in earth.
"But I'm not hooked up to Her now, so I'm me again! Me! Good ol' Wheatley! Your old buddy!"
Chell paused in her digging, slightly breathless, wiping sweat off her brow and leaning against the shovel.
"…Chell?"
She sat down, for the first time, catching his eye.
"…'elloo…~" The metallic bottom eyelid rose up, covering the bottom half of his monitor; he almost looked shy.
Chell rolled her eyes.
"…Would "I'm sorry" be a good thing to say now…? I'm going to go with "I'm sorry". 'coz…I really am. I am! I got lots of time to think out there you know…speakin' of which, how long was I even out there for?"
Chell held up four fingers.
"Weeks?"
She shook her head.
"Months?"
Again.
"…Four years? I've been out four years? That's such a long time… and I mean, well… saying that, time doesn't really feel like much to me since I'm not…human, so I'm not going to die any time soon but… four years feels like so long when I'm away from y—Uh…away from anyone to talk to…"
Chell eyed him from the place above the pit, sitting down on something; Wheatley analyzed her, and comparing her current appearance to that of what he had of her stored in his memory banks from the last time he'd been with her, she looked well groomed- her hair was neat, and her clothes weren't the Aperture test subject uniform; Wheatley wasn't sure what they were, since he hadn't really seen human attire outside that state of dress, but it didn't look bad…it was quite a nice change.
Wheatley's caught something from the corner of his eyepiece. Using his zoom feature, he clearly made out that the object she had seated herself upon.
"Wow! Look at that! A companion cube! I never thought I'd ever see one of those again." Anything linking to a life outside of the last four years automatically made him excited, even if it was something as simple as one of the millions of the cubes produced. "Look, I know you two are pretty close, but to be honest…well…unless the effects of that ol' cognitive brain damage have given you the ability to talk to it, that cube doesn't really make much conversation… not like…you know…a certain personality core… I know, I know, me and…it… are very different- I'm spherical, it's a…cube…"
Chell couldn't really voice aloud that the Cube wasn't really the only one who she'd been interact with in the last four years; Wheatley seemed to have forgotten that living in the outside world in isolation with no signs of civilization nearby would probably have caused her not to have lived a much longer life. She looked behind her, glancing at the view of a collection of houses, forming a village. She had been coping. She looked back down at him; he was continuing to attempting to plead his case. A sensible person would probably have been amused at his pitiful attempts…however…
"…and I suppose that since you two are pretty quiet then there wouldn't be much need for a conversation…but… Oof-!" Wheatley jittered slightly as he felt the earth shake as Chell dropped into the pit. "Whahey! Look at that, you're still a good jumper…! Oh…!" He gave a slight sound of surprise as he felt himself being tugged out the pile of earth and into her arms. "Oh… you…this may be a long shot but… has my apology been accepted…?~"
Chell took a moment to give him a skeptical look. He stared up at her, blinking his large blue eye a couple of times; probably the robotic equivalent of puppy dog eyes. She sighed, not giving any form of reply, verbal or otherwise, except to hop out with the robot in both her arms.
"That's what I like about you humans; you're very forgiving. You don't hold grudges. Not like Her. No, no, I would never hold a grudge like that against you."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"…Alright, maybe I was a little bit upset about the fact you didn't catch me that one time but… we can bury the hatchet, right? I forgive you completely."
Chell heaved an exasperated sigh that Wheatley missed, looking around.
"Um… not that it doesn't look pretty but…is this field always supposed to be on fire?"
Chell added yet another reason to be extremely irritated with Wheatley to a list because of that…but couldn't help but put that list to one side, a different one made up of reasons to be amused and to have missed her little robotic sidekick coming to the forefront of her mind as he continued to enthusiastically babble about anything and everything that came in his line of vision. It felt like old times again; the familiar migraine and smile forming on her face proved that much.