A/N: For this one, I focused more on the lyrics of the song than the word prompts. The first half of the song in particular really reminded me of Chell and Wheatley's relationship, whether you ship them or not. I tried really hard to keep this one short, since I am already struggling a little to keep of with the prompts and keep my usual style/quality of writing, so I hope y'all like it!

As far as Wheatley could tell, space had a way of driving one insane.

At least, he thought it did. Out here, his only benchmark of what was "sane" was his space-obsessed companion and himself. And he had proved just how absolutely splendid of a role model he was in that area. A true bastion of mental stability, he was. Especially when he had singlehandedly destroyed a massive, sprawling super facility, gone absolutely off his rockers, and tried to murder the only person who cared for his sorry metal husk in who knows how long.

"Yeah, I really am kidding myself, aren't I?" Wheatly asked aloud, to only be answered by silence.

At some point in the last few hours – or had it been days? It was really quite hard to keep track of such linear things when you were spinning uncontrollably, handle over carapace, around the Moon which itself was spinning uncontrollably around another astrological body, the Earth, which was in turn spinning uncontrollably around a bloody massive ball of blindingly bright fire—

Wait where had he been going with that thought? Oh, right. His astronomically obnoxious companion in exile.

At some point, Kevin – that was what he had taken to calling the personality core who had been jettisoned out into the depths of space with him – had gained a little more speed than him in orbit, and was now a good distance away from Wheatley, out of range of his internal radio receptors. Because of course Aperture Science had thought up a way to allow Aperture Tech to communicate with each other even in the soundless vacuum of space.

Initially, he had thought that being forced to constantly listen to Kevin's babbling would be the thing to drive him insane. Goodbye higher reasoning skills! Nice knowing you. You will be missed. But now, Wheatley was starting to almost miss the constant yammering about stars, comets, and space in general. Because with the overpowering, infinite silence of the cosmos pressing down on his audial processor, Wheatley was starting to hallucinate. At least, he thought he might be. What was really categorized as a "hallucination" was likely up to debate; maybe there was a requirement jotted down there somewhere about needing to be human, or non-Aperture Science Technology. Either way, something wasn't meshing right back there in the ol' central processing unit, and it was getting to him.

It had started with small things. Little flashes of light that might have simply been attributed to the damage his lens took when She crushed him in Her huge, terrifying claw-arm. The twitching remained, although there were no sparks to accompany the obnoxious bug out in the vacuum of space.

Now though, it had developed into something significantly more concerning. Periodically, Wheatley would hear the low, droning noise that flowed through the very veins of the Laboratories, the one he had never really realized was there until it was gone. It was strange, how many things one realized they had taken for granted when they were floating pointlessly through space.

The people they took for granted.

That was the other oddity, of course. There was no one to talk to out there, and no one to listen to with Kevin temporarily out of conversing distance. At least, Wheatley hoped it was temporary…

Anyways, with no one to actually speak to – a real one-on-one conversation, with a sentient being who could actually comprehend what was being said and maybe even talked back— well, maybe not that one. Ironically, the only sentient thing that ever really responded to what he said was the exact murderous supercomputer who wanted him dead more than anything in the world. Except maybe for the death of Her nemesis and 2-time vanquisher.

No, the sentient being he was thinking of was quite the opposite. He had never heard her speak during their time in the facility, not once, and yet it always felt like a conversation to him. A real give-and-take conversation. He would talk, she would listen. He would give an order, and she would either follow it or give him one of those mildly confused glances, or annoyed eyerolls, or graveside-smiles. It felt like she listened.

And with no one listening out here, no one for an astronomically long distance…

Wheatley liked to pretend that maybe, just maybe, if he ever got to talk to her again, he could change things. Maybe, he could have tried to see things another way than from his stupid, narrow viewpoint, then things would have been better.

And sometimes it was like she was really there. Really, actually there.

Like they were back on the run, speeding through the endless catwalks between the testing tracks – or just strolling. There were those dreams too, if they were considered a dream since he was a robot and couldn't technically sleep. They would talk— well, he would talk, and she would do the listening and reacting that she was so very skilled at. Sometimes it was just babble, a skill Wheatley had down pat; that was maybe the only thing he was good at, come to think of it. Talking. Everything else, he figured out the absolute worst way to go about doing it and did it that way. But the point was, it felt so real. And every time he twitched, or otherwise snapped back to reality, it was like being hurled into space all over again.

The worst part, of course, was knowing that this was all his own doing. It was his own, stupid fault that he couldn't do anything right, and he would never be able to do anything right because he was a moron. A moron who couldn't see what he had until he had singlehandedly destroyed it. And oh, how I wished I could take it all back, everything. I really swear it.

I'm sorry. That's what I would say, if I ever saw her again.

I'm sorry.

A/N: This was so fun to write, I completely forgot that I've never written anything from this fandom. I've been a part of it for some years now, done some fanart, read Blue Sky several times, but I was surprised when I couldn't find any other Portal WIPs in my folders! I suppose that's a good thing, since I already have WAYYY too many WIPs lol.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Feedback is always appreciated. Until next time,

- Bubblez