Garret took Chell and Wheatley inside to hide from the latest swarm of reporters. It had barely been a day since the social worker showed up, and already paparazzi had been hounding the town, asking what kind of dirt they had on the DJ.
"Look, Wheatley," he began hesitantly. "I know it's none of my business, but I need to know what happened between you guys. I was up all night wondering… Wondering if you'd hurt her."
Chell opened her mouth to speak, but Wheatley stopped her. "Chell, please. This is something I've got to do myself. That is, if you're OK with it. It's your story too."
Chell reluctantly nodded her consent, and Wheatley began. "It was 18 years ago…"
"But that would have been-"
"When I was a robot, yeah." Wheatley interrupted. He hoped that would help Garret cut him some slack. "We were both from, y'know, Aperture. She was a..test subject, a human lab rat, and I was the guy guarding her."
A test subject. Garret had his suspicions about Chell's origin, but hearing it confirmed still jarred him. This was sounding terribly like the Combine. Before he could process this, Wheatley continued: "I offered to help her break out, and well, to make a long story short, I ended up in charge of the whole bloody facility."
"That mainframe was like poison. It took every fault I had and brought it to the surface-well, more to the surface. I forced Chell to test, just the way she had. Then when I got bored of that I...I…."
"You what?" Garret asked impatiently. "Spit it out! It's not like you tried to kill her!..." Wheatley remained silent. "Did you?.."
Wheatley nodded, tears in his startling blue eyes.
"What?"
"That was the mainframe." Chell broke in. "Wheatley may be a lot of things: tactless, clingy, cowardly..."
"Hey!"
"But he is not. a. murderer. I have fourteen years of perfectly safe life to prove it."
"She got me out of that thing," Wheatley finished. "And I realized what I'd done. I regretted it, of course, but apologies can't fix everything. I can't take it back, I never can."
"Wheatley…"
"I know, 'get out of my house, you monster!' I get it. You could never hate me more than I hate myself."
"I don't hate you Wheatley." Garret said cautiously. "Chell trusts you, and she's the smartest person I know, so that's got to count for something. I just need some time to- to process this. I don't know if I can see you the same way after hearing that."
"I know." Wheatley said sadly. "Whatever you decide, I'll understand."
With that, Chell and Wheatley walked home, and Wheatley wondered why the truth seemed to be making things harder.
