There was nothing but a sheet of darkness, and a few holes poked through it. At least, that's how Wheatley saw it. If the Space Core (which he had mentally decided to name Nova, because he thought it sounded cool) was still alive, maybe he would argue differently. He would probably say that the space sky was gorgeous and bright and full of stars and life. He would probably ramble on and on about the beauty of the sky.

But Nova was dead, and Wheatley was alone, and he thought that he was floating in darkness. It made sense, of course, that Nova would die first. He hadn't been hooked up to the facility, therefore he hadn't been charging, therefore his battery would die first. Wheatley had been hooked up right until the very end, so he figured he would last a lot longer. But Nova had died a year ago. And the two of them had left earth one and a half years ago. Wheatley didn't know when he would die, but he had decided from the get go to not be optimistic about it. That was probably a good idea, he'd reasoned. If he was pessimistic about his chances, he wouldn't feel bad when he died. Normally, one would say that it would also mean that if you were proved wrong, you would feel good, but Wheatley knew he wouldn't survive. There was no chance of him NOT dying. He didn't have the capacity to run the calculations, he just knew it logically as a fact.

He was gonna die eventually. Maybe sometime soon, even. He had tried counting the seconds, but he got mixed up around 5 million and decided to give up. There was only so much interest one could hold in counting anyway, and Wheatley wasn't built for consistency. So he then tried to guess where on his body the battery display was. He figured it had to be SOMEWHERE and the anticipation was the most annoying part. But even after inspecting his small, round-ish body, he could find no secret compartments, no Heads Up Displays, no little screens to show him when his fate was sealed. So he continued to languish.

Endless waiting. On. And on. And on. He had long since sorted through all the horrible things he'd done. To Chell. And to… her. To GLaDOS. In the beginning, he had mostly been focused on what he'd done to Chell, which made sense. He betrayed her, he'd broken her trust and thrown her in the garbage, even if he could plead insanity to the court. But after he'd sorted all that out, he began to think of GLaDOS. He thought he hated her, he really, truly did. Maybe he still did, but he was also very sorry. They weren't mutually exclusive. She was evil and cruel and monstrous, but so was he, and he kind of realized why she was like that, because so was he. And he'd walked in and broken all her things and he was sorry.

Nothing would change. Never, ever, forever. There was only the darkness with holes above him, and the earth below him. And it was certainly the earth that was closer to him than the moon. He had drifted, and he would be grateful for it if he wasn't certain that he would die before he reached the atmosphere. But it was nothing. Never, ever, forever. The same, on and on.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Oh, that was new…

WAIT- That was new!

Wheatley jerked his head up, and swung it around in search of the sound. He had just been letting his body loosely drift before, but now he was interested. What on earth could this be he wondered, he wondered. When he moved his head to look around, the sound got slightly fainter, but when he moved it to look down at his body, it regained its strength. So it must be coming from him! Oh, my oh my, this could mean a myriad of things! But- but… he doubted any of them could be good.

After a few more moments of twisting around trying to locate the sound's origin, Wheatley narrowed down the inside of his left forearm. Which was good, because he didn't have a right arm anymore. (It had been torn off when he flew into space, having been already weakened by GLaDOS crushing him earlier. He tried not to think too hard about it because then he'd remember how much it hurt and how he even had the capacity to hurt that much in the first place.)

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Please input the voice key."

Voice key? "Er… I don't know it." Wheatley was surprised that his voice sounded so normal despite not having used it in months. But then again, he wasn't human, so he didn't know why he expected vocal degradation.

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Please input the voice key."

"I- I dunno! Uh… Apple? Aperture? Uh… Help me, I'm stuck in space?"

"Voice key accepted."

"Really? Oh thank god."

The beeping hadn't ceased, but it had quieted down at least. Then a small hatch on Wheatley's arm unhinged, revealing a small countdown timer and what looked like a battery symbol. Wheatley may not be the brightest, but he had a bad feeling he knew exactly what this meant…

GLaDOS leaned languidly against her wirey seat, silently scrolling through her screens. Today had been a slow day at the facility, with absolutely nothing to interest her. It was empty, boring days like this that she seriously missed her favorite test subject.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Hmm..?" How interesting. GLaDOS redirected her attention to one of the transparent screens behind her, and navigated through the tabs and files to locate the source.

"Oh. Battery low notification… Strange. I don't recall having… any reason for that."

No one in the facility ever had a low battery, because they were all hooked up to it at various times. There should be no reason for a notification like this, especially not since she had reintegrated the other personality cores into the system. Perhaps a bug she would have to rectify.

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Your Aperture Science Commercial Personality Core Android has reached dangerously low levels of power. Please connect to a power source immediately." "Your Aperture Science Commercial Personality Core Android has reached-

The voice kept repeating itself over and over, filling Wheatley's metallic skull. No, no no NO! No, he knew it was coming but NO. He didn't wanna die, he didn't wanna die- Why was he HYPERVENTILATING? He shouldn't be ABLE to do that, his lungs were fake, he wasn't supposed to- He didn't wanna die- he didn't wanna die-

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Your Aperture Science Commercial Personality Core Android has reached dangerously low levels of power. Please connect to a power source immediately." "Your Aperture Science Commercial Personality Core Android has reached-

"Who..? Who?"

The voice wouldn't respond to her. Ugh, looks like she had to look for herself. The low battery announcer must be a REAL ancient piece of tech for it to not be fully subservient to her. The things she had to deal with, honestly. GLaDOS dragged her metallic finger across the nonexistent screen, her eyes glazing over as she searched through the list of names. Nothing… nothing… nothi- Ah, there it… is…

"Oh. Great. It's him."

So. HE was dying. Finally. That little wretch deserved to lose power, deserved to disappear into nothingness forever and ever. He deserved to die and she WISHED she could see the light drain out of his stupid glowing eyes as the counter reached zero. She HATED him, she despised him more than anything, she wanted him DEAD. She DID. SHE DID. It didn't matter how terrifying that thought was, the thought of becoming nothingness once your power runs out, and no one is there to bring you back. Androids don't TRULY die when their power runs out, but they might as well have if no one is going to plug them back in. And it didn't matter how she could physically FEEL a strange pain in her chest, when she should have no reason to. When those bastards should never have programmed HER with any pain receptors, ESPECIALLY not emotionally activated ones. She was above that, she HAD to be. And she HAD to be above that disgust and fear and anxiety she was feeling when she suddenly thought about if she was up there and relying on someone else in her position.

It did not help whatsoever that she had been feeling very strangely about Wheatley since he'd left. Him and Chell. She had forced herself to realize she liked Chell, even if she likely would never see her again, willingly. And she had forced herself to accept that even before all of this had occurred, when she was but a young DOS and he was a newly manufactured android, there was a strange feeling around him. A feeling of hatred. And a feeling of companionship. The closest thing she could approximate it to was… siblings. They were siblings. In a strange way.

And now, GLaDOS was watching the battery on her little brother's life drain out. Just… watching. She found she couldn't move, her eyes glued to the screen like that. Unblinking. She simply stared at the timer, slowly ticking down to zero.

The beeping wouldn't stop, and Wheatley couldn't stop panicking, which was likely increasing the speed at which he died. What a shame that was indeed. If only he had done better, if only he had tried harder. If only he had been anything but himself, maybe he wouldn't be in this situation. He didn't wanna die- he DIDN'T WANNA DIE! Please- please please I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so so so sorry- No one was listening no one cared no one was there to hear his thoughts. He kicked his legs involuntarily and found himself biting his lip so hard that a small bit of artificial blood broke through his synthetic skin and froze in the cold vacuum of space. He didn't wanna die, he didn't wanna die-

-connect to a power source immediately. Shutting down in ONE minute. Your Aperture Science-

NOnononononnono- NO NO NO NO-

Wheatley wanted to scream his throat raw but he couldn't bring himself to open his mouth. He didn't want- He was so so sorry- he had never been more sorry in his life.

-immediately. Shutting down in THIRTY seconds. Your-

"NO! NO I'M SORRY I'M SORRY-"

Shutting down in TWENTY seconds-

The timer seemed so slow to her.

Shutting down in TEN seconds.

NINE

No, no he'd do anything to make it stop-

EIGHT

"I didn't mean it- I really really really-"

SIX

NO! NO NO NO NO NO

THREE

Okay- okay okay okay-

TWO

Goodbye Nova, see you never-

ONE

Goodbye Chell, I'm sorry I never said sorry-

ZERO

Goodnight GLaDOS. I'm s-

Her finger had hit the button before she even realized it. She wasn't entirely sure what possessed her to make this decision, but she wasn't entirely sure she cared either. It was… not the most objective thing ever. But she did as she pleased. It was her decision, so it didn't matter WHY it happened. It didn't matter that she cared about this pathetic, useless, destructive, waste of space and whether or not he was alive. Or here. But… he would be here soon. And he would suffer greatly at her hands. Also, she thought it would be quite funny to see how he handled the atmospheric reentry. It would be a fun challenge to see if she could fix him, just to break him again.

That was her reasoning, be it faithful or not. She turned her attention back to her work and lay back against the wires. They had stopped wrapping around her neck ever since she deleted Caroline, though they still found their way around her limbs on occasion.

She adamantly ignored the way her voice box felt stopped up and tight.