Wheatley had a lot to ponder as he drifted there in space. Things like, was it true that there were more trees on Earth than there were stars in the Milky Way? It didn't seem feasible from where he was standing - floating, rather. It didn't seem like that many trees could fit on one planet or that they would outnumber the stars in the Milky Way, because he could not even begin to count that high. That, and the only reason he even knew that the Milky Way was not just something you got out of a vending machine was because ol' Spacey had told him only about a hundred times in the last thirty minutes. Besides, the Earth looked awfully small and fragile - not quite as small and fragile as he was, but small and fragile all the same. Like a large glass marble, ready to shatter, the same way his whole world had been shattered.

He also pondered how many emotions there were and how many could he, as a mechanical being, possibly feel. There seemed to be even more emotions than there were trees on Earth. And it seemed a bit extraneous to him that he should have been programmed to feel much at all, but there he was, feeling all of them. He had to be feeling all of them - all of the bad ones, anyway. He could feel them orbiting around inside of him the same way he was orbiting around the Earth, spinning around helplessly, the gravity of everything holding them in place, condensing them down. Forcing him to see. Forcing him to feel. Forcing him to remember. Organized chaos.

Anger was what he had felt the most at first. Anger – because how could she have done this to him? Really, Lady, the moon? Did she have to shoot him out into space like that? And couldn't she have at least grabbed him and pulled him back in? It couldn't have been that hard. If he had had arms, he could have – would have - done it, so why couldn't she?

It was because she hadn't even tried. She had let him go, just like that - just like all the others who had left him in that booth to rot, to die. And after everything he had done for her. If it weren't for him, she would still be in cryosleep and, most likely by this point, blown to smithereens. If it weren't for him, she never would have found that stupid portal gun that she had so casually wielded against him. So he had only needed her at first to help him get out, if he was honest, fair enough, but still-.. He had literally risked his life - had been crushed, for science's sake - for her. Her and her lies. And all he had asked in return was that she - that someone - congratulate him on his achievements for once. That was literally all he had asked. Literally all he had wanted. For someone to cheer him on at finally becoming something bigger, better, than that useless little sphere that they had shut away in the Extended Relaxation observation booth.

And now here he was, stuck orbiting the bloody moon, of all things. His final frontier. The ultimate cast away and castaway (for truly both spellings fit his situation, he felt). He was stuck here, floating around the Earth with its happy little trees which outnumbered the stars in the Milky Way. Stuck here forever with his thoughts and memories and not much else besides Spacey and the vast infiniteness of space and time, something which might have humbled a lesser intelligent being, but for he, Wheatley, it was like a big, in your face reminder of all the things he had been, and all the things he never would be. It was like a reminder of all the mistakes - the choices - he had made, all the things that had led him here to this moment. There were no happy accidents for him - only mistakes.

After that thought, he cried. At least, he thought he was crying, not that he had any actual tears to shed nor the ability to shed them, but all the same, he was crying, hard. His little space companion naturally remained ignorant of his grief, and for that Wheatley was actually grateful. He barely had the capacity to grasp his own emotions, let alone the fact that he had so many of them, let alone try to explain them to someone else, let alone to someone who was so oblivious to anything going on around him - except for the fact that space was going on all around them and that was, in fact, what the little corrupted core was obsessed with, them being in space and all, but-..

Well, he forgot where his thoughts were going at that point and that might have been a good thing, except he thereafter descended into something much deeper, much darker than either his previously angry thoughts or the deep, dark void in which he now resided. The void which opened up now and swallowed him whole was none other than depression. Depression was nothing new to Wheatley - he had felt it over the span of his life, but usually it came in short bursts after being reassigned to a task that he hated. That could more accurately be described as sulking, in retrospect, because this, what he was feeling now, was the real deal. His thoughts spiraled inward and downward, coiling upon itself, until it became so tightly wound, the whole thing snapped back and he was right back at feeling angry again.

He became aware at this point that there was this human thing called the five stages of grief and that he was oscillating back and forth, among, and between all of them in rapid succession. It didn't seem to matter that he was not actually human - he had been built by humans and they had apparently seen fit to instill upon him every imaginable horrid thing they could think of. And of course, whenever he wasn't busy feeling so angry his circuits felt hotter than the sun or feeling so depressed his gears felt colder than space itself, there was also boredom. And perhaps that was the biggest, most troublesome of them all, because not only was it.. well.. boring.. but it also forced him to endlessly cycle through all of these emotions. It also forced him to realize that he was actually grieving.

Yes, he was grieving, mostly for himself at first, but over time he began to realize that he was also grieving for the lady - well, everything he had done to her, anyway, because he had no way of knowing whether or not she had survived and he did not want to think about that possible outcome. In either case, she had been the closest thing he had ever had to a friend - even if she had not caught him when he detached from his rail or when she rolled her eyes at him for wanting her turn around while he hacked open doors for her. Or, heck, even when she had smashed all his monitors and refused to test the way he wanted her to, he still, after all of that, considered her his friend.

And he had betrayed her. Made her test. Tried to kill her. So she may not have ever smashed his monitors, refused to test for him, and tossed him out into space if he had never betrayed her first - but-.. no, hadn't she betrayed him first? Had she not run off on an adventure without him and with that stupid potato instead? No, no, it was his idea to be plugged into the mainframe, and she - just like a good old friend, not that he had any basis for comparison where that was concerned - had listened to him without question, had trusted him, and he-... he had betrayed her and punched her down an elevator shaft. True, in his mind he had been aiming for the potato and not her, but still. This - all of this - was entirely his fault.

More than anything, more than all the things he had pondered or could possibly ponder going forward, he wondered if things could have been different. What could he possibly have done differently that would have made any sort of difference whatsoever? Which of his actions could have led to different consequences? Really, his actions spoke for themselves, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt he could change things if only he had the chance.

Could his fate - could the lady's fate - be at all altered depending on his actions? If, say, he had taken the rail on the right, for instance. He knew it was an absurd thought - after all, taking the rail on the right would have held no significance to the sequence of events, save the fact it would have taken him longer to find Test Subject #2845 or even possibly led to him being killed in an explosion before even finding her in the first place. Something about that did seem a bit strange, though, now that he thought about it - for all the alarms that had been going off, declaring that reactor core meltdown was imminent, he had still had ample time to guide the lady to the portal gun and break into Her chamber before a different kind of hell broke loose, one that did not involve a massive flaming end to his story.

But what was the point of pondering all of this? It didn't change anything. It had still happened. Everything had been lain out. Everyone had seen. Wheatley's thoughts had already been all over this and that and back again, and yet his thoughts on this were quite persistent.

He was sure a lot of things did not seem to make sense or add up, but might this be due to his own mis-wirings, his own misgivings, and his own poor decisions? Wheatley couldn't handle this being his fault - couldn't handle anything ever being his fault, despite the fact that most things were always somehow his fault and everything had been a direct cause of his own choices.

His fate was too overwhelming for him to wrap his small, sad little mind around, and so he insisted on playing this frivolous little game of "what if?". And how frivolous a game it was - and dangerous. He just had to insist that he had the power to change things - to hack them, as they were, even though his single greatest use was taking commands from others - if only he had the chance.

If Wheatley had given himself more time, he probably could have gotten used to these feelings of helplessness, of boredom, and of regret. He might have even been able to resign himself to his fate, even as a part of him understood that this was the least of what he deserved. But he could not. He simply could not. The feelings of restlessness and longing never went away, never abated. They only strengthened. Became more infinite than all the stars in space and trees on Earth put together.

"I wish I could take it all back," he said solemnly, all of these thoughts tumbling uselessly through his mind, like a sock in the dryer that had lost its mate, "I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back."

Perhaps these feelings were only because he was stranded in space.

"And not just 'cause I'm stranded in space."

"We're in space!" declared his little space-obsessed space companion.

Oh, good, he's still there.

"I know you are, mate. Yup, we're both in space," said Wheatley, exasperated.

Really, there was too much space and too many mentions of space. And too much thinking. And too many "what ifs". And too much-..

"Anyway..." he went on, determined to say whatever it was he felt he needed to say, "You know, if I was ever to see her again, you what I'd say? I'd say-.."

What would he say? What could he possibly say that would change anything?

"We're in space!"

"'I'm sorry...'"

But would that really change anything? Would it really mean anything? Words are cheap. What's done is done. Only through one's actions, one's continued efforts, can an abstract thing such as an apology really mean anything.

Wheatley felt a swelling of emotion inside of him as the sincerity of the idea manifested, bloomed to life and pushed its way outward, consuming his thoughts and everything else around him. Multiplying. Like trees in space and stars on Earth.

"Sincerely," Wheatley continued, but who was really listening at this point? It wasn't like there were any onlookers, an audience, aside from Spacey, who was currently demonstrating that he was the only sane one in the immediate vicinity by spinning around and grinning joyfully. "I am sorry I was bossy-... and monstrous-... and... I am genuinely sorry..."

"We're in space!"

Right, space. Well, if Wheatley was insisting, then who was anyone to argue? Perhaps things could be done all over again, just to sate everybody's curiosity. Why the hell not? May he go for that rail on the right. May he check all 10,000 Extended Relaxation pods. May he open up an endless sea of possibilities just to chase after a pointless happy ending. It should have been a good enough lesson for him to learn that there were no such things as happy endings, but it seems nobody can ever be bothered to leave well enough alone.

All right, here we go. The game is, as they say, on.

"The en-"

-D IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE-