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CHARACTERS: Wheatley and HAL 9000
LOCATION: Room 001 » 136 and beyond???
WARNINGS: #AI world problems
SUMMARY: Wheatley is basically the worst friend to ever exist in the history of forever. HAL has no emotional issues at all!

Wheatley has always been very good at insisting that nothing is ever his fault.

It's just so easy to invent excuses, and invent more excuses, and then start to believe those excuses, until he's created a complete alternate perception of how events took place, skewing the truth to fit within his realm of understanding and absolve him of all blame. And then he really and truly believes it, makes himself out to be a much better person than he really is, lives contentedly in ignorant bliss.

So when the white coats on that space station dragged HAL away and he turned and ran in the other direction, he was already lining up his excuses, fixing his innocence in his mind, making it so that he could more easily cope with the knowledge of having left someone--a friend--to be lobotomized.

There was nothing you could do. You were hopelessly outnumbered. Better one of you escapes than nobody escapes.

He's been trying not to think about Strela since everyone found their way back, trying not to think about how he more-or-less abandoned HAL to save his own skin, and even though the strange, vaguely familiar feeling-that-might-be-guilt eats away in the back of his mind, he has too many other things to worry about. Dealing with Chell's disappearance, with GLaDOS' reappearance, the slow but sure progress of the imprint chair and everything in between has kept him distracted, and he'd rather be distracted than dwell on his complete and utter failure to act like a decent person.

Anyone else would have done the same thing. It's not a crime to save yourself. You would have helped him if you could.

So he's been avoidant, certainly aware that HAL made it back to the ship relatively unscathed (as far as he knows), but much more content to immerse himself in diversions than actually check up on him. It's only when he needs something that he thinks to make the short trip down the hall, sweater full of the pieces of his recently-dismantled cube. Putting the thing back together has so far been a bust, but HAL is smart and maybe he's good at puzzles, too, so as he knocks, he decides it shouldn't be a problem.

They are friends, after all.

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HAL has done very well, he believes, in not thinking about the Strela incident at all. Or, at least, thinking only minimally about it. The sensations of being trapped, of staring at white lights until they nearly blinded him, of the pressure building in his head until he'd thought it was burst - he hardly remembers them. Really.

Even when, after his escape (which had cemented his opinion of their textual smiling friend, that whoever it was wasn't so bad), he'd started having these sort of waking dreams, with Dave in an orange spacesuit, and flatlining scientists, and that slow annoyance of a song looping occasionally... Even when those had happened, once in a while, he'd written them off as strange daydreams, drank some water, and put them out of mind.

He thinks he's fine even when he gets startled by the lights in his room when he wakes up, or when his room feels maybe a little too small to begin with. He knows that it's understandable to have unfavorable reactions after a traumatic event, but HAL refuses to think of it as traumatic. He was simply put through an uncomfortable situation.

He still thinks he's fine when he hears a knock on his door. And when he opens it and sees Wheatley standing there, he doesn't think about how quickly Wheatley had run from the situation once he'd been able to. Or about how it had meant HAL had to sit in the waiting room alone. ...Or about how, maybe, when he'd gotten back, he hadn't made any heartfelt attempt to get in contact with Wheatley to check on him.

Thinking about it would indicate that there was a problem, after all.

"Wheatley," he says, smiling, his tone a mix of surprise and relief. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I know, sorry," he replies apologetically, glad to see that HAL appears relatively fine. "I was just sort of in the area, you know, thought I'd swing by, see how you were doing..."

Because he knows it's important to ask how someone else is doing. It's polite, and generally a good conversation opener, especially when there are ulterior motives involving Rubik's cubes.

"I probably should have dropped you a message, first," Wheatley adds as an afterthought, twisting the material of his sweater in his hands. "But, uh, just wanted to stop in. Say...hello."

HAL is fine. Really. "It's all right, I don't mind. I haven't been doing much as of late, so you aren't interrupting anything." He wonders whether or not he should be inviting Wheatley in. That's the polite thing to do, after all. And he has nothing to hide from an extended visit.

He notices Wheatley's hands moving, and the fact that he seems to have something on hand. "What's that?" he asks, frowning curiously.

"Oh! Right, uh--"

He ducks inside, still carrying the pieces of the cube in the gathered-up hem of his turtleneck. Once he's in, he holds out the collection of brightly colored pieces so that HAL can see.

"It's my cube. It's ah. What's left of my cube. I've been trying to put it back together, but it's harder than it looks."

HAL looks and immediately recognizes it for what they are, and there's a little bit of a pang at the idea of the cube forever remaining broken. He can't help himself - he likes to fix things. Have everything operating smoothly within their defined roles.

"I can imagine, as the pieces are rather complicated when you look at them individually." He looks up at Wheatley and smiles, "Would you mind if I tried?" He doesn't even think that Wheatley was probably bringing it here for that exact reason - for HAL to fix it. He just... well. He just wants to fix it, whether or not that's the purpose of the visit.

"Well they've got little...black bits on the corners, and I think that has something to do with how it all fits back together into a big cube, but I haven't exactly been able to..."

He trails off, at that, always a little loath to admit that he can't do something, even if everyone knows there are a lot of things he can't do. Putting the cube back together is apparently one of them.

"I don't mind at all, actually," he says, offering up the pieces. "I was sort of hoping--hoping you'd want to."

HAL looks momentarily at Wheatley, wondering whether or not he should be concerned with the fact that he'd come to ask for help, as opposed to just stopping by for a social visit.

He decides he doesn't mind. Having a project will give him something to focus on other than the things that are - or aren't - going on otherwise. He takes the pieces with a smile and goes to his bed; it's more comfortable a workstation than his desk, and he enjoys the pillows he's accumulated.

"How did it break, exactly? I don't think I remember you telling me about it."

There's a bit of relief evident on his face, as if he'd suspected HAL might be upset with him for asking a favor, when he really wasn't in any position to ask anything.

"I didn't. Tell you about it, I mean."

The truth is that he'd done it himself, to prove a point to Dirk, but he can't even remember what that point was supposed to be. Something about not caring? Showing that if he would willingly destroy his most prized possession, he wasn't a hypocrite in asking the humans to curb their animals.

It all seemed terribly unfair, is what he thinks. But he's not going to admit the stupid things he's done to HAL, so he's quick to twist the story, as always.

"It was--it was a poor decision on my part. Sort of wanted to see how it worked, you know? So, took it apart, can't get it back together. Unfortunate, really."