Chapter 2 - The Apology
Wheatley POV – I stared in shock, rubbing my sore foot, as my friend's jaw dropped. She seemed to recognize me, so there goes another plan of mine, another failure. Might just as well call my plans failures instead I thought mournfully. I expected her to hit me, or to kill me, or to simply give me a cold stare and hear me out. I did not expect the brave, determined woman to look at me with pure fear, and run away. Yes, run away. As if she saw me as a monster. What did you expect? You tried to kill her, you really thought she was going to hug you and beg to be friends again? You ARE a monster Wheatley! My brain retorted snappily.
After a moment of staring after my best friend forlornly, I decided to put these new gangly human legs to use, and sprinted after her. She was fast, but surprisingly, I was a tad faster. I was just a measly two paces behind her now, and panting.
"Wait! Please… please wait! Don't run away… I… only just… found you!" I gasped between huge lungfuls of air. She didn't stop, so I had to do something unforgivable. My long arm stretched out to her, and grabbed her shirt. She jerked in my grasp, as the impact of her running nearly dislocated her shoulder, and she flew over backwards from the unexpected assault. She landed with a harsh bump, and looked up at me with hurt eyes.
"I'm so sorry!" I wailed. "But you wouldn't stop and I needed to talk to you, because I couldn't find you then just let you run away, and I didn't mean to scare you so much! And… and I had to say what I've been dying to tell you since I was yanked out of Her body, and the corrupt version of me, the monster, was murdered, like… well like I think you intended. I… I just wanted to say I'm sincerely sorry for being bossy, and mean and a monster, genuinely sorry… and I understand you don't want to forgive me but… well you'll always be a best friend to me, even if you don't feel the same way. So I'm sorry."
My friend stared up at me, with a tiny hint of apprehension in her eyes. I shifted nervously from foot to foot, petrified of how she might respond. I truly had no idea what to expect. For the first time in my life, I was silent, I didn't try to make excuses or ramble on about subjects with no importance just for the hell of it. Putting all that time in Aperture reading her expressions to understand her to good use, I simply gazed at her thoughtfully. She held the same look she did when she faced a new test. My friend was thinking, very hard, about what to do next.
"Well, you're just sitting on the floor, so err… let me help you up," I held out my new, human hand towards her. She didn't take it though, and simply stood up without my help. Her brows furrowed with anger as she shoved me towards her house, which was only a few meters away now. I followed her to the door as she unlocked it and held it open for me.
"What a lovely house you have here," I complimented her in the hope of getting into her good books again. "It's very… homely… and… pretty." I noticed a tiny key ring on the zip of her purse, which she now lay down on her cupboard. It said 'Chell' on it. I wondered what it was, it sounded like a name or a company.
"That's it!" I exclaimed happily. "Your name, its Chell isn't it?" Chell nodded with a slight smile on her face. A very faint smile, but a smile nonetheless. I mentally ticked it as an improvement of our complicated relationship. Chell beckoned for me to sit on the sofa, and as I did she carefully positioned herself on the floor opposite me.
"Oh no, you can sit next to me if you want! I don't bite!" I explained, hoping she wouldn't think that I could well bite. You did try to murder her you moron! Cried my thoughts. Chell shook her head firmly, and I left the subject alone. I wondered what she wanted.
"So… are we friends?" I questioned hopefully. She shrugged, and I took this as a not yet. "If we're not friends yet, then what do you want from me? Oh god… you don't want, you know revenge do you?" I shuddered. A smile and a shake of her head confirmed I wasn't on her hit list, luckily. However she did give me a questioning look, and pointed to me. She wanted to know how I became human, and how I got out of space.
"It's a long story though," I warned. Chell motioned for me to go ahead.
"Well, I was just casually moping in space, and that bloody space core kept yelling on about space. It was really annoying me, and I was just about to shout at him for the fourth time that day when he said something that stopped me dead in my tracks, well not literally dead but just stopped. He said 'Wanna go to Earth. Wanna go home, wanna go home. Don't like space. It's too big. Too big. Wanna go to Earth.' Then I realized, I needed to get us back to Earth. It was pointless me just floating around wishing I could take it all back. I had to get down there, and be brave like you, and apologize. I figured you'd be in Aperture, with Her testing you. I didn't know you'd escaped!"
"I was just thinking, for days and days of a way to get back to Earth. Then it hit me! All Aperture technology has a transmitter device built in so we can contact each other if need be. Including myself, and obviously Her. But then I thought: hey, there probably isn't any signal in Space. So I waited some more, until we arrived at the point in our orbit of the moon where I knew there was a HUGE satellite, and I connected into its port, and tadah! I had all the signal in the world, not literally of course, because She had some too, and I called her transmitter up using the little Aperture address book built inside me, and I heard a little ringing tone, and she answered! I was pretty chuffed actually, you know 'cause she hated me and everything."
"She said 'oh, it's you.' Then I explained how I really needed her to send out a little rescue mission, and I thought of the perfect reason! I told her that I was having a whale of a time in space, and I thought I should just let Her know that the revenge isn't working. Guess what? She only went and fell for it! Went ballistic! Started yelling at some test subject to put a portal on the moon and come get me! Obviously She was a little more careful with the gravity, and made sure the correct portal was in an empty room and the test subject had a retriever cord attached before a portal was sent to the moon, but She did a very good job of rescuing me! I half expected you to show up and pull me back again, but a pair of bloody robots appeared! Turned out, She'd only gone and replaced the human test subjects with two testing robots! My plan all went down the drain then! I thought you were dead! I was really upset and also sort of scared about what She was going to do to me, so when she took me to her chamber I immediately began making a deal with her.
"How about this GLaDOS. You can do whatever you want to me that doesn't mess with my memories or kill me, and then you let me go up to the surface and be free? I asked her. Was shocked when she agreed, apparently she wanted to test out her new invention on me. Didn't have a clue what it was, and apparently she thought it would ruin my life when actually it helped me so much! At first I was really scared, especially when she wired me up to some machine. But I just thought of you, and it was bearable. She laughed like a maniac and pressed some button, and it felt like a thousand turrets were shooting me repeatedly at once, however again, I thought of your bravery and kept strong. Eventually the pain knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was a bloody human."
"I had legs, and arms and two optics instead of one. And you never know what, I could smell stuff! Realized how deadly Aperture smelt, and felt sorry for all the humans. She was almost nice to me, explaining how humans work, no offence but it's a lot of work isn't it? Having to eat three times a day and 'go to the toilet' just to get rid of the food you just spent time eating? Pointless! Mad! Also, I have to change my clothes everyday, and wash them! I mean, why do humans wear clothes? Robots don't. Animals don't. It's weird. And…" I lowered my voice to a hushed whisper. "I have this strange thing between my legs, and She said it's how humans make their children but –" Chell stopped me talking by running across the room and putting her hand over my mouth. I was really confused by her reaction, and forgot what I was talking about. Pushing her hand away, I continued carefully, watching her every move. "Anyway, so She surprisingly kept to her word and let me free! I was shocked out of my skin, at least I think that's the correct human metaphor…"
"Walked for hours through this tall yellow grass stuff, and eventually found my way here! Bought an apartment opposite the… what's it called? Oh yeah, opposite the nursery, and one day peeked out of my window and saw you! Couldn't believe my eyes! After a good week or so, I managed to get the hang of human behaviour and decided to try and make friends with you… as a different person. Didn't think it through though, 'cause I hadn't come up with a name. Was stumped! So that's what happened really, and here we are!" Chell was smiling faintly again, probably due to my stupidity. I tried out my lopsided grin again. No response.
"You don't want to be friends do you?" I questioned, a tear stinging my eye. Chell looked confused at my comment. Then she did something I never knew she could do. Chell said, "Wheatley, I want to be friends again. I trust you."