Author's Note: I wrote this one-shot about a year ago, and I decided I'd upload it back onto here anyway because I do sorta still like it, as old as it is.
Songfic ft. the song 'Brain Damage' by Pink Floyd.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Wheatley was drifting in darkness, orbiting the dark side of the moon. The vastness of space stretched out before him, only broken by a distant flash of yellowish light from the fellow core, drifting.
Space was big. Too big and little Wheatley couldn't even begin to imagine how many millions of years it would take for him to drift back to earth. If that was even possible, he wasn't sure. It was a dark, quiet, harsh environment.
The lunatic is on the grass.
The silence pressed in on him, absolute, dampening all sound and nearly all conscious thought. After a while it seemed to seep into his metal frame, and for a long time all he could remember was floating in an endless stream of nothingness.
Remembering.
Suddenly he raised his optic, barely registering that he had reached the light. He blinked, and realized that it wasn't the sun he was staring into, as he had supposed. It was Earth.
It felt like a long time since he had seen Earth. The brain damaged lunatic was down there, probably enjoying the sky and grass and all the pretty things full of lifeinstead of endless night.
With that, Wheatley's thought process was reactivated, whirring soundlessly in the dark vacuum of space. He remembered with bitterness and regret, the apology hanging on the edge of his non-existent tongue. If only he could see her again.
Remembering games.
Yes, he had certainly played a fair few games with this woman.
The first of many she had not played along with. He asked her say apple. She jumped. Must be the brain damage, he had thought, and moved on.
He asked her to catch him. She hadn't done that either, though if he really considered it, he wasn't that surprised. She was tiny and he was a heavy metal sphere dangling several feet above her head. Understandable.
Wheatley watched Earth slide across his field of vision, lost in his memoirs and regret.
He had asked her to do just one more thing, to test for him. She hadn't even done thatproperly.
Remembering games and daisy chains.
That was the mainframe's fault, though. Probably. Mostly, if he was honest.
Greatest moment of his life, he had told her. It hadfelt amazing.
Then the would-be potato had to go and ruin it. "She did all the work!" Honestly.
But really, Wheatley knew she had sacrificed a lot. She wanted to escape, something they had in common. He showed her how to do it, though. How to shut down the neurotoxin generator, and how to replace the turrets with crap turrets.
Wheatley had notmeant to punch her into the pit.
It was her, the potato-computer. She – she had got to him. Pushed that button, so to speak. He did not likebeing called a moron, much less the – the intelligence dampening sphere. It was embarrassing and an outright fabrication. The fact that nearly all his plans seemed to fall apart was mere coincidence. Some of them had worked, hadn't they? Proof. Proof he wasn't a moron.
When she had called him that, and he watched the hurt and disbelief cross the mute's face, he freaked. It was the last thing he wanted, this woman who was actually beginning to respect him finding that out. He couldn't deny it, as he wanted her to like him. Part of him ached to be liked, and appreciated for what he was. She was judging him, silently, as it turned out. All he ever wanted was to be accepted.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
"We've had some laughs, haven't we?"
He tried to speak the words, but no sound came out.
They certainly had some laughs, once upon a time.
He remembered the warm, glorious relief that had spread through him when he saw that she was still alive.
The first time she picked him up. With the portal gun, of course (he shuddered at the thought of her bare touch), and when she plugged him into the small port in the room. She made him so nervous, his wiring filled with a sort of tingle that science itself couldn't explain. At first he had thought something had gone wrong inside him, but it felt too goodto be wrong.
"I can't do it when you're watching. Could – could you turn around?"
"Please. Turn around, luv."
He tried to keep his idiocy from her, hiding his lack of hacking skills, his knack for crudely breaking this.
He remembered the first time he saw her really, truly smile. It had been on the way to her chamber, in the tube ride. For a moment, their gaze had connected. He laughed nervously and she smiled and the whole world lit up.
Wheatley peered into the darkness, swearing it had lighted a few degrees at just the thought.
Unable to keep her gaze for long, Wheatley's optic did an involuntary spin as the tingling in his wires made him feel as though the tube had gotten a couple of degrees warmer.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.
It had all changed as if at the press of a button.
Now she wanted him dead.
He tried, desperately, to keep her in sight, trapped like a jumpsuited rat. Fatal mistakes wouldn't happen. They couldn't. If she got out, being the brain damaged lunatic she was, she'd murderhim.
Got to test. For science, and to keep her preoccupied until he came up with his own clever little four part plan. And it felt marvelous, to be honest.
The lunatic is in the hall.
He had failed, she had escaped his clutches. Not listening as he screamed for him to come back.
He tried to coax her. He tried his bloody best. The three portal device. A brand new jumpsuit from France. Her parents, for god's sake! Boys! Honestly, what kind of a woman didn't want a boy band? Or a pony farm?
Mad, she was.
Or maybe not, it hadn't been the cleverest ruse; a bottomless pit, Wheatley.
If there had been more timehe could have thought up something better, but the facility hadn't wasted a single second in reminding him that the whole place was on the verge of self-destruction.
The lunatics are in MY hall.
He was starting to really panic now. If he had skin, he would've been sweating.
He set up death trap after death trap. As each one failed, he groaned slightly, panic consuming him for a dreaded microsecond.
They were coming, the lunatic and the potato.
"…Perfectly serviceable death option…"
She replaced her portals, lobbing bombs into his monitor. It shattered, ruining any chance of him watching her jump into the masher.
"FINE!" He had yelled at her, offended. "I'll take that as a no, then!"
He watched the tapes of herbeing murdered.
Mistakes would be fatal, he knew. No portal surfaces. Bombs, bomb proof shields. Neurotoxin. He felt a little better, and watched the two lunatics jog up the hall to his lair.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor.
He made a mistake, he realized too late.
An earth shattering sound filled his lair, a sound of breaking glass. A tube had been blasted open, a white frothy liquid quickly covering the entire floor. "AAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!" NOOOOOO–
Two-faced. Lying. Selfish, she was. Couldn't she see he didn't mean for any of this to happen? He was stuck. He had to kill her, or else she'd kill him.
She had rejected him, traded his allegiance for a filthy, half-rotten potato. That two timing horrible brain damaged monster, he thought, as she proceeded to use the conversion gel. She wouldn't listen to him anymore no matter what he tried. She was poisoned by the potato. The potato was more poisonous than the conversion gel itself, it seemed.
White as paper, the gel was. Wheatley felt glad it wasn't, since paper was very flammable and the entire room was surrounded by what seemed to be fire.
He watched her run around the room, reconfiguring the shields as quickly as possible.
He wasn't quick enough. She hit him, and it was pain beyond pain.
And every day the paper boy brings more.
"Wh – what happened?"
No answer, of course. Typical mute.
Wheatley turned his chassis around to face her, catching a strange sensation radiating from one of the ports in his side.
"SPAAAAAAACE!"
"It's a coreyou've put on me!"
A core. What did she think she was doing? It just gave him more power, more mental capacity to manipulate, more strength. It made him feel good.
However, Wheatley wasn't a moron. He knew she must have thoughtshe had good reasoning to plug the core onto him. He activated the firewall, just in case.
There was already a wall of fire surrounding them. It made him realize that mute lunatic or no, they were still in copious amounts of danger, and he had no idea how to fix it. Any of it.
More bombs, more pain. Wheatley was becoming desperate again. He looked at her, her flushed complexion, eyes full of a resourceful determination. A determination to –
He screamed at her, his metaphorical heart breaking. He had thought she cared about him, but it seemed she just wanted him to suffer.
Another core.
He had had enough, and his voice broke. "You've been playing me the whole time! Both of you!"
She was a monster in disguise, and her new companion was even worse if it was possible. Delivering her these cores, what were they playing at?
Wheatley had just wanted to make things better. It was her that didn't want it, she never had.
The realization cut him like a knife. She hated him, it was obvious. Never catching him, running away, and refusing to test when he needed it. He had begged her, pleaded with her, leant down on his metaphorical knees, for god's sake, and she wasn't having any of it.
She didn't care about him, all she wanted to do was escape.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon.
Wheatley blinked his eye shutters, staring into the black void of space.
He had promised her escape.
He wanted escape, possibly more than she had. His whole life he had been caught up in that place, always under someone else's control. Maybe that's why it had felt so good to be in charge for once.
It was power he needed, something that had been denied from him for – well, ever, really. The scientists and engineers wouldn't let him have that.
"Intelligence Dampening Spheres are incapable of controlling anything that isn't as simple as pressing a button."
Wait, he didn't even have handsto press a button!
"I AM NOT A MORON!"
There were a lot of things Wheatley could do that a moron couldn't. He obviously wasn't a moron. It hadn't been his fault nearly all of the test subjects had died. It wasn't his fault that she had brain damage.
He hated the entire place, and so did she. They hated heras well.
They brought her down, together.
"Press the button!"
It felt tremendous, that first little taste of power. Almost as good as the test euphoria had been at first. It had been enough to convince him that this was somehow right.
So they wouldn't leave, so what? This was better than the surface Wheatley had been imagining for years. He had access to an infinite amount of data in this chassis – out of curiosity more than anything, he did a search.
'Surface' turned out to be something completely different than what he had imagined. Everyone was all dead, actually.
"Moron."
It was hervoice, and it cut through his newfound wonder and ecstasy like a knife.
"I AM NOT A MORON!"
This time it was too much, and the dam broke with a wave of fury he had never experienced before. He slammed into the lift, shattering the glass, trying to ignore the look of terror on the mute lunatic's face. It only made him angrier that she was surprised. Did she really expect to walk out of this place, alive and unhurt?
It seemed to take the lift an age to fall.
Wheatley regretted it immediately.
And if there is no room upon the hill.
He sighed soundlessly, looking at the smallest sliver of Earth he could still see as it passed out of his line of sight.
They were supposed to escape together, that was the plan.
He still could remember his first ideas of what it would be like.
She was carrying him, that giant crazy smile shining from her face again. Wheatley spun in his casing just thinking about it.
They were walking through long grass, and it tickled her legs and bare feet. She was laughing, and he was laughing. The sun was shining down upon the hill they stood upon, almost blinding them.
She sat down and cradled him in her legs. Their first touch, he had often wondered what it would have been like. Warm, probably, but better than that. Not the kind of warm that he had experienced from the solar wind out here. It was pleasant, and cozy. It made him feel comforted just to imagine it. A hand rested lightly on top his handle, and they watched the sun set together.
Suddenly she leant over him, her hair sweeping across his field of vision. He was enveloped in her warmth and a strange giddiness consumed him. The familiar tingle was in his circuits again and he just looked at her in silence. She had never been so close.
He couldn't look away, he was spellbound. She leant farther over him, and her lips found the sensitive plate that lined the outside of his optic.
Beep.
What's that
, Wheatley wondered. A strange beep had sounded in his thoughts, unlike any others that he had experienced.
Beep. Intelligence Dampening Sphere must reconnect to Aperture Science Personality Construct Management Rail for recharge. Power supply at fifteen percent.
Oh.
It cut through the moment like nothing else could, reminding him of his current position and the fact that he would never see her again.
They'd never spend that peaceful day on the hilltop together that Wheatley dreamt of.
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too.
The mute lunatic had hesitated. She must have had an inkling of what would happen if she initiated the core transfer.
Shecertainly did. "NONONONO…" But Wheatley hadn't listened. He wanted it, much more than he'd ever thought he would.
She had trusted him, going along with his plan against her own forebodings.
So confused, she was. Did she want to get out of here or not? Yes. Yes, she did, Wheatley could see it.
So she pressed the button, against her own prior knowledge of button pushing and Aperture technology. Her moment of hesitation had felt like eternity.
He still marvelled that it had been the mainframe itself she had mistrusted. Her trust of him seemed to have only started to fall apart when he knocked her into the pit.
It wasn't surprising, really.
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Wheatley had lost sight of Earth again, the solid mass of moon blotting it out.
It was lonely up here, away from her. He would have felt glad to even catch a glimpse of a frankenturret once more.
The blackness pressed in again, choking him. There was only two things that seemed to make him feel better these days (or nights – Wheatley wasn't sure which), thinking of the lunatic, or the apology he had prepared for her.
He knew the chances of ever seeing her again were slim to none, and if he didsomehow make it back she probably wouldn't want to listen to him.
It still made him feel better to imagine it.
He was genuinely sorry, but there was more than that. He felt this need to explain himself, to come clean.
Something inside him felt broken, even now. A lose wire, maybe.
He had done all those monstrous things – how, he wondered, he had no idea. How could he have let it happen? How could he have been so – so selfish, completely disregarding her like that?
He yearned to take it back. He wanted to start over, to make things right. He missed the way her eyes lit up with the blue of his optic when she looked at him.
Beep.
The lunatic is in my head.
Sometimes he could've sworn he could hear her voice. Ridiculous, he knew, since she was mute.
He must have imagined it. He had been in space for a long time.
Though there was something about her, he couldn't quite place his handlebar on it. Her facial expressions were somehow more intense than most humans. It certainly made up for her lack of voice.
The lunatic is in my head.
Mind games, he thought. Maybe that's what it was.
She needed to keep a certain sternness about her. Once her resolution broke, it would be the end of her.
Tenacity literally meant the measure of strength of a bit of yarn.
Yarn was a beautifully woven and hand crafted thing. It seemed silly to Wheatley, that humans would use so much effort to wrap bits of string together to form a ball.
It was worth noting that even a ball of the strongest string in the entire world could become unravelled. He'd never let that happen to her.
She was so strong.
You raise the blade, you make the change.
She had raised that small, dainty finger and pressed that button.
He had tried his best to kill her, his very best. He didn't want to think about it.
It played like a video through his mind.
She raised her finger. Hit, click, and the whole world swallowed him whole.
"This is gonna hurt, isn't it? Oh, I didn't think about that."
The procedure had been excruciating, but oddly satisfying. He had been strapped into the receptacle, unable to move as wires snaked intrusively through his casing.
He closed his optic, willing it to go faster, to be over, for the pain to stop.
A moment later he got the biggest dose of pure manufactured adrenaline, if you could call it that – and suddenly his sphere had extended by a couple trillion feet. He could feel the facility, nerve-like wires connecting everything into his massive chassis, and he reeled for a moment, overcome. It was a power he had never fathomed.
Stalemate resolved, indeed. Core transfer complete, everything had changed.
"Who's the moron now?"
You re-arrange me til I'm sane.
The second procedure had its similarities.
Though, it was oddly relieving, as though a tremendous weight had suddenly been lifted from him. He was free, and during those first few hours of drifting alone through space he had thoughtfully considered it. He flexed his handlebars which here almost numb from all the time they had spent strapped to the chassis.
Before long, though, he started to notice something a little bit more worrisome.
His thoughts themselves were different. He started to feel regret and remorse at his harsh decisions and treatment of the lunatic. His mind was becoming clearer, almost. The last remnants of power faded slowly, leaving him with nothing but complete and utter blackness, and nothing but sadness to break the fog that consumed him.
It was exile, and he knew he deserved it.
You lock the door.
The moment the portals had closed, he knew it was over. Any chance of him fixing things, apologizing, or even just seeing her againwere gone. Just gone.
Part of him had hated her at first for that. He was angry with her still, upset at her betrayal, in denial about his own.
He couldn't believe she hadn't grabbed him.
He called for her, and called, until the tiny molecules of oxygen dispersed and the silence pressed in.
Wheatley always hated silence.
With a faint popping noise the orange portal had vanished, leaving him in the black abyss of space.
Beep. Core power reserves low. Ten percent remaining.
Shut up, will you…
And throw away the key.
They had left him here, in space, to die.
He was dying. There was nothing he could do about it. Powerless once more.
He couldn't get out, and he wondered what she was currently doing. If she was thinking of him at all. Perhaps he might've felt a little better if she was staring up at the stars or something, wishing she could retrieve him. The thought was comforting, at least.
Then what had reallyhappened to her after the portal closed?
He tried to restrain himself from thinking of the worst possible situation. She was lucky if she was still alive.
Maybe she had finally struck some luck and escaped, like they had planned. That would be nice. At least one of them would get a happy ending that way.
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
He recalled their last few seconds together.
Then, more than any other time, had he been sorely convinced she could almost speak.
It was as though the words had gone straight from her mind to his, though her lips didn't move. They didn't need to.
"WHEATLEY!" She would have been screaming if she could. "WHEATLEY, COME BACK!"
I can't, luv, I'm sorry!
"Please, Wheatley, don't leave me!"
I don't know how to come back… I'm in space… Just give me a minute or two, I'll get a brainwave, luv, don't worry…
"I need you, please, don't leave me here, in this place. I thought we were going to escape together and start a new life?" She sounded hysterical, as if she were nearly in tears.
It broke him, this figment of his imagination playing through his head. His casing shook, his optic closed. He trembled all over, the simulated emotion sucking even more power from his already drained system.
I'm dying, luv, I'm sorry…
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear.
Beep. Core power reserves at five percent. Initiating core shutdown sequence.
No, nonono – wait…
Images were flicking through his mind, like a film. A torrent of data he was unaware of even having access to, some things he wished he could forget.
The lunatic.
Just her, her hair tied back and a look of utter confusion upon her beautiful face. The moment they first met.
He thought it had been the brain damage. He wasn't so sure anymore.
A hand groped into space, a heavy rush of air flying through the open portal. He could see her gasping for breath, unable to catch it. The wind was loud, rushing like thunder, the swirling colors of the portal like lightning.
"Say apple," he told her.
Apple. Such a simple word, and she couldn't even utter it.
And for some strange reason, rain.
Why was that in there?
He didn't have the mental capacity to find out, his eyelids drooped and the light of his optic flickered.
"Don't leave me, Wheatley. Remember the time you guided me with your flashlight? You gave me light, Wheatley, you saved me. I was going to die in cryosleep. Don't die on me, Wheatley, please, follow my light. Follow the sound of my voice."
You're not real, he gasped.
You shout and no one seems to hear.
His voice made no sound in the blackness. Luv, I want you to know that I'm sorry. I wish I could take it back, what I did to you – I never wanted it to end this way, if I'm honest.
Why did he keep hearing her voice? She didn't have one, did she? No, she was a mute lunatic. A mute, brain damaged, lovely lunatic who –
"I forgive you."
A warm glow spread through him, and his mind was once again filled with the sight of her smile. A flutter flickered in his depths.
Tremendous, luv. I just want you to hold me.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes.
He could almost feel her again, her soft, supple skin. It pressed against his hull in a way that was more wholesome than the euphoria had been, more intense than the rush of data the mainframe had given him. It was something that flowed through him in a rhythm different from any he had experienced before.
Beep. Core power reserves at two percent.
It was amazing, really, that he could feel this way. He wondered if it was giving her the same glorious comfort he was experiencing at her touch.
Chell rocked the core softly, her head resting against his top. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek.
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
But he was in space, and it still wasn't real, and he was alone in the dark. He tried to click his flashlight on, but it wouldn't work. He was broken and lonely and cold, still lamenting an apology that would never reach its intended audience. It was terrible, but he felt glad he had at least got to know the lunatic, and deep inside he realized that she hadn't betrayed him at all. It was him, always judging, being selfish and bossy. He had so many flaws– and the worst part is that they were intentional. Her on the other hand – she was damn near flawless, in his mind, at least.
It was fitting that even in his final moments Wheatley wasn't able to take one last look at the Earth. He was on the dark side of the moon, which wasn't really any different than any other side of the moon, but it darkened his non-existent heart when he wasn't able to look up and see the green white blue swirling mass.
Well, I guess this is goodbye, then…
I just wish I could've… done it better. I'd take care of you, my luv. Keep you safe, make you happy.
I can't think of anything to say, really…
Except, that I think you're marvelous. Hahaha.
Beep.