"I am sorry; I have done you evil and I cannot undo it." – Schmendrick
Chell clenched her fists and stared at Wheatley. The only thing stopping her from kicking him again was indecision. She was furious and hurt and sorry all at once, unsure whether to lash out at the robot again, or cry, or – God forbid! – wrap herself around him like nothing had ever happened.
"I wish- I wish none of it had ever happened. I wish I could undo all of it, take it all back. I never meant- Everything I did to you- I- I was bossy, and monstrous, and… I'm so sorry." Wheatley raised his optic light to look at the woman. He couldn't tell if those were tears or raindrops on her cheeks and hanging from her eyelashes. "I'm so sorry! I- I don't even know why I did it! I-" He paused and closed the shutters over his optic. Then, he opened his eye and looked skyward. It was definitely raining now. "Anyway… I- I don't blame you. For- for hating me, I mean. I wouldn't forgive me either, if I were you. Which of course I'm not, but, um, you- you know what I mean." More thunder roared in the distance. He looked at the dirt next to him; it was wet now, turning muddy. The kind of thing that would muck up his mechanics pretty badly, not that it would matter for much longer. He couldn't bring himself to look at the human – to see the expression on her face. "I really wish I could take it all back," he said again.
Chell turned away, fists still clenched and heart still aching. She gritted her teeth and fought the lump in her throat as she started to walk away, hair damp and starting to clump together in the rain.
"Uh? Oh- oh you're leaving? You're leaving." Wheatley's optic went wider for a moment, then contracted as he looked at the ground again. "Can't say I blame you. I- I deserve this. Bein' left to rust. Not waterproof, of course. Probably for the best, that. Deserve that fate, shortin' out…"
Chell continued to walk away from the robot, her conscience fighting with itself. He was lying, trying to guilt-trip her, just trying to save himself, again; he was sincere, he didn't expect her to come back, he really believed he deserved to rust away in the mud. He'd intended to turn on her all along, he'd never been her friend; the mainframe was to blame, he couldn't handle that sort of power.
"I'm sorry…" he said quietly, one more time, and shut his optic, resigning himself to his fate, the fate a traitor like him deserved. Hopefully it wouldn't take long. He could feel the cold, sharp pain of water seeping into him already.
Wheatley's optic snapped open when he felt himself being lifted off the ground. He swiveled and rotated his camera as best he could to look up at Chell, confused, grateful, and a bit afraid. "What? Are- are you…?" His fears were assuaged somewhat when the woman bowed over him, so as to shield the robot from the merciless rain with her body, as much as she could. "Oh – thank you. Thank you. Even after everything I did to you, you still- thank you!"
ATLAS hesitantly came out from under the rocky overhang he'd been taking cover beneath. The testing android pushed hanging moss and dead vines out of his way as he emerged into the moonlight. Soggy fallen leaves stuck to his feet. He beeped and warbled sadly – he'd never been away from P-body for so long before, and he missed her terribly. But they'd been given jobs to do, for the first time since they were built, that took them different places, and they were not about to disobey GLaDOS.
The blue-eyed robot looked skyward. It was late now, and through the clouds – which had finally let up their watery assault on all things electronic – he saw the moon. This "Outdoors" was a strange place; he and P-body had experienced it once before, when they'd been tasked with recovering the Adventure Core. Those first steps had been the androids' equivalent to stepping through a wardrobe and finding themselves in Narnia – but now, Outdoors seemed foreboding and lonely. ATLAS just wanted to finish his job and go back home – back to P-body.
So imagine how he fretted when he reached the coordinates GLaDOS had given him, and found only a muddy, empty crater. He clawed uselessly at the mud, looked under branches far too small to be hiding what he was looking for – and he knew so. But he'd simply never been faced with this sort of challenge before. The only thing he knew was trying harder, trying new methods – and he'd always had his partner to help him. He'd never before been met with a goal that simply wasn't there. It was like being dropped into a test chamber only to find it empty, and with no exit. And he was terrified of what GLaDOS would do if he failed.
But after hours of pointless, confused searching and circling, he finally began the trek home, crestfallen.
Wheatley wasn't really sure what was going on. Chell had taken him to a cottage in the woods and perched him atop a chair in the corner, but ever since she'd put him there, she'd ignored him entirely – refusing to so much as look at him. She went about cleaning and gutting the fish on a stone slab with a knife made of animal bone, even as he continued to apologize and explain himself. Eventually he just went quiet.
He examined his surroundings – the building was mostly made of stone, with wood planks in some places. Two of the windows even had glass in them – the others had been fitted with fine twine nets made from some sort of plant fibers, and covered with wooden shutters to keep out the cold. Most of the furniture was built out of branches – most still covered in bark – tied together with rough, frayed rope. It wasn't pretty, but it worked like a charm – just like the tools the woman had made from found objects. The fireplace seemed to be original to the building, though, and all it needed was a little firewood, which had been easy enough to procure; Chell was cooking her trout over the flame. All in all, it was a pretty cozy little home.
Suddenly, the little robot realized he had never once addressed the human by name. He'd read it on the label of her stasis chamber, but never actually said it. After a moment of indecision, he simulated the sound of clearing his throat, and said, "Uh… Chell…"
The woman stopped what she was doing immediately and looked at him. He glanced down at the ground, then looked back at her.
"You didn't have to- to bring me here. After I was so monstrous. But you did. Bring me in from the rain, I mean. And… I want to thank you again."
Chell looked at him, her face unreadable, for a minute, then nodded in acknowledgement. That gave Wheatley enough reassurance to keep him quiet until much, much later, when Chell had already gotten into bed and pulled the moose-fur blanket over her.
"Um… Are you awake?" The woman didn't react, but Wheatley continued anyway. "I'm… still not quite clear on, uh, what… where we stand. Um. Do you… forgive me?" Still nothing. Wheatley looked down at the floor. "Hm. Must be asleep, I guess." He paused. "Sleep well, luv. You're an angel, you really are."
"What do you mean, 'it wasn't there?'" GLaDOS demanded, her optic light narrowing to a slit. ATLAS crouched down and tried to hide behind P-body, which didn't work too well, since she was so much thinner than he was. "Orange, once again you've demonstrated that you are more competent than your partner. Perhaps you'd like to prove you can succeed where Blue has failed?"
P-body tapped her fingers together, warbled, and chirped a few times.
"I doubt it, but if you insist," GLaDOS replied, and checked the coordinates again. "Oh my. You were right. The little moron's coordinates have changed." She swiveled uncomfortably. "Which means someone must have moved him. And if that someone is working for Black Mesa… Oh, this is not good."
P-body and ATLAS beeped quietly at each other. Black Mesa filled the same role for the two androids as storybook dragons and demons did for small human children – except that Black Mesa was very, very real.
"Well, his coordinates are stable, so he's not moving. Blue, Orange – you have a new assignment. Do not fail me."
Chell hadn't really been paying much attention as she harvested the fruits of a blackberry bush, gilded in the morning light; her mind was otherwise occupied – but then, picking berries didn't exactly require a lot of focus. All morning she'd been thinking about what to do with Wheatley, about whether she could forgive him after everything he'd done. The longer she thought about it, the more she considered his words, she found, the more she believed him – that something had come over him that wasn't entirely his own fault, and that banishment to the moon and the constant nagging of his own guilty conscience had been punishment enough. And he had mentioned something about the mainframe, and how even he didn't understand what had come over him when he was plugged into it. It would have seemed like a shoddy excuse, but Chell thought there might actually have been something to it. After all, GLaDOS had still been unpleasant as a potato, but she hadn't been vicious as she normally was. Who was to say that the mainframe wasn't to blame? Even if it wasn't, there was that old saying about absolute power…
The wind picked up as she walked home, blowing leaves off the trees all around her like fire-colored snow. She wanted to forgive him. He'd been the only one in Aperture to be friendly to her – and indeed that was why his betrayal had hurt so much. But now she saw that it had hurt him nearly as much as it had her. Perhaps things could start anew.
