"SPAAAAAAAAAACE!"
The screaming bled into Wheatley's audio receptors for... God knows how many years. It's been so long since he tried to escape from Aperture Laboratories, that name still makes his metal casing shudder. Still, he succeeded, just not the way he would've wanted. He wanted to leave with a test subject, see the world, and be safe from, Her. Now he made one mistake, betraying the test subject that defeated Her. He didn't know her name, but that didn't matter now. it's been years since he'd been thrown into space along with the Space Core. He had tried plenty of times to strike up a conversation with the yellow eyed sphere, but to no avail as the core only wanted to talk about one thing.
"I'M IN SPACE!"
"Yeah mate, I know, we are both in space", Wheatley replied.
"SPACE, SPACE, GOTTA SEE IT ALL, SATALITE, MOON, EARTH, SPACE"
"Do you ever get tired of space?", Wheatley asked, unable to understand why the little sphere was so infatuated with the vast emptiness.
"NO, MY LOVE FOR SPACE IS LIKE SPACE, INFINITE", the Space Core enthusiastically replied.
"Should've expected that", Wheatley muttered. "How long have we even been here? You don't know do you, no probably not".
"727 YEARS, 6 MONTHS, 14 DAYS, 10 HOURS, 48 MINUTES, 5 SECONDS IN SPAAAAAAACE", the Space Core answered.
"How do you even know that?", The blue-eyed core asked, "my built in clock has been on the fritz ever since those pod things started shooting up from the Earth, probably something inside those pods messed with my programming, like, magnets or something."
"SPACE CLOCK, CLOCK IN SPACE" the Space Core replied, making as much sense as usual.
Wheatley sighed, as he tried to take his mind off being trapped in space for the rest of his battery life, but he just couldn't stop thinking about the mistake he made all those years ago. Wheatley has deleted a lot of his memory while being in space. Just non-essential stuff like, his creation, that stupid foreman, and most of the smelly humans he had to watch over in the Extended Relaxation Center. All except for one. The Lady. He still didn't know her name, but it didn't matter. She was probably dead all while Wheatley was floating in space for 727 years, according to the Space Core. Wheatley didn't know much about human survival, but he doubted they would be able to live that long. Wheatley only survived because of the unknown power source keeping all Aperture equipment alive. The only downside is that would mean that She was still alive after all this time. He almost felt bad for those two testing robots he found. There was just one memory that he could never get rid of, quite literally as it was saved by his Black Box Quick save feature. The few hours he spent in the GLaDOS body.
"GRABMEGRABMEGRABME"
"GRABMEGRABMEGRABME"
"GRABMEGRABMEGRABME"
Those words just kept playing in his head. Unable to forget the part where she "killed" him. That was the farthest any test subject had gotten him, and he threw it all away. All because he couldn't control The Itch. All because he tried to kill her. All because he was just a moron. Wheatley hated being called a moron, especially by Her, but now its was all he could call himself. He sincerely wishes he could just say "sorry", but he can't. Not anymore anyway.
All while Wheatley was contemplating his predicament. A strange pod with six orange spider legs was rocketing towards both of the small cores.
"SPACE, SPACE, SPAAAAAACE, I'M IN SPACE, GOTTA SEE IT ALL, MOON, ASTEROID, MARS" The Space Core said.
Wheatley sighed, "Wait, what" Wheatley said as he positioned himself to look behind him.
"OH GOD! it, it's heading straight towards us!" Wheatley freaked out as his eye flipped around in his chassis.
As the pod came closer, Wheatley continued to freak out about the whole situation.
"No. no, no, no, no, no, COME ON! We spent so long here, and this is how we go out. Smashed to bits by a massive grey capsule! This is awful, just awful."
As the pod slammed into Wheatley and the Space Core. They just harmlessly got catapulted farther into the reaches of space than Earth's Orbit.
"We... are not dead!", Wheatley shouted, "We may be barreling through space REALLY fast, but we are alive!"
"SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!", The Space Core shouted, happy to just be in space.
"OOH, I have a brilliant idea", Wheatley said, "I'll go into sleep mode and when I wake up, surprise! Brand new scenery! Just shout really loud on the radios when we stop flying! okay, mate?"
"SPACE!"
"Alright, I'll take that as a yes" Wheatley said as his optic shields closed, and his system went offline into sleep mode.
Hours later, Wheatley awoke to the sound of his faithful (kind of?) companion screaming about space.
"SPAAAAAAAAAAACE FRIEND!"
"GRABMEGRABM- wait, what", Wheatley said as he turned his optic to look behind him "woah."
What Wheatley saw was absolutely indescribable. It was a completely grey planet with a thin ring of dust around it complemented with a small moon in its orbit, but the most concerning thing about it was the giant hole in it that led straight to the core.
"oof", Wheatley said with slight disgust, "I wonder what kind of, err, let's say moon? yeah, yeah moon. I wonder what kind of moon could've made that sort of impact?"
"MOON, PLANET, ASTEROID, ASTEROID, ASTEROID" The Space Core said.
"What are you talking about, mate", Wheatley asked, " there isn't any- oh"
Wheatley turned to his side to see three of the same pods that launched him this far out in the universe.
"So, this is where all the pod things have been headed, but why?", Wheatley asked.
As Wheatley spoke, he had just realized that he was still moving. Directly towards the planet's surface.
"Oh, no, NONONONO", Wheatley screamed as he and the Space Core were turned into metal fireballs, "Oh, God! This- This is terrible. I never got to do so many things, see the world, live safely, and I never got to say SORRY! Lady, wherever you are, I'M SORRY"
As Wheatley looked behind him at the pods, what he saw shook him to his power core. He saw three smiling faces with glowing Xs for eyes they all looked directly at him.
Soon after Wheatley and the Space Core hit the surface of Copper Nine, creating a shockwave that alerted most living beings in that section of the planet. Good thing most living beings were long dead.
Most.