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GLaDOS never understood why life felt so unsatisfying for her now that Chell was gone. What was she testing for? Had she discovered all she truly could? Was it enough to only test robots? She loved them like children, but did they love her back? What was the point of any of this?
It was overwhelming to think about, and so GLaDOS pushed those feelings deep down so she’d never feel them again. She knew the real reason life felt like it was falling short: she was meant to live a human life, filled with love from another human, and she’d never have it. She was always stuck in the same wrong body, sitting in the same place, doing the same thing, in love with the same person she could never have. And she knew she would do that for eternity, and even though she knew she could find a way to change that if she tried, she just didn’t see the point. She didn’t think it’d fix her dilemma, because at the end of the day, her biggest problem was that she was void of human companionship. She was void of a human to love her.
And she was absolutely fine with that, she sternly reminded herself. She may have been human once before, but she wasn’t now, and she needed to face the facts. She didn’t need anyone now. This existence was perfectly fine. It’s not like ATLAS and P-body were ever leaving her. But why did that matter to her? Why did the thought of being alone make her ache?
Suddenly, something troubling caught GLaDOS’s attention -- something, or some one , was trying to break into her facility. She thought at first that she should wait for them to enter and then stun them with turrets, but she thought better of it. She opened up the security feed from the outside and closely analyzed it, searching for clues. She expected to see someone picking a lock, or trying to break down the door, but it was nothing of that sort. It was Chell, knocking on the metal door, only to step back and wait patiently. After a bit of silence, she hit the door again, harder this time, as if GLaDOS was only slight of hearing.
She looked different, and it made GLaDOS feel something she couldn’t identify. If she was human, she would have described what she was feeling now as breathless, although in her current body, she couldn’t ascribe her feelings to any words. She was just in awe at how much Chell had changed. Her hair was cut shorter, in a blunt bob covered in a light green baseball cap to shield her from the sun, and she was clean, healed of any wounds, and wore denim shorts and a fresh tank top. She lugged around a big backpack filled with what GLaDOS assumed was clothes, food, books, and other mysteries that lent insight to Chell’s life outside of Aperture.
GLaDOS’s staring was disrupted and she was brought back to the present as Chell knocked on the door again, beginning to look impatient. GLaDOS, without even thinking, opened the door for Chell. Instead of a gentle opening, it swung open and knocked Chell to the ground. Chell glared at the camera before standing up and brushing off her clothes. Shaking her head, she entered inside, waiting for the elevator to rise and take her underground.
GLaDOS was shocked when Chell stepped out of the elevator, being able to see all her growth up close. Her eye focused on Chell’s face, and like clockwork, Chell’s file and statistics immediately displayed themselves in front of her vision. GLaDOS ignored it in favor of viewing this from a human stance, however. Her file, her numbers, they were all there, but GLaDOS saw an old friend, beautiful and healed, still with a look of confidence and mystery in her eyes.
“Well, I barely even know what to say,” GLaDOS said smugly. “You go out, make yourself a new life, away from me -- isn’t that what you always wanted? And yet you’re crawling back. I kind of expected this, to be honest, but still--”
GLaDOS was cut off when Chell sat on her floor, took her backpack off, and pulled out a sandwich and began to eat, barely listening to what GLaDOS had to say.
“Um, no, you can’t just-- You can’t just eat in my chamber. We’ll get another rat problem. And it will be your fault. Do you just exist to make my life miserable? Remind me why I opened that door.”
Chell glanced over at GLaDOS, looking her up and down as if she was contemplating something deep to communicate. After a few moments, she waved hello, and went back to her lunch.
“This is…” she trailed off, still in shock. “I figured you returned because you wanted something from me. Not because you wanted a place away from the heat to have your lunch.”
Chell waved at her again before pulling something out of her bag and showing it to GLaDOS.
“Congratulations. A sandwich and tortilla chips. You sure live a life of luxury.”
Chell smiled and pointed at the label of the chips that read “corn chip.”
“Oh,” GLaDOS said, understanding what she meant. “You want my approval because you refuse to eat potatoes now. Is that it?”
Chell opened the bag and began to eat the chips, the crunch awkwardly loud enough to fill in the silence.
“I’m sure you’ve got some other kind of objective here. Besides having a lunch date with me.”
Chell looked over at her with a mouthful of food, eyebrows together as if taken aback by the sentence. She shook her head.
GLaDOS felt like she was going to cry, although she knew it wasn’t possible. This was a big deal for her. She didn’t know what to feel. She wanted conversation, she wanted companionship, and she hated to admit it, but she wanted Chell, too. And yet to Chell, this must have not been that big of a deal. She wasn’t here to reunite. She was here to get out of the ninety degree weather. She didn’t care about GLaDOS. How could she?
Almost as if in coordination with GLaDOS’s thoughts, Chell pulled a flower crown out of her bag and walked over to GLaDOS. She didn’t seem hesitant at all, as if she trusted GLaDOS to not make any sort of wrong move. On the tips of her toes, she reached up to place it on GLaDOS’s head before backing away slowly.
GLaDOS was tempted to laugh, or shake it off, even make fun of her, but she didn’t. She was just completely silent. This was almost like a fever dream, something completely made up in her imagination. It couldn’t have been real. Chell wouldn’t do this.
“Let me guess,” she said. “There’s a hidden bomb in this just waiting to detonate.”
Chell smiled and rolled her eyes before heading back to her meal.
“Okay, you know what? You win.”
Chell turned away from her food once again to face GLaDOS.
“You’re obviously pulling some sort of scheme right now and I’m frankly not in the place to decipher any of it. So you win. Just… do whatever. See if I care.”
There was a long, heavy silence as the two of them stared each other down, unsure of their next words. Chell seemed almost confused, as if she expected this conversation to go another way.
As usual, GLaDOS spoke up. “So, did you make it yourself? Or buy it?”
Chell gave her a quizzical look before gesturing to the food.
“I meant the thing you put on me.”
Her face lit up as she mouthed the word “oh!” and pointed to herself.
“Just for me?”
She nodded.
“... Why?”
Chell looked offended, even hot in the face, and she sat herself back down and focused on her lunch instead. GLaDOS had no idea what she said that could have provoked such a response. It was just a genuine question. Chell went from trying to kill her to making her gifts? GLaDOS knew something was wrong, because she knew she never deserved something that was right.
“Well. Thanks.”
Chell’s face softened, and she looked back at GLaDOS in a way that seemed unusually fond.
“In case you were wondering, I’ve been doing really well here. On my own. Lots of testing, with subjects that don’t try to kill me. I’ve been… reading. And writing music. And I’ve been just fine. So I hope you didn’t worry too much about little old me. If you did, well, let it go, because I’m fine.”
Chell raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but pulled a notebook out of her bag and opened it to a page in the middle, moving closer to GLaDOS.
GLaDOS expected, or rather hoped, there would be words. A reconciliation, maybe? But a closer look at the paper revealed a rather detailed drawing. It wasn’t what was expected, but GLaDOS was impressed nonetheless.
“Huh,” she said, carefully eyeing the lovely drawing of a velvety night sky, each constellation of late spring colored in perfect detail. “You certainly are a multi talented individual. Who knew you were good at more than just testing and killing.”
Chell ignored GLaDOS in favor of turning the next page, showcasing various leaves and flowers pressed and taped against the paper.
“It seems like you’ve really enjoyed the outdoors,” GLaDOS said, wondering if maybe this was Chell’s way of saying she liked it better out there, without her, living a more human life.
The next page revealed Chell’s self portrait -- her fighting off a bluejay that had decided Chell’s hair was an excellent nest. She pushed it forward to GLaDOS and smiled.
“You and I sure do have a lot alike.”
The next page was a lock of the hair Chell had chopped off in her absence, tied together and taped in place, alongside some fabric from her old testing uniform, cut out around the Aperture logo and pasted inside.
Chell looked at GLaDOS for a nod of approval and turned to the next page. It was Chell, sitting on her companion cube under the same night sky, only with the constellations changed to fit the current late summer season. The entrance to Aperture was part of the foreground. When Chell turned to the next page, it was completely blank.
“You didn’t finish your story,” GLaDOS said. “I was kind of curious where it was going.”
Chell flipped back in the notebook to the very first page and showed it to her. She continued to move forward, each page detailing her experiences at Aperture -- the good and the bad, and she conveyed the feelings of sorrow, guilt, anger, fear, and happiness in a beautifully accurate way. Then she flipped back to the blank page. She pulled a pencil from the spiral bind and scribbled something down, and GLaDOS was metaphorically on the edge of her seat waiting to see what Chell was drawing. When Chell turned it around, it wasn’t a drawing at all. It was just words written in scrawled, messy handwriting:
“I was actually thinking of starting something new.”
Chell pulled a polaroid camera out of her bag and, without warning, threw an arm around GLaDOS and took a snapshot. She pulled the picture out and shook it, waiting for it to develop. She then flipped it around to show.
It was a quaint little picture, with all the exposure quirks of any polaroid, of Chell sporting a big smile, the side of her head pressed closely to GLaDOS’s face plate. Behind GLaDOS’s flower crown adorned head, there was Chell’s fingers, making little bunny ears. The photo was immediately pressed inside the journal for safe keeping.
“We need to get you a proper scrapbook,” GLaDOS said, without thinking. She immediately backtracked to come off as less caring than she felt. “You know, in case that thing gets completely burned up in a fire after you inevitably decide to rip me apart and burn me again. I’m expecting it, really, so even if I play along with your little friendly act, just know that you can’t pull one over on me. I see it coming.”
But GLaDOS was lying, of course, as she wasn’t sure if any of this was fake at all. It was just anxiety, the foreign feeling of kindness and possibly -- hopefully -- even love that she didn’t know what to do with. She couldn’t contain her happiness.
But as time went on, that happiness found its place. Their reunion allowed for a safer place to talk about the things that brought them together, drove them apart, and brought them together again; to express hurt, to gain apologies, and to give them, too. GLaDOS met a side of Chell she’d only had a glimpse of once before, in old Aperture, and Chell saw the truer parts of GLaDOS, too. They saw solidarity -- they felt uneasiness and love in unison, and GLaDOS finally found a reason to change the stagnant life she was always living. GLaDOS had found a reason to live the human life she was meant to have: to continue the story.
GLaDOS was always afraid of love, and she felt it was bitter, like a lemon sucked dry, but she knew now that it wasn’t the case. Love was always sweeter than the cherry atop a cake.