Hello! Call me Em! I'm pretty nervous about releasing this thing into the public eye, but if I don't do it now, I doubt I ever will. I do have to admit to you guys that I'm very much a greenhorn. Critique is encouraged, and of course a little encouragement itself goes a long way. I would love a beta for this story, since, again, I have no idea what I'm doing.

(Also there's probably gonna be cursing at some point if that bugs you)

(plus this will probably be under a lot of revision if this pans out)

Now that we have the warnings out of the way, I hope you enjoy this first chapter!

Space. The celestial quilt upon which stars dance their waltz of life and death. The fire of the stars burning across the night on earth, giving it light while the sun sleeps. Many would call it beautiful; the expanse of the perpetual blackness. Such people would step into the open fold of silence and nothingness with welcome arms.

Wheatley was very much not one of those people.

Space, Wheatley had decided, was not for him. He had more than plenty of reasons for this, of course. He even had a list.

Firstly: Space was very, very boring. The first few hours Wheatley had spent in space had actually been fascinating; seeing all the stars splashed across the sky. After all, he had never seen stars before- he had lived in the facility all his life. He'd caught glimpses of the moon in the facility, but even that had been more ghostly than celestial. After his "impromptu arrival", however, he could finally see what all the fuss was about. The starlight was definitely beautiful, and the stars themselves were bloody everywhere to boot. In some ways the light had been awe-inspiring, and had gave him some hope of rescue. The moon was enormous now, too- far bigger than he had imagined it was back at home. Its surface was covered in gigantic craters, valleys, and mountains, carved into the surface like some angry god had used it as a punching bag.

By the third week, however, the stars' brilliant sheen had lost its luster. Now, instead of infusing him with awe, the stars now sucked his hope away to whatever corner of the galaxy they lived in. Now, three years later, his little pocket of nothing was the exact same bloody nothing it was when he arrived. It was like time was frozen, locked in that horrible moment three years ago when he first got trapped in this semi-stasis.

Now, space was unbearably, excruciatingly, agonizingly boring. Honestly, he was just amazed he hadn't lost his marbles by this point (but if he hadn't yet, he would before much longer.)

Secondly: Space was cold. The moon had a nasty habit of getting very cold, very quickly. Of course, as an A.I. Construct, he knew he had been built to withstand virtually anything they could cook up in the lab, including cold (well, at least he hoped, he'd never actually checked), But bloody hell they did not forget the pain sensors. Every time he crossed over to the dark side of the moon, he could feel his joints and casing freezing up, and to say that being a Wheatley-sicle was unpleasant would be more than an understatement.

And to top the list off, the winning prize for the worst thing about space-

"SPAAAAAAACEEEEE!"

-was the core he was stuck listening to for the rest of his life.

"Yup... Space," Muttered Wheatley under his breathe. "It's not like I could miss it." Wheatley turned in his socket to see the core actually talking to him, and not to the endless vacuum that it loved so much.

"But what if you forgot space? Space would be angry. so angry you forgot space." It chittered at him.

"it's pretty bloody hard to forget, mate." He said, not expecting any real answer.

The sphere next to him looked almost identical to himself; a metal ball about two feet in diameter, two handles on either side, and a single swiveling, enormous, brightly-lit electronic optic. The only physical difference was where Wheatley's optic was sky blue from iris to pupil, the other guy had a lemon yellow synthetic iris with a pitch black center that darted erratically from one open section of space to the next, as if it was somehow going to blink out of existence if he looked away from any section of it for longer than picosecond. Frankly, Wheatley wasn't sure how to feel about the guy. On one hand- er, not really hand, - he didn't hate the other core, but it was probably safe to say that having someone screaming in their ear for three years continuously would annoy most people, and robots.

"Sp-space Family! Space family is here! 'Hello son!' Hello space dad! 'Space dad loves you, son.' Space dad is nice... Space is sad." The core twitched and went silent once more. Wheatley didn't even bother responding, and simply went back to thinking. Thinking was a hard thing for him to do, but not because it was difficult. Although, if that were the case, it would probably be easier. No, it was because the same thought would never leave him be.

"... I'm sorry." He said almost unconsciously, staring down at the Earth. "I had never met someone who trusted me so much," Wheatley's thoughts once again went back to that horrible time. "But then... I blew it. I... I... I really did. I'm so sorry. I wish... I wish I had just one more chance. Just...Just one." He turned his gaze away from the condescending glare of Earth, trying to distract himself with any other topic.

He settled on something that had been bothering him all his life. "I wonder what color a mirror is? Green, maybe? Nah, blue. They're totally blue. Are they green? Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, it has to be something, right? Can it be more than one color?" Wheatley's train of thought was shattered by the shrill of his "companion's" vocal processor.

"SpAaaCEe.."

Wheatley heard the other core, but the noise it had made was far from normal, instead sounding warped and disjointed, like shattered glass.

"Huh? Buddy? You alright over there? You sound awf...fine! Totally..." Wheatley swiveled his optic around, but what he saw sent a chill up his wires. "...fine?"

The yellow optic of the other core flickered dimly, and its typical erratic movement was gone. It simply floated there, as if frozen in time.

"A-are you alright? S-should I..." Wheatley's voice trailed off. He had almost said "get help," but what sort of help were they going to get out in the middle of literally nowhere? There weren't any repair stations out here, that was for sure. If something really was wrong with the other guy, there was nothing he could do. It spoke again, voice weak.

"C-cannot seE Earth. Is Earth theEere?" The other core's optic was directed directly to the planet.

"You're looking right at it! C'mon, mate, this isn't funny anymore. You're starting to make me nervous." Wheatley pleaded.

"EaAarth is nice. I will miss EeEeearth. Earth is aAaaAlive." It said, ignoring Wheatley's pleas.

gOOodbye...Earth..."

With that, the core's optic went black.

Wheatley began panicking.

"Uh, mate?" He said, voice quivering. "Are you...? You're not... No, no you're- Oh no, oh no, y-you are aren't you?! Oh nonononononono, this bad, this is really, really bad!"

Wheatley was horrified, not only because his only company in the last three years had suddenly gone the way of the dodo, but if something went wrong with that guy, then something might be wrong with him.

He scrambled to do a diagnostic, something he hadn't done since he had gotten stuffed into the biggest prison in the universe.

"Oh, God. Ohhhhhh God. Oh no. Ohhhh nooooooooooo."

The results may as well have been playing taps.

The diagnostic pulled up a long list of problems, most of them Wheatley developed before his... Permanent vacation. But what he saw on the very bottom of the list was perhaps one of the scariest things in his life.

WARNING: CORRUPTED BATTERY, BATTERY POWER FALLING. IF A REPLACEMENT BATTERY CANNOT BE FOUND, PLEASE SEE CORE CONSULTANT FOR COUNSELING BEFORE PERMANENT SHUTDOWN AND SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

"Oh, god, how much charge to I have left?!" He wailed, scrambling through the diagnostic.

CURRENT BATTERY LIFE LEFT: 2%

I regret asking.

He wasn't just any type of royally screwed, he was Frankenstein-turret-vs- bottomless-pit- screwed.

Somehow, space had earned another point on his list: nowhere to get repaired in case of battery failure.

"I'm going to die." He moaned. "I'm gonna to die and there's nothing I can do. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada..." Maybe he should just resign to his fate, he thought. Maybe it would make it easier. No! Don't think like that! Would she have thought like that?

But you're not her. Said a tiny part of him. You can't use portals, you can't move on your own, you're not even that clever. You couldn't save a mp3, let alone yourself.

"Get a hold of yourself, Wheatley!" He snapped. He may be a bit of a weak-willed individual, but that never kept him from hope before. Wheatley tried to calm down, but the fate of the other core was still fresh in his mind, not helping him in the slightest. "Alright, uhm... Just need- just need to calm down... I've still probably got a day left... Um... Maybe somebody will come and save me! Yes! Somebody will come, and that somebody will fix me up, and I won't die! Oh, and the other bloke too, fix him up as well. It will all be fine - as long as that is what happens- if that doesn't happen, well, then I die out in space, totally alone, with my body orbiting the moon, forever. But! The first one is still possible, and that's what's important! Just... Have to wait for... For somebody."

Wheatley closed his optic, and waited.

Then... he heard something. He didn't think much of it at first; it was probably nothing, static or something. But then he heard it again seconds later. It was nearly impossible to describe, except like a gust of wind stuck on repeat. Wheatley span around, trying to find the source. Maybe it was someone here to rescue him!

"Oh, please, please, please be somebody, anybody!"

The wheezing was strengthening, roaring in his audio receivers. Wheatley continued to spin erratically, hoping against all hope for a savior, when he caught something out of the corner of his optic.

Wait... Is there...? No, that's crazy! No, wait t-there is! Something's appearing!

As soon as he looked over however, whatever it was faded away. He wondered if he'd just imagined it, but then the strange thing phased back into reality.

There indeed was something materializing in front of Wheatley, and soon it was entirely solid, floating only about a meter and a half away from him.

It was an enormous two-doored blue box.