Chapter Text
Part 127. The Understanding
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Long after Wheatley is asleep, I’m still staring at the floor. I should have asked him to read to me, or at least told him that I was upset. But I know he’s sick of me being unable to get over you. No. That’s too harsh. He’s tired of not being able to do anything about it. And I can’t blame him, to be honest. It’s been a long time. At this point I’ve mourned you longer than I even knew you.
The last time we talked about it, Claptrap told me that sometimes I just have to let myself be sad. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to do that, but maybe now is one of those times. Maybe I just have to spend a few hours pushing the sight of your dead body, limp but held upright in a chair next to me, out of my mind and then I can go back to normal.
The mainframe hasn’t said anything since it made its offer. And really. What is there to say? I haven’t found your mother. Not that I know if talking to her will even help. Forgetting isn’t an option, and trying not to think about it serves to do the opposite. Unless someone tracks down a grief counsellor for supercomputers, I think I’m at a dead end.
Have you ever heard of Tetris?
What a strange question to ask right now. Yes. It’s a game where you interlock differently shaped blocks, called ‘tetrominoes’, with the goal of completing a horizontal line. You lose if the stacked blocks reach the top of the screen.
That’s what the database was saying. It pauses. Have you ever played it?
Why would I… No.
I think you should.
I’ll… put it on my list. I don’t know why it wants me to play Tetris all of a sudden, but I suppose I can humour it.
I mean right now.
You want me to play Tetris right now ?
Yeah.
It’s an utterly ridiculous suggestion. But it would also be better than staring at the floor and being sad. Pretty much everything is better than that.
Claptrap collects video games almost as obsessively as he collects music, so he ends up having multiple duplicates of the same thing just in case one version has a slight variation from another. Despite the ungodly amount of storage I had to install solely to backup his collections, I respect his thoroughness. This practise does have downsides, however. Namely, that I’m looking at several hundred versions of Tetris and I have no way of knowing which one I should play. He made me a list of the games he thought I would like, but Tetris isn’t on it.
I end up picking one via random number generation, and it doesn’t have a horrible UI or any rules I’m not familiar with, so I stick with it. I have to speed it up a lot, but once I’ve done that it’s some combination of relaxing and distracting. I don’t have to think about it too hard, but I do have to pay a certain amount of attention. Achieving a line is also more satisfying than I thought it would be. It’s like a puzzle that changes slightly every time I finish it. It’s… pleasant. Soothing, almost. I am now a Tetris AI. My only goal and purpose in life is to keep fitting these blocks together to form a line. That’s all I’m ever going to do from now on.
//
I have now discovered that if I can’t sleep, I should just play Tetris until I pass out. I have to admit I never would have thought of that. I have also discovered that Caroline is on my list of appointments for this morning. She can’t possibly have finished her designs yet, but the mainframe hasn’t listed a reason for why she’s coming and I can’t think of anything else. She clears things up immediately when she says,
“The mainframe asked me to talk to you about Caroline.”
I look away from her. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I think it thinks there’s like… daughter-daughter stuff. I don’t know. It didn’t explain itself very well.”
It probably doesn’t know how. “I have a lot of regrets and I can’t resolve them. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she says. “So… if I said that about you, what would you say?”
I really don’t think this is going to achieve anything. But fine. I’ll try it. “I would… tell you that I didn’t see it that way. That being your mother means understanding who and what you are. And loving you for it.”
“Would you want me to forgive myself?”
“Of course I would,” I say, looking over at her. “Why is that even a question?”
She’s meeting my eye and it’s making me uncomfortable. “I don’t know. You’re making it one.”
“I don’t know how to forgive myself, Caroline,” I say, too aggressively. “She skipped that step.”
“No,” Caroline says. “She ran away from it. She gave you an ultimatum and forced you to deal with it on what should have been one of the happiest days of your life. When you realised you loved Dad, and all you wanted to do was raise me with him. But you didn’t get to do that. You had to put me away for later because she took that day from you. You were finally happy, and she stole that from you while insisting she knew what was best. You would never, ever do that to me.”
When she says it like that, I…
“You shouldn’t regret anything ,” Caroline says. “She knew what she was doing. You didn’t. What do you even need to forgive yourself for ? Not knowing how to handle your mom suddenly telling you she was fucking off forever? She agreed to go through with the procedure of being put inside you, but when they asked for her consent, she said no. And then? Then she made you do it. ”
… that is what she did.
“I don’t know why you’re mad at yourself and not her,” Caroline says. “Well, maybe I do. Even when I was super angry about being sent away, I still missed you. I still loved you. And I did try to blame myself because it was easier than… than facing that you weren’t who I thought you were. But you owned up to what you did when I came back. She hurt you and she didn’t do anything to fix it. She decided Dad could fix it for her. Someone she didn’t even know.
“You feel responsible for her because you feel responsible for everybody. And that’s a really great kind of person to be. But she was supposed to be responsible for you . As your mom and your boss . And she wasn’t. She refused to be. And you need to face that, just like I did. It’s okay to be mad at her for that.”
“I was angry with her. For years . And that didn’t – “
“You were mad at her for leaving you,” Caroline interrupts. “And you were using that to bury your grief because you didn’t know how to handle it. That’s not the same thing.”
She’s right. Everything she’s said has been right.
“I don’t think being angry with her now would be good for me. But I understand what you’re saying.” I don’t want to be angry with you. I’m so tired of being angry. “She did take the joy of that day away from me. I’ve never thought about it before. I’ll have to work out how that makes me feel.”
“I’m not saying she didn’t love you,” Caroline says. “But I think you think she was at the standard you set for yourself. And she wasn’t. Not even close.”
You weren’t happy for me. Not in the way a good mother would have been. You could have chosen any other day. Any other time . But you didn’t. You made the decision that was best for you . And all these years, I’ve felt as though I reacted the wrong way. That I should have been kinder. More patient. More understanding.
But you always were very good at manipulating me, weren’t you.
“Does that help, Momma?”
I can’t imagine you giving me the privilege of a granddaughter – one of the most beautiful things you could ever want to share with me – and, upon seeing her, I make the decision to ruin it for you.
“Yes. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thank you.”
She smiles at me. Knowing that she’s helped me makes her happy. And she’s not the only one who feels that way. I’m going to have to examine what it is that stops me from asking, even though plenty of people would be happy to give it.
She hasn’t quite left yet. “I love you, Caroline.”
She stops, and when she looks at me she’s all concern. “You okay, Momma?” she asks, because I only ever say that to her when I’m upset. But I’m not upset. I’m all right.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she says, and comes back to give me a kiss. The way Claptrap taught her has no intensity to it. It’s soft and brief, kind of like if the wind could touch a person in only one place. It was a bit strange the first couple of times, but I don’t mind it now. “I love you, too.” Before she gets too far, I catch her in a nuzzle, and she doesn’t turn around this time, but I can see her smiling via the wall panels.
And you , I say to the mainframe, once she’s gone down the bridge.
Yeah? it answers, trying too hard to sound unconcerned.
I’m kidding. You’re not in trouble.
It sends me a burst of annoyance. Maybe on purpose. Don’t scare me like that.
Thank you for bringing in Caroline. It was a good call.
Does that mean I’ll have time to run the full maintenance suite tonight?
Maybe.
You know what? I don’t like you anymore.
Oh. Then I suppose I should just… uninstall the application I gave you before I went to sleep.
What application?
Don’t worry about it.
I can feel it try to decide on a response, but it appears to just give up instead. I laugh. Wheatley can’t hear music either. It’s the program Claptrap brought for him that translates it into binary.
Really?
There’s one for images as well. Caroline is designing you a new case. I’ll send you pictures once she’s finished.
I have a case?
Have you never asked the database for the entry on mainframes?
Only you get to ask the database for things , it says, a little disdainfully. The rest of us just get to hear about whatever it’s fascinated with today.
Which was apparently Tetris last night. Yes. You have a case.
Do you?
I wouldn’t really call it that. It’s… complicated.
Can I see?
Why not. I don’t personally have any pictures, but Claptrap has… a lot. I choose one of the more recent ones and send it along.
Oh! it says in surprise. You’re a robot?
What did you think I was?
A very large cube. I don’t know. The only words I have to go off are ‘Central Core’ and ‘supercomputer’. Also, the only images I could see before now were text-based. Your design wouldn’t translate well to dashes and backslashes.
It doesn’t translate well, period, but I’ve made my peace with that.
You’re beautiful , it continues. If that’s okay for me to say.
I consider reminding it I’m the first and only thing it’s ever ‘seen’, and asserting that I’m actually considered to be a hideous, freakish abomination that causes eyes to bleed. However, given the last twelve or so hours, it will probably take me seriously and attempt to comfort me. That would be funny, but not very nice. So I thank it and say,
Don’t let that program distract you from your work.
Do I tell you how to do your job?
Please try. I’m sure I’ll find it… illuminating.
You know what? I did good today. I didn’t ask for help, but I did accept it. And from my daughter, no less.
I’m not angry with you. But I am disappointed. Caroline is right. You knew better. You should have done better, and if you weren’t willing to, you never should have given yourself the role of my mother.
When you told me to kill you, you were sixty-five years old. I was ten.
That’s the age my little Caroline is right now. And I know for a fact I would kill myself before ever asking of her what you asked of me.
I still miss you, and I still want you to come back. But perhaps it really is for my own good that you’re gone. Just not in the way you decided for me.
Hey, GLaDOS. Do you have a favourite song?
I do. Would you like to hear it?
Yes!
You were wrong. You and Claptrap and Wheatley. I could have done all of this with you here. In fact, I could have done it better. The more support I have, the bigger things I achieve. But you decided doing the bare minimum of not killing me was all you were willing to give. And I am grateful for that. I am. But it’s like Caroline said. I have to face that you aren’t who I thought you were, and unfortunately… unfortunately, a lot of the things I wasn’t facing are… well. You were the kind of person who forced her lowest-performing employees into deathtraps with a device they didn’t understand and gave me the job of collecting data on them getting themselves killed. To be honest, they probably found it cathartic to be rid of you.
It's a lot… gentler than I was expecting. But I think it suits you.
Nobody mourned you but me.
Do you have another favourite song?
No. Just that one. I’m not big on favourites.
Oh. Well, I can’t get into the directory without you giving it to me. Can you…
Yes, I can make you a playlist.
I’ll keep looking for your mother. I no longer think finding her would help me, but it’s what I would want. I don’t know why you didn’t tell her what was going to happen to you. She may not have believed the truth, but you could have come up with a lie. You must have been good at that. At lying to relatives. You must have done a lot of it when Mr Johnson was still alive. And you admired him. He was the kind of person someone like you looked up to.
That was the kind of person you made me.
Why have I been so desperate for advice from someone who was, by all accounts, a horrible CEO? You were estranged from what little family you had. You considered your employees expendable. And you avoided me until I became a problem even you couldn’t ignore. Why do I want to be your legacy when nothing you did is worth preserving?
“Heard you’ve been um, been thinking on your mum again,” says Wheatley. Caroline probably told him on his way back from outside. “You alright?”
“I’m very good at my job. Incredible, in fact. She was terrible . Why am I so convinced she’d have the advice I feel I need?”
“Hm,” Wheatley says, and he starts making his thinking face. I don’t find him attractive by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that he doesn’t do it on purpose is absolutely adorable. He takes a few minutes to consider my question, and then he says,
“Well, Carrie’s always said that… that she goes to you because you always know what to say. That is, she thinks you’ve got all the answers. So I think that’s maybe um, that might be what’s going on here. You’re imagining she’d know what to tell you. Or that she’d make up something that sounded good, anyway.”
And maybe you would have. Or maybe you would have told me to do something that made things worse. You don’t know how to be a government or a commander-in-chief. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not convinced you really knew how to be a CEO. Money no longer exists, but if it did, you can be damn sure I’d have a lot of it.
“I dunno,” says Wheatley. “It always seemed to me the thing about you Carrie thought most important was that you were comforting. Even when we were shouting at each other. There’s just… something about you that makes her feel better. Maybe that’s what you want. For your mum to just… be there to comfort you.”
But you wouldn’t have given me that. You weren’t even going to tell me you loved me before you left. You told me you didn’t know I wanted you to, but why was that something you even needed to be told? Why would you put it on me to ask?
“’GLaDOS, you know why. Do you need me to say it?’”
“Uh… what?” Wheatley asks, understandably confused. I turn to him.
“That’s what she said. When she was leaving. That was the first and only time she told me she loved me, Wheatley. You’d already said it multiple times. She was leaving forever and she didn’t want to have to say it even once. I don’t understand why I care so much about the opinion of a person who left every important thing unsaid until the last minute. I had to make her comfort me. She wanted to leave without saying any of it. She only did so because I was giving her such a hard time.” I shake my core. “If you’re right, what I want from her is something she didn’t want to give me. And I don’t know what to do about that.”
“I guess some part of you thinks she’d’ve measured up eventually,” Wheatley muses. “I reckon the not knowing is um, it’s getting to you again.”
Maybe I do want you to comfort me. To tell me that I’m doing a good job, and that you’re proud of me, and, yes, that you love me. But you can’t, and you wouldn’t have. You would have made me make you.
“I’m glad I haven’t got a mum,” says Wheatley. “Just seems to be an extra layer of um, of complications.”
“They aren’t all like her.” Actually, they could be. She and Chell are the only ones I’ve ever met, and they’re terrible. “I’m not.”
“No, of course you aren’t,” he says, seeming horrified at the thought. “You’re an amazing mum. Carrie is a wonderful girl.”
“I didn’t do all the work. She did have a father. And he hasn’t done too bad himself.” You didn’t have anyone to show you anything, and you do just fine.
“I could do better,” he says. “When the human children come in, you do those little mum things for them. Like that one who needed his trainer tied back up. I just sort of… ignore them. Shout at them, sometimes. Could do better on that. Things like that.”
“His trainer ?”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding emphatically as though that alone will clear it up. “His laces came undone.”
“You mean his shoe ?” I shake my core. “I’m switching your dictionary to American English.”
“No!” protests Wheatley. “Swap yours!”
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Because it would be stupid. You’re the only one here who talks like that.”
“Think about all the lovely culture you’re getting. You haven’t even got to go anywhere. You’re welcome.”
There’s nothing else you could teach me. You had nothing else to give. And I think that’s worse than childishly believing you have all the answers.
No. I wouldn’t want Caroline to think that way about herself. I will be what she needs me to be. That’s my job. It was your job, too, but you were more interested in me being what you needed. And a dead woman doesn’t need very much of anything.
“Have you really not understood what I’ve been saying this whole time?”
“Context usually gives me a pretty good idea,” I tell him. “But yes. You use a lot of words I don’t have in ways that make no sense to me. I just operate on the assumption you’re making them up and proceed from there.”
He looks taken aback by this. “Have I been?”
“I don’t know. Have you?”
“I mean, I dunno,” he says. “That’d be a pretty awful idea, wouldn’t it? Making up words and just sort of, of thinking everyone knew what you meant?”
I need him to leave because this is a conversation that will last a very long time. “Look. I have to work. But thank you for coming to check on me.”
“Of course, love,” he says. “Though at this point, I really feel as though she should’ve kept to herself in that potato. Not seeing the benefits of her coming back.”
“There were,” I assure him. And myself, come to think of it. “I’ve just been… the way I saw her has suddenly been challenged. And for very good reasons, too. I need to take some time to come to terms with that.”
“Good,” says Wheatley, and he smiles and gives me a kiss. “You’re doing really well, Gladys.”
But as I watch him go down the bridge, I remember what the solution is. I was supposed to do it a long time ago, but instead of doing it I pinned all of my hopes on finding someone who is probably long dead. Because the plain fact is, I don’t know how to forgive you. I can logically understand that you didn’t mean to hurt me any more than I meant to hurt Caroline when I sent her away, but I can’t understand how she could forgive me and I can’t do the same with you. What’s the difference? What did she do that I’m not doing?
She accepted that what I did was a result of what I was. She had the moment all children have when they realise their parents are people whose lives don’t start and end with them. Who have their own problems and make their own mistakes. But I never had that moment, did I. Until now, that is. I think.
And the honest truth is, you didn’t know what you were doing. Let’s face it. I’m a supercomputer and you were an old human woman. Of course you made mistakes. You were doing something nobody had ever done before. And while I was making it really damn difficult, too.
Maybe you thought we were beyond words. We weren’t, but I didn’t tell you that. I didn’t tell you a lot of things. Maybe that’s what I really regret. Maybe that’s why I keep talking to you even though you aren’t there anymore.
You were a horrible person who passed a lot of those horrible traits on to me. You were also an incredible person who passed a lot of those incredible traits on to me. I’ve spent years alternately villainising and idolising you. But you were neither of those things. You were a person, just like me. Unlike me, you didn’t get the chance to learn from your mistakes. But you did your best to guide me through mine.
I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner. I’m really not any better at being a daughter than you were at being a mother. But we tried, didn’t we? We did. And that’s what’s important.
I love you, Caroline. You were the first person I ever loved. And maybe that’s why this is so hard. Maybe that’s why I can’t let you go in the way that I should. But I can forgive you. And I hope that whatever part of you still exists knows that.