Chell awoke to find her room was a mess. The mini fridge was on its side, the painting that used to hang on the wall was split in half on the floor, and the roof was collapsing in on itself in one corner. What happened? How long was she out? What was in that cake that GLaDOS had given her? Determined to get some answers, Chell hopped out of bed and started towards the door. She stopped halfway when that familiar voice came through the other side.

"Hello? Oi! Are you alive in there?"

She face palmed. Chell wasn't in the mood to see his face just after waking up from a rather nasty nap. She opened the door, and was met with the same android Wheatley that she parted with just before the cake arrived. Only, something was off.

"AHH! Oh, you look terri- I mean, good! You look good."

He'd greeted her the same way he did when they first met, as if he'd never seen her before. He entered the room slowly and cautiously. Wheatley then stuck out a hand and pulled an awkward smile.

"Hallo there! How you holding up in here? Wheatley by the way. That's me. Yeah, don't wear it out."

Chell reluctantly grabbed his hand and he shook it, way too enthusiastically for her liking.

"So just lemme get one thing straight. Um, you've been under for quite some time now, and er, you might have a serious case of minor brain damage."

Before she could even react, Wheatley already threw his hands up to stop her.

"But it's fine! Stay calm. Nothing to worry about. I'm sure you'll be fine. Just uhh... say 'apple'."

Chell raised an eyebrow. Seriously?

"Come on, it's not that hard. Simple word. Just 'apple'. That's it. That's all you have to say."

She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, gesturing to her throat. Wheatley stared blankly at her.

"Umm, I don't get it."

Chell was already fed up with Wheatley. She stomped on the floor and scowled at him.

"Okay, what you did there was stomped. You just stomped on the floor. Really hard actually. I think you might actually be pretty strong."

There was a loud Crack! and a large crack in the floor began to snake out from underneath Chell's feet and around the floor.

"Oh, well that's not very good is it. Actually quite alarming huh?"

The floor buckled underneath them.

"Uh oh."

The foundation that was holding them up finally gave way and dropped them into the abyss below. Wheatley screamed his head off while Chell searched frantically for a place to land. It was a long way down. Long fall. Long fall boots. She looked down to find that she did in fact have a shiny new pair strapped to her feet. Chell reached out and grabbed Wheatley, then positioned herself so that she would land feet first (and not face first) when they finally made contact with the ground.

They landed with a loud Clang! on top of a small garbage heap. Chell let go of Wheatley, who was shaking from the absolute terror of death.

"Uh, good- excellent job there. Ah... applied the good old human strength for that one. Thanks for that."

Chell glanced at her surroundings. They'd fallen onto an old docking station. The grey hallway seemed to go on for miles in front of them. Oh well, better start walking. Wheatley noticed that Chell had left his side and scrambled up to join her.

"So, where are we off too? Do you know? No? No I guess not. I guess we'll just carry on down this endless hallway. Forever."

She side eyed him, studying his face. He was doing that thing again that he used to do all that time ago, where he would make a remark about how bad something was and make it seem worse that it could be, just to try and steer her away from whatever that happened to be. Wheatley took notice of the look she was giving him.

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

Chell sped up in attempt to leave Wheatley in the dust.

"Don't leave me! I could help you find a way out of here you know!"

She stopped and turned around. Chell liked the sound of that. Escape? There was nothing else she'd rather have.

"Ah, see? Now I've got your attention. Just hold on a moment. Uh, stay right there."

Wheatley walked right up to a wall and started patting it in different places.

"It's around here somewhere. Now why did they design it like- oh! Here we are then."

He stood back as a small panel opened up in the wall, revealing a keypad and a button. Wheatley glanced back at Chell, who crossed her arms and waited.

"Hah, uh here's the thing, I can't do it if you're watching." he laughed nervously. "No seriously I just can't. Can you- would you mind turning around for a second? It'll be really quick I promise."

Chell threw her arms up in the air and turned around. A few beeping noises later and he was finished.

"Okay, you can look now."

She turned back around to find a large gap in the wall.

"Bam! Secret panel. Love these things. Yeah, I opened it while you weren't looking. Sort of hacked the wall here. Uh, shall we?"

Wheatley offered to take her hand and lead her inside, but she waved him away and walked on. He shrugged and followed close behind. They pressed onward through the dark tunnel as it bended and bowed behind the walls of the facility. In some spots they could hear the activity on the other side of the wall. This was all too uncomfortably familiar to Chell, but for Wheatley it was an exciting new adventure with a new friend. Chell wondered why he was acting as if she wasn't still upset with him about his betrayal. Part of her wanted so badly to smack that happy-go-lucky grin off his stupid face, but another part told her that would be unfair. She wasn't sure as to why that part of her even existed, but she also knew that in some way it was telling the truth. This Wheatley seemed to know absolute jack about all that happened before the cake incident, where they were separated. When GLaDOS had taken Wheatley away, Chell recalled that she had said something about making modifications. Is that why he seemed to have no memory of Chell? Did GLaDOS strip it all away? Not a chance. The AI was cruel at times, but not that cruel. It just didn't make sense that she would take away his memories when she was having so much fun using them to toy with him. Without the ability to recall the events of his great backstabbing against Chell, GLaDOS wouldn't have a way to manipulate Wheatley. There had to be another explanation.

"Ah, dead end. Okay, what now luv?"

Chell stopped in front of a large wall and looked up. There was a way out over the wall, but she needed a boost if she was gonna get up there. She ordered Wheatley down on the floor, just as she'd done with the turret redemption line problem.

"Need a boost there? Here lemme just help you up there."

Wheatley bent down and lifted Chell up onto his shoulders with ease. He seemed to have gotten used to having limbs in no time at all. On top of that, he was insanely strong. What kind of insane modifications did GLaDOS make? Chell reached up and grabbed the top of the wall, pulling herself up over the edge. She reached back down and helped Wheatley up after her.