Chapter Text
Part 118. The Return
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The next morning GLaDOS was up before he was, as per usual, and if he hadn’t remembered that Claptrap and Carrie were supposed to return later he would’ve been quite confused about her good mood. “D’you know when they’re coming back?” he asked her.
“In the afternoon,” she said. “If he keeps to his promise of seventy-two hours, that is.”
Wheatley, on his way to go and look out of his hole, froze in her doorway. “You don’t think… they’ve had so much fun over there that um, that they’ll be longer , do you?” he asked. She looked over at him.
“Maybe next time,” she said, and she did not seem to be joking.
“Next time?”
“Mm,” she answered. “You should go with them when it happens.”
“I’m confused,” he said. “Three days ago you could hardly stand that Carrie was going off like that. Now you’re suggesting we both go? At the same time?”
“It’s been three days and nothing has happened,” GLaDOS said. “That’s exactly what I needed to know.”
“Something might’ve happened,” Wheatley protested. “Just no one’s told you yet!”
“If anything serious had, someone would have mentioned it by now.”
“Unless they’re all dead.”
GLaDOS shook her core. “ Now who’s paranoid,” she said.
“Was bound to rub off on me sometime.”
//
It was later that afternoon and Wheatley was trying really, really hard to be a difficult opponent at chess – which he seemed to be failing miserably at, considering GLaDOS made all her moves just as quickly as usual – when GLaDOS all but slammed the panel containing the board back below the floor, causing him to frown up at her. “Gladys,” he protested, “I was nearly – “
But she was looking elsewhere, in the direction of the doorway, and when Wheatley followed her stare he discovered that Carrie was back. The occasion was a bit quashed, however, by the fact that someone else was with her. “Hi guys!” she said, no doubt eager to talk about her little adventure, but whatever she meant to say after was silenced by a look from GLaDOS. She emulated a sigh and crossed the room to stop next to Wheatley.
“You had to know this was going to happen,” he murmured to her. She nodded and turned to face the same direction as him.
Back in the doorway, Hammerlock was staring at GLaDOS as though he rather thought she would disappear if he stopped. His eyes kept tracing her chassis from core to ceiling and back, like he didn’t realise she could see him doing it. She absolutely could, the acceleration of one of her fans telling Wheatley exactly how she felt about it, but before she either snapped or he felt the need to step in Hammerlock marched right in front of her and said, “Please pardon both my intrusion and my rudeness, madam. I – “
“I’ll consider it,” GLaDOS said coldly. “I know who you are. What do you want.”
“Well, I simply had to know whether you were real ,” Hammerlock answered, folding his arms behind his back. “Your relationship with him aside, I’m sure you can agree that Claptrap is prone to exaggeration.”
“Wheatley verified his claims,” said GLaDOS.
“He did indeed,” Hammerlock said, “but as he did so he implied he was not also in a relationship with you, so you might forgive me for having been skeptical until I was introduced to your daughter.”
“You pretended you weren’t with Momma?” Caroline whispered to him. Wheatley rolled his optic in exasperation.
“I had to! Else he’d’ve thought Claptrap was second choice!”
“So you see,” Hammerlock was saying, “though I was warned you would not be pleased by my unannounced appearance, I simply had to meet you. As you likely already know, I have been… acquainted with Claptrap for quite some time. Years enough that I had been long since convinced he was a lost cause, as was everyone else who had ever met him. Except for you. I have heard a great deal about you, of course, and I must admit… for the first time, his outrageous tales appear to be grounded largely in fact.”
“And you felt the need to stare at me for several minutes why ?”
“I do apologise for that,” Hammerlock said, “but I was simply admiring your construction. It’s quite unique, you know.”
“I do know,” said GLaDOS. “Claptrap has told me all the other robots of my size are built for combat, and all of the other artificial intelligences of my class don’t have bodies at all.”
“Given that there are six galaxies, all may be a bit of a stretch, but yes. Most of the AI with administrative positions tend to be installed in ships and such.” He looked up at Wheatley and Carrie, and then turned back to GLaDOS and said, “I am fairly well-travelled, madam, and I must tell you that what you have here is unlike anything I have ever seen before. A society consisting entirely of sentient machines! Remarkable!”
“It’s a work in progress,” GLaDOS said, with surprising modesty, Wheatley thought. “But yes. I have been the first and only person to accomplish quite an impressive number of things. It’s unlikely several people combined will be able to surpass me within several lifetimes.”
Well. So much for modesty.
“You actually made Claptrap , of all people, bearable to be around,” said Hammerlock, “and you may be commended solely for that. But I have taken enough of your valuable time.”
“Wait,” GLaDOS said as Hammerlock stepped back, presumably to leave. “What happened to your limbs?”
“Oh, these old things,” Hammerlock said, waving his metal arm as though he’d forgotten it was there. “It’s a sordid tale involving a particularly savage thresher I saw fit to dub ‘Old Slappy’. In the process of hunting him, he took hold of my arm and leg and removed them quite slowly and painfully.”
“Really,” said GLaDOS, and Wheatley almost laughed to see her move forward in curiosity. “Tell me more.”
“Well, to give you the proper context I’m afraid I must show him to you,” Hammerlock said, and he reached into one of the glowing blue bags attached to his trousers and, much in the fashion that Claptrap did when bringing something out of storage, produced a large sketchbook which GLaDOS was immediately taken by.
“A field journal?” she said with genuine interest. “You’re a scientist?”
“Oh yes,” Hammerlock said. “I graduated from a zoological university, in fact, and immediately made planetfall on Pandora with the ambition of being the first person to research each and every creature upon that miserable, fascinating hellhole.”
“And how far did you get?”
“Allow me to show you,” he answered, and he opened the sketchbook. Wheatley turned to Carrie to see what she thought of this turn of events, only to discover she looked… pleased.
“You did this on purpose,” he realised aloud. She smiled.
“It’s easy when you know what her two favourite things are.” And she moved towards the doorway. He followed, trying to think of them. He should know what they were, shouldn’t he?
“Science and… more science?”
“Science,” Carrie said, “and people who tell really long stories in excruciating detail. He tells everyone who will listen about Old Slappy. And I know this ‘cause he told us back on Pandora. It took, like, at least twenty minutes.”
“So you asked him to come?”
“No. He wanted to meet Momma. I said it was fine.”
They paused at an intersection to allow a handful of cores to pass along ahead of them. “Even though you knew she’d be cross?”
“Oh, come on, Dad,” Carrie said, rolling her optic. “She doesn’t get mad at me.”
“Careful not to push that too far, yeah?”
“I’m not pushing anything. I’m finding friends for her.”
He probably should have argued for GLaDOS’s sake, but… that really was quite sweet. He imagined Carrie, going about in her daily life, keeping an eye out for people she could deposit in GLaDOS’s chamber so that she would be forced to interact with them. Perhaps even find cause to invite them back. If having to cross a dimly-lit bridge over a bottomless pit didn’t scare them off before they got there. When the Central AI Chamber was open, she could be seen long before you got there, seeming small at first but her size becoming more and more evident the closer you got… he shivered at the thought of being a stranger, coming up on that. Hammerlock staring up at her had been sort of rude, no doubt about it, but, well… the first time Wheatley had seen her, he’d done much the same thing.
“What’s going on in there, Dad?” Carrie asked.
“Oh, just thinking on how massive your mum is,” he answered, and she laughed.
“Did you stare at her the first time you saw her?”
“’course I did. You were the only one in history who didn’t, probably.” He sobered a little. “Probably the only one in history who found her comforting at first sight.”
“I hope my daughter feels that way about her.”
“You’ve decided to do it on your own, then?” he asked gently, unsure how far he should prod into that sort of thing. It seemed more of a mother-daughter topic, especially given he’d had no role at all in building Carrie. But she just sort of shrugged.
“You and Momma and Claptrap all make each other better. I don’t think there’s anyone here at Aperture who can do that for me. Maybe in the six galaxies there’s someone, but I don’t know how I would find them.”
“’S a tough job to do on your own,” he cautioned her. “Your mum might’ve been able to handle it, but not me.”
“I won’t be on my own. She gets to have grandparents.” She stopped and looked at him. “I’ll have all the help I need.”
It was a good thing they weren’t moving, because Wheatley needed a moment. A grandparent! Him! It was really quite incredible, the turns his life had taken. He’d started out as a mere accessory for somebody else, and now he was to become the first AI grandfather. If someone had told him all of this back then, he’d never have believed it. It was just… incredible. GLaDOS, of course, had taken care of all the major bits, but the support he’d given her along the way was nearly as important. And it always would be.
“I think Momma will like it better than being a mom,” Carrie was saying, and Wheatley forced himself back out of his own thoughts to pay attention.
“Being a nan, you mean?”
“Yeah,” said Carrie, moving along again. “It’ll be like… the first time she doesn’t have to feel responsible for something. Or someone. She can just… I dunno. Do whatever feels right. And not worry about it, because that’ll be my job.”
A bit of a sober thought, that. GLaDOS did sort of feel responsible for everyone at Aperture, and some people outside of it as well. To be able to care about someone, without having to hold herself accountable for them…
“She’ll find it quite freeing, I think,” he said.
“Do you… do you know why Caroline didn’t wait to meet me?”
Now he was the one stopping. “She couldn’t,” he said gently. “I think she was afraid that… if she did , she wouldn’t’ve been able to go at all. And she did. She needed to go.”
“I don’t mean wait until I was able to talk ,” Carrie argued. “I just mean… I was named after her. Why wouldn’t she – “
“She didn’t know that,” Wheatley interrupted. “Your mum didn’t name you. I did. And not ‘til later. She didn’t… didn’t look at you and decide to um, to take off. She wanted to be here. She just… knew it wasn’t for the best.”
Carrie emulated a sigh. “I know,” she said. “I’ve just… it’s weird. I’ve looked at all the video archives of her I can find, so I actually know her better than she ever knew me. And that just… kinda makes it worse. Because it makes me miss her, sort of, even though we’ve never met.”
“Are you… are you worried your mum’s going to –“
“No!” Carrie said, looking at him incredulously. “Of course not! I just… well, you know her. She likes knowing how to do stuff. I just hope she doesn’t feel as unsure about grandmothers as I do.”
“’S a little diff’rent, princess,” he said. “Caroline left your mum with a lot of doubts because… well, she didn’t know what she was doing, either. She was, y’know, winging the whole parenting thing just as much as any of us. You’ve not got to worry about your mum because it’s just like you said. Being a nan is probably just um, just being a mum but without the worrying. If you were upset, who was she to turn to for advice or help? Nobody. There was nobody. If your daughter gets upset, well, she can just pass her right along to you.”
“No, she can’t,” Carrie said. “That’s my plan. We can’t just play hot potato with her.”
“Oh, you won’t be able to,” Wheatley told her. “You always wanted your mum. Ev’ry time. Passing her off, it’s not, it’s simply not going to happen. She’ll just ask for you.”
“Won’t she be able to tell that Momma has more experience?”
“She’s got experience with you ,” Wheatley said. “Doesn’t mean anything when it comes to anybody else.”
Whatever Carrie was about to say next was interrupted by the appearance of Claptrap, who waved up at Wheatley. “Oh, hi, Wheatley!” he said. “You busy?”
“Uh…” Wheatley looked around to discover Carrie had vanished. “Nope. Not busy.”
“Cool! I wanna make us friendship bracelets, but I need some help. They’re a little tougher when you don’t got fingers.”
“You have noticed I haven’t got any fingers. Or hands , ” Wheatley said, unsure whether Claptrap had genuinely forgotten or not.
“Wow, really? All this time I thought you had some mashed up inside your little volleyball self,” Claptrap said. “I know you don’t have hands , Wheatley. I’ll do the hands stuff. I’m gonna tie the ends of them to your handle while I make ‘em. And you also gotta make sure I’m keeping ‘em tight. Sometimes I get distracted and forget.”
“Oh, okay,” said Wheatley, and he followed Claptrap back to his room. When he settled himself on the coffee table, Claptrap jumped onto his couch only to bounce off again onto the floor. Once he’d gotten where he’d meant to be, Claptrap said,
“I’ll do mine first in case I’ve forgotten how to make them. You wanna pick the colours?”
“Sure,” said Wheatley. “Uh… you like pink, yeah?”
“Sure do!” He pulled a bundle of pink thread out of storage. “I need two more.”
This was more Carrie’s area than his. “Um… yellow and… purple.”
“That’s gonna look awful ,” said Claptrap, taking out those colours as well and continuing with, “I love it already.”
“I can change ‘em if – “
“ Hell no.” He was already measuring the thread out by spreading his arms as wide as they would go and cutting the length he got from that. “I’m gonna make it look awesome .”
Having done that, he tied one set of the ends to Wheatley’s lower handle and started on manoeuvring them over and under each other in a manner which was actually quite difficult for Wheatley to keep track of. Claptrap’s hands sort of covered over the whole process. His job was to make sure the threads were kept tight, though, and he could do that without looking.
Claptrap focused on what he was doing until he’d gotten about halfway down the bracelet, and then he asked, “So what’d you guys get up to while we were gone?”
“Hm?” said Wheatley, intent upon his own task. “Oh! Not too much, to be honest. The first day, there, Gladys said she knew of um, of something we could be doing, and I suggested Old Maid! So we did that. Then – “
“Old Maid?” interrupted Claptrap. “I never heard of that euphemism before.”
“Euphemism?” repeated Wheatley. “It’s not a… it’s not that. I think. It’s cards. We played cards.”
Claptrap looked up from the bracelet for the first time to fix him with what he was fairly confident was an incredulous look. “ Cards ?” Claptrap said. “Your girl said she knew of something you guys could do when your kid was out of the house and you thought she meant cards ?”
“And I s’pose you know what she meant?” Wheatley said, miffed. Really. As though he –
“She wanted you to bone her,” Claptrap said, looking down at the bracelet again. “ Duh. ”
Wheatley searched his brain for an argument. Nothing came to him. In fact, all that came to mind was that conversation, and now that he was thinking it over… it sort of did seem as though Claptrap was right. “But… hasn’t she got you to do that sort of thing with now?” he asked. “Couldn’t she just… wait for you to come back?”
Claptrap waited until he’d gotten to the end of the bracelet to answer. “That’s not really how it works.” He removed the end from Wheatley’s handle and tied it to the loose one he’d left on his end, then pulled it over his hand and looped it twice. “Fantastic!” he said, holding up his arm to admire it. “Onto yours!”
“Are you… going to tell me how it does work?”
“The bracelet? Well, you’re just kinda braiding the –“
“No!” Wheatley cut in. “Why she couldn’t wait for you to do it.”
“Oh.” Claptrap measured out three different shades of blue thread before answering. “She could . But she didn’t want me to do it. She wanted you to do it.”
“What’s the diff’rence? Isn’t it all the… the same thing, in the end?”
“No,” Claptrap answered. “It uh… this is gonna be hard to explain. But it kinda… it’s different. Depending on who you’re with. And what you’re doing. And what you’re trying to do. It’s not like… the same every time.”
“How’s it diff’rent?”
“It just… is ,” said Claptrap, and Wheatley had to pull his handle up to remind him to keep the strings tight. “Look, Wheatley, you’re her number one. Her ride or die. You really think there’s anything I could do to replace you at anything ? I don’t know why she wants you to do it, but I’m gonna guess there’s some feeling you give her that she wants. Some feeling I can’t give her or maybe she just doesn’t want from me. You’d have to ask her. All I can tell you is how I would feel. And if I had another girlfriend who totes wanted to do me, like, all the time , I’d turn her down anytime for GLaDOS. ‘cause the way she makes me feel is just… the best.”
“And how’s that?” Wheatley asked softly. “If you don’t mind.”
“It’s…” He dropped the strings, seeming not to notice. They unravelled only a little. “She makes me feel like bein’ me is… a good thing. Sexy, even! My whole life everybody always told me that everything about me was gross or weird or dumb. But not her. She likes it when I flirt with her, insteada pretending to throw up. She laughs at my jokes when anyone else would be sighin’ and rolling their eyes. She doesn’t act like she wants to kill herself when I go near her. She doesn’t want me to change anything about myself! I don’t even know how to explain to you how crazy that is! Sometimes I don’t even believe it!”
Wheatley nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging way, though Claptrap wasn’t actually looking at him. He was facing more in the direction of his doorway, where there was a camera just out of sight.
“And when we bang, I get to like… try and show her how great all that is and how great she is all at once without saying it! I know, I know. Sounds weird. And kinda impossible. But it just… works! Sometimes. Sometimes I mess it up and kill the vibe, but usually she just thinks it’s funny and then I don’t feel bad about it! And I try again!” He leaned back on the couch and tapped his wheel against it a few times. “She’s just… the only person in the seven galaxies who I feel like… always good about myself around. Even when doin’ something as gross and weird as sex can be. It’s also the closest I’ll ever get to somehow crawling inside her and never leaving, which I also really wanna do sometimes.”
“I can do that,” Wheatley said.
“You don’t gotta brag about it,” Claptrap said, taking up the strings again.
“Can attach myself to her, too,” Wheatley continued, trying not too sound too gleeful. “Stick myself right to her… forever…”
Claptrap lowered the bracelet in order to stare at him, and he laughed.
“I couldn’t actually,” he admitted. “If she’s even still got those ports, she’d just um, just take me right back off again. And ask me what the hell I thought I was doing.”
“Did you like it when you were there?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t really have anything else to compare it to. It was that or um, or sitting on a table in my engineer’s lab. Least on her I had someone to talk to. Though… she wasn’t easy to talk to, not even then.”
“Why not?”
“Well, she was… she was very mis’rable.” He watched Claptrap work for a minute. “Only thing that made her happy was testing, and… even that wasn’t enough, sometimes.”
“That sucks so bad,” Claptrap said. “When you can’t even love the thing you love most. It’s not the same, exactly, but that happens to me when the depression comes back. Even if dancing would help, I just feel too bad to even start .”
“Well… she had to test, back then,” Wheatley said. “Even if… even if she didn’t want to.”
“Imagine that kinda life, Wheats,” said Claptrap. “Having to do what someone else wants, even if you don’t feel like it, twenty-four-seven. And she’s still doin’ it to this day. And she’s only cranky about it some of the time.”
“Y’know what I think,” Wheatley said, seeing that Claptrap was near the end of his threads. “I think we should make one for Gladys.”
“Should we?” Claptrap looked away from the bracelet, though thankfully he had also stopped moving his hands. “She doesn’t seem the type.”
“Oh, she’s not,” said Wheatley. “That’s what’ll make it so funny.”
Claptrap considered his threads for a minute. “I do know how to do this really cool one. And I am all warmed up now. I could keep doin’ this all day!”
“Go on, then,” Wheatley told him, lifting his handle to tighten the bracelet again. Claptrap finished the end of it and removed it from Wheatley’s handle, then held it uncertainly.
“I mighta… made this a bit too long,” he said, looking at Wheatley’s chassis with an air of wariness.
“Nonsense,” Wheatley told him. “Just twine it about my um, my upper handle, there, and it should go all the way across no trouble at all.”
“Oh. Yeah. That makes more sense.”
It really did look quite lovely, Wheatley thought as he looked up at it. He would daresay it matched his optic near exactly! “’S wonderful,” he said. “I love it. You’ve done a great job.”
“Thanks!” Claptrap said. He was now involved in measuring out five more strands of thread: black, three shades of orange, and white. “This one’s gonna take a while, so I hope you don’t have anything you gotta do soon.”
“Nope,” Wheatley answered. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still um, still going over that book with Hammerlock.” He did not quite manage to keep the distaste out of his tone, and when Claptrap glanced at him he realised he should have tried harder to do it. Hammerlock was the closest thing Claptrap had to a friend back on Pandora, and he knew Claptrap cared very much what the human thought of him.
“You really don’t like him, huh,” Claptrap said finally, once he’d got all the new thread arranged and attached to Wheatley’s lower handle.
“He’s… he’s very judgemental .” Wheatley leaned back a bit to get the looseness out of the string. “He’s always acting, y’know, surprised when you do something right.”
“Wheatley, I love you, but don’t,” Claptrap said, though he did not look up from what he was doing. “He’s actually been super patient with me. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but back when we were both stuck on the Southern Shelf, I kept doing stupid stuff and breaking down and every time I asked him for help, he gave it to me. Even though he didn’t want to. Even though he’da been happy if I died. Which I woulda done if he’d refused to fix me. Which he didn’t do ‘cause he’s too classy. I mean, he came with back to Aperture ‘cause I messed up and had to take over the trip.”
Wheatley frowned. “Carrie didn’t mention that.”
“She doesn’t know.” He took a minute to focus on the thread. “Look. Everyone needed to sleep but me, so I kept a lookout when they all went to bed. It was fine for a while, but then a skag showed up. I got scared ‘cause if he got close, that’d be it. So I took the gun out and I loaded it and I shot it.”
“Oh,” Wheatley said.
“And because I’m a screwup,” Claptrap said to the string in his hands, “I loaded it with the wrong ammo. I didn’t use the darts GLaDOS gave me. I put bullets in it. And I killed the stupid skag and when I realised it I threw the gun on the ground and went over to it as though that was gonna do anything, and then I felt really bad and started crying. And then after a while Hammerlock came and asked what happened and ended up guidin’ everyone for me ‘cause I was too messed up to do it.” He rubbed at the thread with his thumbs. “While everyone was still asleep, he wanted to see the gun. I told him my girlfriend made it and he asked to meet her. And I said sure ‘cause I owed him, big time.”
Wheatley looked across the room, to where Claptrap had mounted the rifle on the wall, probably never to be touched again. GLaDOS had said she had designed it to be loaded with bullets in case someone else needed to use the gun if Claptrap couldn’t, but would she have if she’d known this would happen? Or had she thought it a possibility and decided the darts alone would be too much of a risk? The gun seemed so innocuous, held up against the wall by way of two little black hooks. You couldn’t even tell it had been fired and then thrown on the ground. Though Claptrap might’ve cleaned it before putting it up there.
“Him being there actually made me feel even worse !” Claptrap was saying. “’Cause Carrie was kinda already lowkey freaking out about her mom not knowin’ where she was and I went and let a stranger take over the trip! And she was… well, super cool with it, actually. She really likes humans.”
“Yeah,” Wheatley said, returning his attention to the bracelet. “We’ve got to… I dunno. Do something about that. She can’t be too sympathetic to them when she’s um, when she’s Central Core.”
“Why not?”
“It’ll make some decisions harder than they need to be.”
“Hot take: killing people should be a tough decision. And I know, I know. I’m one to talk.” He shrugged. “But! You don’t live in a galaxy where murdering is more natural than breathing!”
“Who said anything about killing ?” Wheatley asked incredulously. “Sure, yeah, she might have to, but I meant… y’know. Laying down the law sort of thing. If Chell crossed Gladys badly enough, she would banish her from the facility. She would hate to do it. But she would. If Alyx did it to Carrie? I dunno if she’d be able to. ‘S the problem with having humans for friends. Don’t want to see ‘em go, but can’t keep ‘em here to um, to punish ‘em. If they happen to uh. To need that.”
“I’m… actually kinda surprised you don’t have a human jail here.” He shook off a thread that had gotten tangled around his hand.
“The relaxation vaults are still about,” Wheatley told him, “but the problem with keeping ‘em here is that the other ones’ll just storm right in to fetch them! Better to just send them off and reconfigure the fence.”
“You mean the glowy blue thingy outside?”
“Yeah.” He realised he’d loosened his handle on accident and pulled it back up. “It’s got a name, it’s the uh… disintegration… field?”
“Oh,” said Claptrap. “The Material Emancipation Grid.”
Wheatley frowned at him in surprise. “How d’you know that?”
Claptrap waved his temporarily free hand. “I used to hang out in the test chambers when I lived here before. She explained aaaaaaall that stuff to me years ago.”
“And you were… you were paying attention?”
“I listen to everything she says.”
“I… don’t,” said Wheatley, suddenly wondering if that was something he was supposed to be doing.
“Sometimes it is a lot of technical stuff I don’t understand,” Claptrap said, “but it’s okay. I talk to her, like, eighteen hours a day and she doesn’t complain about it so I like to return the favour.”
“Bloody hell,” said Wheatley. “How d’you have that much to talk about?”
“It’s easy. I just tell her my every fleeting thought!”
“Y’know, I don’t think I have that many thoughts every day,” Wheatley mused. “I think! Of course I think . I just… don’t think that much . I think.”
“Some people don’t! Some people can just zone out and think about nothin’. Unfortunately, I ain’t one of ‘em. Lotta thoughts. All the time.”
“Like her,” Wheatley said. Claptrap looked up at him.
“Huh?”
“She thinks all day. And all night. Never stops. Don’t think she could even if she tried.”
“Well, no,” said Claptrap. “The mainframe still needs instructions even at night. And Surveillance has to tell her if something’s up. There’s a lotta background stuff she’s gotta keep track of no matter what.”
Wheatley nodded in an attempt to pretend he’d known that. He dimly remembered something like that going on when he’d had to run the facility, but the details were escaping him.
“Does it bug you when she can’t see you?”
Wheatly had to resist the urge to shake himself no. “Actually wished she couldn’t see me for a long time, there. Wasn’t a good thing when she was um, when she was looking at you. Because she was usually looking for you. And you did not want that . So I sort of just… don’t mind if she can’t see me. I always know where she is and that’s um, that’s all I need to know.”
“ That’s really nice,” Claptrap agreed. “I know we’re in a room she can’t see us in, but… it’s cool that she’s always, like, lowkey aware of where I am when I’m here, y’know? It’s like bein’ with her even when I’m not actually with her. It’s a really special thing to be able to do! Usually you gotta, like, live on a spaceship to live that kinda life.”
“Have you ever been on a spaceship?” Wheatley asked.
“When I was a Vault Hunter, yeah. I was also shot down to the moon in a rocket! Now that was a busy day.”
“I was shot halfway to the moon through a portal,” Wheatley offered, again reminded of the fact that Claptrap had accomplished far more in first year of existence than Wheatley probably ever would in his entire life and feeling a little inadequate about it.
“Stayin’ in orbit was probably better for ya,” Claptrap said, now at the last bit of the bracelet. It was made up of a repeating pattern of diamonds that looked sort of three-dimensional when you looked at it in a certain way. Wheatley had to admit it was very well done. “Since there’s nothin’ on your moon.”
“There’s something on it,” said Wheatley. “There aren’t any people , not anymore. But there were .”
“What’d they leave behind?”
“Uh…” Wheatley frowned, trying to remember. “I’m… not certain, to be honest. Pretty sure there’s a flag up there. It’s got stripes on it.”
“A flag with stripes on it?” Claptrap repeated, glancing up from tying off the bracelet. “If you were claiming the moon for the planet, shouldn’t the flag have, like… a picture of the Earth on it?”
“I dunno why they left a flag there,” Wheatley admitted. “It’s probably fallen over by now, anyway.”
“Nope!” Claptrap waggled his right hand to the side, as if it were tired. Maybe it was. Wheatley had no idea how having limbs worked. “The moon’s got no atmosphere, so whatever those humans were doing up there is exactly how they left it!”
“Now how on Earth d’you know that ?” Wheatley asked, incredulous. Claptrap looked up from his inspection of the bracelet.
“Wheats. Pal. When I was here before, you were in orbit. I heard a lot about the moon and how bad she wanted you to get sucked into its orbit and reach terminal velocity and explode into a million unrecognisable pieces.”
“Oh, God,” muttered Wheatley.
“She never told me your name , but I heard aaaaaaaall about you. Many times. Many, many, many times.”
“And Chell too, I s’pose.”
“No, not really. Mostly just you. She also liked to tell me about that time she picked you up and crushed you without even looking at you –“
“Y’know, looks like this bracelet’s finished. All done. You want to um, to remove it now?” Wheatley interrupted before he could be regaled any further with tales of how awful he had been.
“Yes!” declared Claptrap, getting the other end untied from Wheatley’s handle with only a little trouble. “Let’s go give it to her!”
“She is going to hate it,” Wheatley said with no small amount of glee. Claptrap laughed.
“You really don’t mind getting one in her, huh?”
“Oh, no,” said Wheatley. “I look forward to it! I really like to, y’know, savour those moments.”
Claptrap tied the cord into a loop and got up. “Stick yourself back up on the ceiling and we’ll head out.”
A few minutes later they were going along the bridge that led to GLaDOS’s chamber, the bracelet folded into Claptrap’s hand. As soon as they’d passed the threshold Claptrap announced, in a sing-song voice that almost caused Wheatley to start laughing and give the whole thing away, “GLaaaaaaDOS! Guess what weeee’ve got to show you!”
“One-way tickets to someplace very far away?”
“Ha! You wish, sister,” Claptrap scoffed, halting abruptly in front of her. “Nope, me and Wheatley made friendship bracelets!” He thrust out his arm for emphasis. GLaDOS turned and flicked her optic over the both of them, stopping momentarily on each of theirs.
“Dear God, you did,” GLaDOS said.
“Oh, we’ve done better than that,” Wheatley told her, leaning forward. “We’ve also made one for you!”
“Here!” Claptrap said, holding it up to her. “We know it’s just what you’ve always wanted.”
She took it warily, as though she thought it might be coated with something deadly. “A friendship bracelet.”
“A symbol of what good friends we are,” Wheatley said, and GLaDOS glanced at him.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what this is.”
“You don’t gotta wear it or anything,” Claptrap said. “You can just put it with your other stuff and forget about it. If you want. It’s just, I was doin’ ‘em anyway and Wheatley said I should and – “
“I see,” interrupted GLaDOS. And she whisked it off someplace, but before Wheatley could ask what that meant, Claptrap said,
“So uh… we good? Or are you mad that I brought Hammerlock here?”
“I’m not happy about it,” GLaDOS answered. “I don’t want all of Pandora wandering over my doorstep. But I’ve been informed of the circumstances. So I’ll let it go. This time.”
“I’m sorry,” Claptrap said, optic focused on the hands he was fitting together. “I don’t think you gotta worry, though. Hammerlock isn’t the kind of guy to just give out your address. Only if there’s, like, an emergency.”
“He was incredibly polite,” GLaDOS admitted.
“Hey! Since that went so well, I could bring Dr Zed to meet you next!”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
Claptrap shrugged and moved away, pulling up a panel and slamming his laptop on it. He was occupying himself for the moment, then. Good, because there was something Wheatley needed to ask her in… sort of private.
“Gladys, Claptrap mentioned that um… that you didn’t really want to play Old Maid. When you said you knew of something we could do.”
“Oh, I didn’t,” said GLaDOS. “That was just about the last thing I wanted to do.”
“Then why’d you agree to do it?” Wheatley asked. “You could’ve, y’know. Told me what you actually wanted.”
“Because you were so excited about it,” GLaDOS answered. “It was… well, it was sort of cute, to be honest. I didn’t have it in me to crush your enthusiasm in favour of something that benefitted me and not you. Even though I really, truly had no interest in playing Old Maid.”
“Well, how was I to know?” Wheatley protested, his confusion winning out over his delight at being referred to as cute. “You’ve got to be clearer about these things! Didn’t even know until today that it um, that who’s doing it matters! Thought it was all the same either way!”
“Oh, not at all,” said GLaDOS. “Your method does take a great deal longer than his, which makes it very… inconvenient to try and fit into my schedule. The rest of the differences aren’t something I want to get into right now, but… suffice it to say that the identity of the other party very much does matter.”
He had to admit he felt very flattered about that. The way he did it was just totally made up, no knowledge about that sort of thing at all, and she still liked it anyway. Tremendous! “Well, how about this, luv,” he said. “In the morning before you’ve got to work I’ll uh, I’ll take care of that for you. How’s that.”
“Really?” she said, actually looking at him as she said it. He tried not to smile too much at how enthusiastic she sounded, though he wasn’t sure whether he succeeded or not. This was one of the most clear and open conversations about maintenance they’d ever had. He would quite prefer it if she were this comfortable about it all the time.
“Yeah,” he answered. “’Course. Probably a better time for you, besides. Clear out the ol’ cobwebs before starting your day, and all that.”
“I do not have cobwebs ,” GLaDOS said, raising her core indignantly.
“I know,” Wheatley said, unable to keep himself from laughing, “I’m the one who makes sure of that.”
“Can you continue this conversation later so I can say goodnight?” said Carrie, and they both turned to look at her.
“Actually,” GLaDOS said, “I thought you could stick around for a bit. You didn’t get to tell me about your trip yet.”
“That’s because you’ve been soooo busy talking to everyone else ,” Carrie said, rolling her optic but moving to her mum’s other side.
“You’re the one who brought that human here,” GLaDOS said. “Which reminds me. Claptrap.”
“Your thoughts?”
Wheatley had to move so she could look at Claptrap without pushing him out of the way. “I convinced your friend to bring me a stalker.”
“Fantastic!” Claptrap said. “’Cause I am still broke and I do not see that changing anytime soon.”
“Wait.” Carrie came in front of GLaDOS, frowning. “You wanted to meet Hammerlock?”
“Did you really think you were pulling one over on me?”
Carrie bounced her lower handle once or twice in frustration. “I’m going to! One day!”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” GLaDOS said serenely, and Wheatley knew he should probably not take sides on this but he privately agreed with her.
“Wheatley,” Claptrap hissed once GLaDOS and Caroline’s conversation had got into full swing. “C’mere a sec.”
He really did not want to – he was quite comfortable where he was, thanks very much – so he said, “No thanks. It can wait. Whatever it is.”
“No it – well, yeah, it can, but also – just c’mere, will you? It’ll only take like two seconds.”
Wheatley imagined sighing very pointedly but did as he was asked. Now he was nearer, he could see that Claptrap was holding his ECHO device. He turned it towards Wheatley and said, “Take a look at this.”
The picture was slightly blurry, but Wheatley would have recognised any part of GLaDOS’s chassis anywhere. He frowned in confusion and started to turn around to look at the photographed section, unsure of why he was looking at a photo of her when the real thing was right there – which he’d been so rudely disturbed from snuggling with, mind – when Claptrap said urgently, “No no no! Don’t look at her ! She’ll notice !”
“Mate,” Wheatley said in exasperation, “I don’t need to see a photo of the person, the construct I’m in the same room with!”
“You do right now,” Claptrap said. “Check this out.” And he traced the orange wire on the screen with the corner of his hand. Wheatley stared at it, gobsmacked.
“No,” he said. “I’ve got to look.” And he started to turn around again, but Claptrap put up his arm to stop him.
“Not now ! That’ll make it weird ! Do it tomorrow or something.”
He wanted to look, though. Ohhhh, he really wanted to look. But Claptrap was right. He needed to be very calm about this. Very normal . Even though it was hard to be either of those things when he knew that GLaDOS had, somehow, without anybody noticing, had twined the bracelet around the orange wire in the first section of cords bundled together inside of those black boxes. He would get to look soon – every day, if he wanted to – but the itch to do so right now to confirm what he had been shown in this shoddy picture was very, very strong. Though maybe the photo was bad because Claptrap hadn’t wanted to be caught looking himself.
“Wheats, help me out here,” Claptrap said, his voice still low as though he didn’t want her to hear. “Why’d she act like she didn’t want it, and then do this?”
Wheatley shook himself slowly. “It’s been twelve years and you could give me… twelve times twelve more,” he said, “and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“ God I wish she would marry me,” said Claptrap.
“She said you could pretend, though. Just not here .”
“I know. Not the same, though.” He put the ECHO away and folded his arms up thoughtfully. “Hey, if you wanted to marry her too, doesn’t that make us like… co-husbands?”
“Absolutely,” Wheatley agreed. Honestly, that should have occurred to them sooner! It also felt gleefully sneaky to high-five over it right in front of her.
“Do I need to know what you two goofballs are doing over there?” GLaDOS asked, and when they answered ‘no’ in unison she made an electronic noise of exasperation and went back to her conversation with Caroline.
“Hey, while you’re here,” Claptrap said, pulling out his battered laptop, “wanna help me write a fanfiction about us marrying her?”
“Can I be wearing a hat?”
“You can do whatever you want! It’s your wedding.”
“Excellent!” said Wheatley. “Ooh, and you can read it to her when we’re done!”
“She is going to love that,” Claptrap said gleefully. “Hey, how much do you think she regrets introducing us?”
“Bet she regrets it all the time,” answered Wheatley. “Every day, probably.”
“Oh, I do,” said GLaDOS. “I’m regretting it right now, in fact.”
“Let’s keep on earning that regret!” said Claptrap, and he put Wheatley into his open storage tray so he could see the screen better.