She woke up, dazed and weary, but not surprised. Nothing seemed to be able to surprise her anymore. It was quiet in here save for the chatter of birds she could hear through the walls and the tinny buzz of voices in conversation somewhere off in the distance. She wanted to revel in the peacefulness of this place before it would inevitably be taken from her, just like everything else that she thought was nice. So she laid there, staring up at the ceiling and following the patterns in the wood to distract herself from the throbbing pain in her head.

It didn't last for long. After a while, the fact that she had absolutely no idea where she was and how she got here sunk in. She almost considered getting up and exploring but as she tried to move out of her bed, her limbs were like weights. Her body was so fatigued that she figured it would just be better to stay wherever she was. Just rest, she told herself. Let yourself rest.

"Hey there," A pleasant voice rung from somewhere beside her. Her head was too heavy to move. A woman came into view and sat at the edge of her bed. "Good to see that you're awake." She smiled, kind and well practiced.

Chell's voice seemed to be sunk into her throat. "Where-" she coughed a moment. "Where am I?"

The woman thought for a few seconds, then frowned. "I guess nobody ever gave this place a name." She stood and shuffled to the back of the room and opened a cupboard. "You're in an encampment about three miles away from the city." She returned with a roll of gauze and sat back down. "I'm Lisa."

"Hi, Lisa," Chell said. Without warning, Lisa leaned in and started unwrapping a bandage tied tightly around Chell's forehead. When she pulled away, Chell could see dried blood staining the white fabric.

"You'd better heal up fast, girlie. We're almost out of gauze." Lisa said, reaching behind Chell's head to wrap a clean bandage around it. She smelled like the woods and antiseptic and Chell didn't know if it was comforting or not. But she let the woman tend to her because she seemed nice enough.

"You caused quite a stir when you shambled in here the other night like a zombie. It freaked some of us out." She pulled away and looked Chell directly in her eyes. "What's your name?"

"Chell." She choked. Lisa smiled again, that same completely genuine smile.

"Hi, Chell. I'm happy to take care of you as long as I have the supplies." Her smile seemed to falter as she thought a moment. "There is somebody here who knows you. He came in and saw you last night."

Oh god. Chell stiffened. "The robot?" Was all she asked. Lisa nodded. Chell groaned.

"You're not a fan of him?"

"No."

Lisa hummed. "There are some others here, too. Robots. Apparently, they knew him." Chell furrowed her brows. There were other robots that knew him? Could they have been the other cores at Aperture? Why would they be here?

"But that's neither here nor there," Lisa chimed suddenly. "I'll be right back, okay? We have a lot to discuss."

()()()()()()()

The people here had to be maniacs. Wheatley couldn't find another explanation for it when 15 people stormed Logan's porch at the bright and young hours of the morning. They knocked and knocked until they shook the house so much that Logan woke up and yelled at all of them to go away.

"I told you they'd come for you." He said, sitting down at the end of the couch with Wheatley on the other side of him. "They don't care that you're sentient or anything, they want to sell your body for money. They did it once to one of the others, but I stopped them before they could destroy the rest of them."

Sentient was a funny word to Wheatley. There was no way of knowing if a machine had feelings, in truth. They could be faking it. Sometimes he thought he was faking it but something in his head told him that he wasn't. Why give a machine the ability to feel? It seemed cruel. That was about as philosophical as he got or cared to get.

"Are you like," Wheatley racked his brain for the word. "the mayor or something?"

Logan chuckled. "No, not at all. I help the town out a bit, but I'm nothing near mayoral status. Hey!" He nudged Wheatley hard in his arm. "Speaking of doing stuff for the town, I have to go hunting today. You should come with."

"Oh Lord, why?" Wheatley was taken aback by the offer. What made Logan think that he wanted to go hunting with him?

"Well I'm assuming that you'll be here a while, and if that's the case then you gotta toughen up."

()()()()()()

The animals that were Logan's target were unlike anything Wheatley had ever seen before. They weren't animals, he figured. They were monsters. Logan didn't seem to be phased by the creatures, but the sight of them made Wheatley's skin crawl.

It took two shots to get the first one down and it let out a terrible moan as it hit the ground. As Logan and Wheatley stood over the corpse, it took everything Wheatley had in him not to run as far away from it as he could. It had antlers, like a deer, but they jutted out in all different directions from the creature's skull. It smelled rotten already and its light brown, hairless body looked infected with some kind of disease.

"It's ugly, yeah," Logan said as he pulled the animal up by its horns. "But you can eat it and that's all that matters."

"You can eat cockroaches too, but that doesn't mean that you should," Wheatley remarked with disgust as he held the collar of his coat over his nose to block that wretched stench. Logan started back down the game trail with the monster in tow. Maybe if he hadn't been underground or orbiting the moon his entire life he would have seen what happened to these things. He wasn't even sure that Logan knew. But he didn't seem to be worried, which offered Wheatley no comfort.

It almost made him a little sad to know that Logan was expecting him to stay in town. He was a kind man and it nearly broke Wheatley's heart knowing that he had to leave him. Nearly. There had to be people looking for him. Important people that likely had a lot of guns and a lot of power. He didn't want Logan to be caught up in all of this. He just had to find the right time to tell him that he was leaving.

Why not now? His stupid, dumb brain thought. "Logan," he started, slightly winded from walking in the chilling air. "I can't stay here, you know that right? I… it's-"

"It's a long story?" Logan finished. He stopped, letting the creature fall down to his side. "I figured that you'd tell me that you had to leave."

He struggled to find the right words as he watched Logan's eyes flit across Wheatley's face. But a sharp pang somewhere off in the distance took every word he wanted to say out of his mouth. Gunshots. Then the sound of an engine revving. Logan looked to his left, the direction of the town.

"Shit," He said under his breath. He settled his rifle in his hands and made a beeline down the hill.

()()()()()()

Chell awoke to the sound of gunshots sounding outside of the infirmary. The pain medication that Lisa gave her for her head knocked her out cold for a few hours, and when she was jarred awake the world around her was foggy and twisted. People were yelling and another shot right outside the building rudely pushed her right back into the land of the living. Lisa was shouting orders in the hallway and Chell climbed out of her bed, stumbling over her feet as she made her way to the door. Lisa caught her right before she fell.

"Jeez, you have a death wish!" Lisa exclaimed as she steadied the other woman.

Chell shook herself, trying to focus. "What's happening? I heard gunshots."

"Yeah, you definitely did. Some people just rolled through and started attacking us. They look important, but I have no idea how they would even know that this place even existed." But Chell knew. She knew whose fault this was. Wheatley escaped from the authorities who no doubt were keeping a watchful eye on him. They must have tracked him here. He seemed to bring misfortune everywhere he went.

"We should probably leave then." Chell pressed, but Lisa shook her head.

"I can't. I'm one of the only nurses here. I have to help the injured." Chell wanted to yell at her, but she held herself back. She was tempted to just leave on her own, but she couldn't fool herself. There was no way she could survive out in that wasteland alone. So she stayed put, much to her dismay.

"Lisa!" A man called, rushing into the infirmary with another man following behind him. One of them was a face she didn't know, but the other was one she all too familiar with. She assumed that the moment she saw him that she would want to tear him apart. But she stayed put because she had other things that she needed to worry about. Wheatley looked at her, then averted his eyes to the floor.

"Lisa, it's a mess out there. What is going on?" The other man said.

Chell, without hesitating, said, "It's his fault." She pointed directly at Wheatley. His eyes snapped to hers.

"You don't know that." He said.

"Yes, I do. They're here for you."

The other man turned to look at Wheatley. "What is she talking about?"

"I- I don't know. I don't know." He stammered. Chell wanted to argue with him, but she kept her mouth shut. The world was tired of their feud.

"I'm Logan." The man said to Chell.

"I'm Chell."

"Great. We need to get the hell out of here."

But Lisa, once again, protested. "I can't, Logan. You know I can't. And you can't either. You have to defend your people and your machines."

"Shit, I forgot about them." Logan slapped his forehead. "We need to get them here, because if what Chell said about this being his fault then they'll kill the ones that aren't him. And I can't let that happen."

He turned on his heel, but Lisa grabbed his shoulder. "Logan, they're machines. You're going to risk your life for them?"

Something flashed across Logan's face that nobody in the room could place. Then, he shook her off, grabbed Wheatley by the wrist and stormed out into the fray.

()()()()()()

Nobody seemed to be dying. The assailants seemed to just be firing shots to intimidate the townspeople. Some of them were out in the woods and the others were prowling around the town in search of something. Wheatley wasn't exactly sure why they wanted to find him so badly. He was just a robot. Just a regular guy. But they seemed determined to catch him. They. Who were they, even? The government? The CIA? The FBI? What was even the difference between those? Who cares, the point is that some group wanted him. If he just gave himself up to them it would make this a lot easier but Logan would say something like 'over my dead body'.

When they reached the other androids, the worst case scenario seemed to already be happening. Three people, three humans had the robots in a line on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs and where there were four now stood only two. Something wicked came from Logan's throat, like a growl and a scream and he charged forward. He fired three shots and three bodies hit the ground.

"Wheatley, get over here!" Logan called and Wheatley, who was tucked behind a house, bared himself to the other robots. "Help me get them loose." It was the first time that he got a good look at the cores. One of them he didn't recognize at all, but the other one… Looking at him sent some kind of electrical pang through his body. He didn't know his name but he knew his energy and he felt the sting of his green eyes as he took Logan's knife and cut the zip ties. The core rose to his feet and stood next to the other one, who looked up at him with concern in his eyes.

"Rick, don't…" he said, wrapping his arm around the other man's bicep. Rick. The name made a panic rise in Wheatley's chest. He didn't want to think about how he knew him. But there Rick stood, like an immovable wall of strength and anger that wanted nothing but to destroy Wheatley.

"Shit…" Logan muttered as he looked at the bodies of the other two cores. Both were dead with a gunshot to the head. He then looked at Wheatley, Rick, and the other core. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." The smaller android said. He left Rick's side and tried to comfort Logan, but Rick stayed put.

He finally spoke, in a voice that was like sandpaper in Wheatley's ears. "I have a lot to say to you, Wheatley."

He wanted to say something in return but it was as though all of the air was sucked out of him and the world went quiet. Something pricked on his right side then bled out into a raw and angry pain. He looked down and finally the world became loud again with the yells of Logan and the cores. He heard another voice from behind him, swearing and fumbling over their words. He touched his side, feeling the hole where a bullet tore through him. And before Logan could catch him, Wheatley fell to the ground.

A.N.: I apologize that a lot of this has been about Wheatley. That will not be the case for the rest of the story I promise because he's really annoying. Also, I feel pretty good about this so far. The setting and plot have changed a little bit so far and a lot of things I've written here are the things I wanted to write in the original but wasn't competent enough to do it. It's intense right now but things will get better for the gang eventually. Thank you for reading!