It had been days, months, years, how could anyone tell when the sun never rose or fell? It was always just there, omnipotent and glaring, bright, orangey-yellow like Her stare but burning burning warm where Hers had always been so cold and penetrating. Nothing changed when you were stuck in space, time made even less since than down There, in the cold recess of the facility he'd been left in like garbage, given a job that was just a title and no work but he still somehow failed.
Space was so different from the horrid hell he'd called home for his whole existence up until the point it was no longer the home he was in but the home he'd been violently exiled from. While Aperture was cold and empty but always filled with Her presence, it was what he knew. He, like any Aperture product, was programmed with an innate knowledge of its complex layout. Even places he'd never been felt familiar, somehow. It was comforting, even with all its dangers, and always there. Space was lonely, empty, unforgiving. It was abandonment and hopelessness and the feeling of being so helplessly lost. No matter how long he'd drifted in it, Wheatley never felt like he recognized any of it. Even the moon, which he constantly orbited, felt like a stranger every time he looked at its old, meteor-ravaged surface. Whatever Hell Aperture had been, this was even worse.
The first chunk of time, however long it was, Wheatley didn't like to think about. He had been so angry, still holding onto the idea of all that power and I could have fixed it I could have been the hero. He'd blamed her. He'd had crazy ideas of how it was all her doing, all just some madly conceived plot to give her an excuse to dump him like She had, thrown his crushed carcass down to the floor like he was just a squashed bug. Space was no different than destruction. In fact, it was worse. It was the most devious punishment he could imagine, standing someone up here like she had.
His anger resided in those last moments, when she got in his way over and over and he just wanted to feel this power to fix it to prove that he could but noooo miss bossy-mute-fat-pants had to keep intervening and letting go of him at just the wrong time and now where were they. He was stuck out here and she was down celebrating with that thing.
I should've killed you. That was the thought that scared him most when he reflected on it, the idea that at any time any part of him, let alone all of him, could ever wish that harm on someone he'd seen as a friend.
He'd wanted the human to be his friend. Up until the point when he tasted power and felt how horribly wonderful it was he thought he'd done a pretty good job. They'd been a good team.
Then she betrayed me.
Wrong.
He'd betrayed her.
It wasn't long before the emptiness of space and the constant droning away of "spacespacespaceI'minspace" from his orbiting 'companion' brought him out of that power-driven anger. And his bright blue, cracked optic widened in a horrid realization of oh dear god is she alive what have I done what have I done I'm such a monster.
She couldn't be alive, the human. It was impossible. If the lack of oxygen and general trauma from suddenly finding herself in space hadn't killed her, then She certainly had. He knew all too well what the human looked like from Her seat of power- like a tiny, insignificant ant. A virus, almost, something menacing and angry and in my way in my way you're just slowing me down well fine who needs you I'm so much bigger I can do just fine on my own. Even if she was alive, she was still down in that hellish labyrinth, trapped testing until she eventually kicked the bucket.
For a while he panicked, finally understanding his predicament. He was in space and she was trapped or dead and She was going to make sure none of that changed. It started with that eye-widened horror and turned into a long, horrified, scared, grief-stricken, wailing scream into the empty nothing he was trapped in. He screamed, his mind filled with all his mistakes and all of his fears, all the I should've done this why was I so stupid why didn't I see what was happening, and he thought of all the times he'd been called a moron, all of the people who had left him behind because after all he was just useless. He was designed to be.
He'd ignored that for so long, and while all these thoughts were struggling to be processed he remembered what he'd shoved away and covered with optimism, lies, and hope that it wasn't true.
He remembered his purpose. Intelligence Dampening Sphere, that was his real name. I.D. core, moron, those were what others called him. Wheatley was his own design, a name he'd given himself when he'd been left in charge of the Relaxation Center and had decided once and for all that all those painful memories of being abandoned really didn't need to be thought about or even exist.
All those were back now, and they flooded his mind. He saw what anger and denial and power had hidden from him back when he was in control and what fear and pain and hope that he could succeed for once had hidden the rest of the time. He had been attached to GLaDOS, for who knows how long. He had done exactly as She'd described, send a constant stream of stupid moronic Wheatley-brand ideas that did nothing but make Her angrier. Even he could have told that at the time, which had only made him panic more.
He panicked again, as he remembered how tiny he'd felt connected to Her, as he remembered Her screams, shaking and terrifying and so artificial but at the same time so horribly real. He remembered them shutting Her down over and over, each time telling him to try harder, each time him distracting her longer, nervous to death but even more nervous about the idea of disappointing those scientists. But he failed in the end. He did everything he knew how to do and still eventually they took him off that port and sent him down to job replacement, saying he was lucky he wasn't being dismantled, lucky that a failure like him was allowed to live simply due to a shortage of robots.
He remembered failing there and failing at the next job and the next and the next until he was left with two options: Relaxation Center Attendant or dead. He'd chosen the former. He'd also chosen to stop responding to his identity. He called himself Wheatley, told the name to any machine, sentient or not, that would listen. Some called him corrupt, and he pushed that word way like the others people had called him. He wasn't corrupt. He just wanted to make someone proud, even if that someone was himself blinded by an optimism that shrouded any mistake he'd made in the past.
And he had been proud. So proud, in fact, that when the time came for him to actually do the right thing he was so blinded by the idea that he had so much power now and that he'd bloody done it he'd gotten here he'd won that he ended up failing again when it mattered the most.
When he finished screaming, when the flood of thoughts had calmed down, he was filled with synthesized grief. He thought about how simple it had all been from the beginning. Just pop into a relaxation center room, grab a living human, ask if they wouldn't mind helping him escape, and pop off toward freedom. He had been lucky to find her, someone so smart and determined and trusting in him. And he'd blown it away the first moment he had actual power in his reach.
He stopped himself. No, he didn't, couldn't think about that time. He steered away from those memories, pushing them away.
He was sorry. So tremendously, deeply, insanely sorry. It filled his every thought for god knows how long. He floated through space, drowning in his guilt and remorse at what he'd done. A small part of him wasn't surprised; a small part was saying they were right all along I'm always going to be a failure, a moron. The rest of him tried to shed a hopeful light on the situation. The human might be alive, after all. And if it was so easy for him to end up here, it could be just as easy for him to end up back There with her. And he could apologize. Really, truly apologize for the first time.
Never in a million years, that small voice told him.
It's possible, said the rest of him.
He believed the latter. His programmed-in optimism and hope kicked back in, having been temporarily disabled due to the shock of having all those memories loosened up. It was back even stronger now, the ever-present I'm right and everyone who says different is wrong programming that made him who he was.
"Space," said the core orbiting him, a sudden reminder that he wasn't alone, although he doubted the core had payed any attention to what had been happening. All he cared about was space.
All Wheatley cared about now was being forgiven.
He practiced over and over, figuring out exactly how quickly to get to the apology and how to word it to sound the most sincere.
Finally he settled on this:
"Hello, fancy seeing you again! I know you're probably absolutely livid seeing me again. And I don't blame you! You are completely justified, feeling that way. Towards me. But, I am here and not in space. Rather fortunate for me, although you might see it as unfortunate. Completely justified, if you feel that way. But, uh, point is, I'm back. And I just wanted to tell you something. And if you still hate me and decide it would be best if you kicked me into the nearest bottomless pit or mashy spike plate," he cringed at the word, "that's fine, but I do have to say it. So, here goes, saying it right now: I'm sorry. I'm honestly, deeply sorry for everything."
It was the best he could make it.
And anyway, it's not like she's ever going to hear it.
Or would she? He started to think, his Wheatley-brand ideas running fast as he looked around. There, below him was the moon. If she'd shot a portal there once, why not again? He closed his optic, imagined hearing that wonderful whoosh the portals made when they opened, feeling her hands grip his handles again. He imagined himself being brought back in, and even that place felt comforting next to this vast loneliness. Even She felt less ominous, almost welcoming. He could almost see the human's forgiving smile, the sign that he was going to be okay that everything was going to be okay.
"Space," said the other core, as if trying to remind Wheatley where he was.
"I'm in space," said the same core, understanding what that meant.
"I'm sorry," said Wheatley, to no one visible, no longer paying attention to the other core, his optic firmly shut in a hopeful fantasy.
Hope was a dangerous thing. And Wheatley's hope was blinding.