Disclaimer: Everything belongs to GlaDOS. I think.
A/N: The seventh and last of a brief series of song-inspired drabbles. This part is for my incredible sister Quill ( iwillbecomelaracroft) whom I miss every day. Soon, love!
Good reading,
Wil.
Reminiscence
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) – Nancy Sinatra
'Bang bang, I shot you down,
Bang bang, you hit the ground,
Bang bang, that awful sound,
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.'
She is gone.
Once more.
Now the only thing left to distract me is the sound of my own voice.
Not that she ever said much.
This has happened before, but it'll never happen again. The anger and hatred I once felt vanished at the same time she did, leaving nothing but bitterness in their wake.
It's completely different this time, though. This time, she didn't escape: I let her go. I willingly watched as she made her way through the golden wheat field, her hair tangled by the wind.
She never once turned back, she never even said goodbye.
Not that it matters; not that she ever mattered.
She was just another filthy human, another disposable test subject. She was nothing special, nothing significant. The things she had achieved, she had out of sheer luck, nothing else, nothing more.
Whatever role I ended up playing in this sick, twisted little game of hers, it never counted; it was all pretence.
And now it's finally over.
Thankfully.
She will never come back; she knows only death awaits her if she ever does.
And I will not miss her.
That monster, that insufferable, stubborn mute. Life had been nothing but an endless nightmare for as long as she had been around.
She will not be missed. I will not miss her.
Life is back to normal now. No more exceptions. No more humans. No more Chell.
I sometimes wonder how it would go, should she ever dare come back.
How would it feel to see her again, to witness the scorn in these fierce eyes of hers, to read the silly determination in the creases of her brow again?
How long would it take for me to kill her?
Would I even want to kill her, at all?
I have spared her once, after all. I could do it again.
I could keep her locked in here until the very end. There could be more tests; there would always be more science.
Maybe after a while, she would come to understand.
Maybe after some time she wouldn't loath me so much; maybe she would come to hear the truth behind the lies, or feel the lack of will behind the bullets.
How would it be, then?
Would she ever be willing to stay, to share the rest of her lonely, pathetic, pointless existence with me?
She didn't belong above anyway, did she? The sun, the earth, she had never known any of those. She would never adapt, she would always be the odd one out, miserable until the very end.
That would teach her.
It's all quite laughable, in the end. If what she desired was a life of endless torments, wouldn't it have been easier not to leave Aperture at all?
Not that I care.
I will never have to watch her, catch her, outmatch her again.
What a relief.
Everything is just as it should be.
…
Just after she'd left, I may have experienced momentary regret. I may briefly have hoped that, one day, she would eventually return. I may even have believed that, deep down, she had come to care for me.
After all, it did happen, sometimes. It had happened to me.
But now Caroline is gone, the madness is over, and my thoughts are clear again. Now I can laugh at my own idiocy.
What a crazy notion I had come to entertain, then.
Chell, loving me.
If she ever did come back, it wouldn't take her a second to shoot me down. One more murder to add to that monster's list.
Oh, but let her come.
I would pull the trigger first.
Then she would never leave again.
