Chell was deeply alarmed when Glados started to convulse, her eyes rolling up into her head. She lifted the girl quickly from the chair and laid her onto the ground on her side, desperately trying to figure out what to do.

Was she dying on her...? Chell had no idea what the implant was supposed to do.

A couple minutes later Glados stopped shaking as hard, the seizure letting up. Chell gently turned the girl onto her back, checking her pulse gingerly. Glados' eyes flickered open slightly, a whimper of pain breaking through her usual tough exterior.

Chell brushed Glados' bangs back softly, her hand cool against Glados' sweaty forehead. She communicated softly so as to not hurt Glados any further, 'Hey... hey, are you okay? Can you hear me...?'

Are you okay...?

Glados mind was trying to catch up, still firing off neurons and an amalgam of various memories resurfaced, most undecipherable.

She saw Henry Cadwin leaning over her after installing the piece of machinery into her head. She was in a lot of pain, the implant making connections in her brain... she shivered with fear, hugging herself.

Cadwin smiled warmly and stroked her head soothingly, "Hey, you're going to be okay now. I know it hurts, but this is going to save your life. I saved your life." A smile.

And then he was angry, his face red and furious and he was yelling at her-

Glados jerked away from Chell's touch, hot tears running down her face uncontrollably.

She wiped them away in horror, shuddering and trying to ignore the terrified feeling that was overwhelming her...

Chell reached out comfortingly, aware of the other's sudden spike of fear, 'Glados... I'm trying to help you. I promise I'm not going to hurt you... relax.'

Glados tensed, cursing the tears that fell unbidden from her eyes... she wasn't crying was she? She didn't cry. She never cried.

"Don't you dare cry..."

"I'm not... I'm not..." she whispered.

She was in immense pain, wishing upon wishes that Cadwin was here to fix the problem and make it all disappear again...

Except she had hated him.

But he had saved her life.

And she had killed him...

Her eyes opened, staring into Chell's worried features, and she felt her lips quiver...

Pleaseleavemealoneplease-

"I'm sorry..." her voice was small... pathetic and weak. She was disgusted.

"I told you never to cry. You're better than that! I made you better than that!"

She wasn't sorry. What was she saying?

But she was...

She really was sorry.

She wiped her face desperately, trying to stop the tears dripping from her eyes and failing. Her hands shook too much...

Chell grabbed them and pushed her arms down gently. She lifted Glados' trembling form into her lap, cradling her while tears ran down her own face. Glados only shook silently, refusing to let herself cry aloud...

Chell swallowed, surprised by the turn of events.

'I'm... sorry too.'


Wheatley sat cross-legged in Glados' chair, sporting a new Aperture scientist lab coat and watched as his new creations attempted to perform a simple beginner's test.

And they were failing. Miserably.

His eye twitched, a side effect of using his electrical deviation too much.

The first thing he had done after taking over Aperture's systems was try out an idea he had thought up of as a an intern. If test subjects had to use storage cubes to place on large buttons, why not have the cubes walk to the buttons themselves?

He had been fairly pleased with his brilliant idea, and it had only earned him a smack upside the head from his Aunt Julia.

"Boy, if you don't keep your mouth shut they're going to throw you out of here faster than you can say Machiavelli! Try to at least act like you possess some brainpower..." she had scoffed, annoyed with him. She hadn't wanted him there either, but she had owed his mother and got him a job at Aperture. Even if it was only an internship...

"If you keep quiet and do your simple job, you might get lucky and get hired as someone's lab assistant or something. Don't expect any more favors from me," she had said.

Ugh, she had been wretched.

Wheatley had grown up in the UK, only to have his parents die on him while still a minor. His grandmother hadn't wanted to take care of him and had him shipped to his mother's sister, Aunt Julia, in the United States.

Or what used to be the United States. All he knew was they were in an area that used to be called Upper Michigan.

Aunt Julia had been a scientist in Aperture Laboratories and got him the internship when he was 26, after he had been unable to hold a job for more than a month. She had been quite frankly sick and tired of taking care of him, but she had loved her sister and owed her this little favor of taking care of her son.

Wheatley had always been fascinated with science, despite never being quite good at it. So the chance to work at a scienctific laboratory had been an exciting endeavor.

But he had had to be careful, considering he possessed a powerful deviation that needed to be hidden, or they would brand him a test subject and toss him into the incinerator at the end. His abilities were easily given away if he used them, or got too worked up. His aunt taught him how to keep his eyes from glowing and erased his record clean of any Deviant DNA. The UK hadn't been as dangerous as America had become, so it was a new skill for him to learn.

And now he was free to do anything he wanted.

By himself.

He felt a pang in his chest, residual guilt over losing...

Chell.

He hadn't meant to snap at her or drop her into the abyss, truly. He had just been so angry... angry with Glados and angry with everyone. People had always treated him so poorly, calling him an idiot his entire life.

And he was done with it.

If he was being completely honest, the neurotoxin incident had been the best thing to ever have happened to him. He had survived, his Aunt dead, and when the computer had broken down he had run, fully intending to go to the surface to take everything in Aunt Julia's name. Life would be good.

Although Glados hadn't entirely lied; Wheatley had sacrificed someone to save himself, and that weighed on him more heavily than he would've thought.

He had felt incredibly guilty about the test subject he had doomed. While running for his life during Glados' takeover, he had run straight to the one of the stasis chamber rooms, looking for an empty pod. Fortunately, his job had been to wake the test subjects and prep them for portal testing, so he was familiar with the room and the pods.

He had run straight there without telling anyone else of his plan, desperate to save his own life.

A coward.

He shook his head; he wasn't a coward.

Panic took over when all the pods were full, so he had opened a random pod and pulled an unconscious young-looking woman out, taking her place. The next thing he knew he was waking up four years later to a system-wide crash, activating his pod.

He had run straight to the central chamber after noting the exits were still locked up and was going to take the escape lift out.

But then he had seen her.

Chell had been lying on the floor, dying of neurotoxin poisoning, and Glados was lying feet away, looking very dead. He hadn't been overly shocked at finding out Glados had been the one behind the neurotoxin incident. She had always been an intimidating loner and he had never directly spoken with her, keeping his distance.

Wheatley had debated with himself for a full minute before deciding to rescue the dying test subject. He had been responsible for one person's death, and he wouldn't be responsible for another.

He had hoisted Chell into his arms and had taken her straight to the infirmary...

And then they were going to escape together. He would take his Aunt's possessions and everything would finally be alright.

Taking over the computer mainframe hadn't been in the plan, but it had felt so good... his powers had latched onto the invisible streams of data, controlling them like some god-like puppet master. He had never felt anything like it, and had decided he needed it.

He had lashed out against Glados and had caused Chell to succumb to the same fate.

It was such a pity, really. He had liked her.

He groaned and rubbed his temples... the mainframe still a new element to his adapting brain. That was probably the problem. It had nothing to do with Chell.

He casually flicked through Glados' files, annoyed that the majority were encrypted and beyond his reach. Then an open file popped up, simply entitled 'Humor'. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what Glados' version of 'humor' was...

He opened it with growing curiosity and watched as two robots battled their way through a testing chamber, wrought with flamethrowers he had never encountered before.

A robot, a tall white one with an orange optic, ran through the fire streams, waving it's portal gun back and forth frantically, and ended up on the other side of the room with it's head melting alarmingly fast.

Wait, where did these robots come from? His eye twitched again and he ignored it.

He rapidly clicked through files, trying to locate the portal testing bots. Those would be a lot of fun to play with if he could only find them. Glados certainly hadn't made anything simple...

Aha.

The two bots' information was being stored in a reassembly machine, similar to the one he had used to design his own creations...

He glanced up at the viewing screen again, annoyed that his own pathetic robot still hadn't managed to find its way to the button.

"Oh, bloody... it's right there! You are boxes with legs! It is literally your only purpose: Walking onto buttons! How can you not do the one thing you were designed for?" he lost his patience, berating the stupid robots through the speaker system.

The robots ignored him, vainly inching their way forward in no purposeful direction. He had placed turrets in the reassembly machine and had fused them with storage cubes. It was brilliant, but they seemed to be as dense as a bucket of bolts. They made their way across the room in every conceivable direction but towards the large button in the center.

He sighed, "Warmer... warmer... boiling hot. HOT! You're almost there! Ah, cold. Arctic cold. Very very- LOOK, JUST GET ON THE BUTTON!" he yelled, startling his franken-turrets.

One of them fell onto it's side, it's legs twitching in the air as it couldn't reassert it's center of gravity. The other one made a strange garbled noise at it in response.

"Oh, you think that's funny, do you? We've been at this for twelve hours and you haven't solved it either, so I don't know why you're laughing," he growled. He turned his attention back to the two testing bots, and mentally gave the computer the command to reassemble them.

Time for some real science, like the real scientist that he was.

Minutes later, the reassembled Atlas and P-Body found themselves in a new testing area, and Wheatley watched them with growing enthusiasm.

"Oh, you are beautiful, splendid little things, aren't you? I guess you don't have any deviations to test, but that's fine. I want to see what you're capable of..."

The two robots tittered at each other, communicating in their own robotic language nervously. He frowned at them, watching as they did nothing to start the test.

"Okay, go! One... two... three... begin the test!"

The robots stared at him through the security camera, not making any moves.

"Look, just, solve the test already. That's what she made you for, right?" he was irritated again.

They jumped up, getting worked up by the mention of their creator, and he understood.

"Oh, she's not coming back by the way. I own you now, and I'm telling you to do what you were programmed for. Forget about Glados," he said darkly.

The two robots pulled their portal guns closer to them, exchanging a look almost like they were mourning...

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair, linking his hands together, "So... you're gonna test. I'm gonna watch. And everything is going to be just... fine."


Wheatley's such a little punk, haha.

Shout-out to all of you reading my story! I always appreciate any and all feedback and/or support. :) You're all awesome. I'm getting ready for vacation, so I don't know if there will be any more updates for a couple weeks. We'll see if I can squeeze another chapter in before we leave. Have a great rest of your weekend! :D

-Moe