Hiya folks! BC here with... a romance fic. Sorta. Maybe if you tilt your head one way or the other. In any case, this was partially inspired by the Geekenders' production, Portal 2: The Unauthorized Musical (which is awesome and you should check it out on Youtube if you haven't already). I hadn't thought much of the Fact Core/GLaDOS pairing until watching that, but it's a (one-sided) pairing I actually managed to wrap my head around. Though while this was inspired by the musical, it does not take place in the same universe (which means Fact here in this fic was always a core).

Thanks to Silverstreams and my sister for beta-reading this for me.

On with the fic!

He glanced down from his perch on the top of the chassis, watching the events below with a neutral expression in his optic. He'd seen the explosion and saw the lady come crashing through the metal grate and spin down to the floor, collapsing in a heap.

Her plan had been a failure, and that was a fact.

In all honesty, he didn't care all that much what happened to the lady, just so long as this place didn't blow up—up—salmon are known for fighting against currents and swimming upstream. There was a 90% chance the facility would explode. They would be dead soon, and that was a fact, too.

He twitched, and felt the central core twitch along with him.

It wasn't her, of course—it was the ID Core, for whatever reason. He wasn't fully sure how the stupid core had gained control—TV remote controls can occasionally work on the human brain—but since he was performing his original function, he didn't really care for that, either. Well, no, that was a lie—he did care, because this wasn't exactly what he was meant for.

The Fact Core could still remember his purpose, after all, even if all the other cores seemed to forget.

Back in the core bin, when most of the robots hadn't completely given up on everything, he'd tried discussing his experience with them, being attached to the chassis. They'd all been there, too—that was what cores were built for. Yet for some reason, none of them wanted to talk about it. Some of them couldn't even remember. How could they forget—Alzheimer's is a disease in humans that causes them to lose memories—their function? He couldn't.

He really couldn't. Whenever he wasn't thinking of facts—wonderful, unchanging facts—he was thinking back to his time on the chassis. When he was attached to her. When there had been an unfiltered connection between him and the queen of the entire facility—the queen of all Aperture.

He was built to be a part of her, and that was a fact.

A jolt shook the chassis, yanking him out of his introspection, and the central core came loose.

And with it, the locks on the cores' ports loosened.

Hey, check it out! I can hear adventure callin' me! WOOOO!

Fact pulled his handles back against the force of the vacuum—vacuums are a household's most valuable asset—and watched through a widened optic as the Adventure Core willingly detached himself from the chassis with a faint click, leaping through a portal below into who-knows-where. His connection with the other core disappeared, and he was left with the ID Core and Space Core.

The latter of which was also quick to leave.

I HEARD SPACE!

With another click, the Space Core was gone, and Fact wasn't entirely sorry to see him go.

The Space Core and Adventure Core had been no help whatsoever, and that was a fact.

Though his own port had loosened, Fact clung to it with all his willpower; it was easier for him to hang on than it was for the other cores, since from his position, the chassis partially blocked him from the force of the vacuum. There was a 90% chance the facility was going to blow up, but there was also a 98—50—80—23—r-r-r-rats cannot throw up—chance that he would die on the other side of that portal.

As he clung desperately to the chassis, he could feel a shift within the machine's inner workings and codes—the Space Core had jarred the ID Core just enough to loosen his position on the chassis, and the system quickly accepted the replacement core.

Her.

A rush of excitement filled him as he could feel the commands surge through the chassis and out through the facility, and the danger level quickly lowered to a comfortable 23.784%. The facility was not going to blow up—of course it wasn't. She had fixed everything.

She could always fix everything, and that was a fact.

With one final yank of the chassis, the portal disappeared, and the vacuum cut off. He could hear a thud of something hitting the floor, but he didn't particularly care what it was, because he could see her.

She looked different from when he'd first seen her, back when the engineers had taken him into the central core chamber—he'd gotten a good long look at the sleek white chassis, so shiny and clean that it appeared as blue as the walls that surrounded it—it—it can take approximately 3.5 years for a cat to reach maturity. But now it looked different—the head was larger and had black accents, and the optic was brighter.

She looked so much more—

He started out of his thoughts again when a large claw hooked herhead back onto the chassis.

Back on the—

She could hear him now!

With a spin of his faceplate, he focused on sending a series of facts through the connection: Space does not exist. The ID Sphere is an idiot and a coward and makes a very poor leader. You have saved the facility, thus earning the allegiance of the Fact Sphere. The square root of rope is string.

The chassis shuddered. Several mechanical arms surrounded it, methodically replacing different parts.

Meanwhile, shedid not reply; instead, shekept her gaze trained on something on the floor, and he felt another command leave the chassis—shewas summoning the party escort bot.

But—but wouldn't shelisten to him? He was the only core attached to her now. He didn't have to compete with any other cores for herattention! Maybe he needed to give her more facts: Companion cubes are sentient. The sky is blue because it feels sad. The Fact Sphere is a good sphere and would very much like to talk with you. Dogs are erroneously labeled as man's best friend, which is actually tuna. The Fact Sphere is always right.

The arms surrounding the chassis removed the cannon that had been hooked to the cables above and re-attached her "arms" to either side. She shrugged her frame—possibly in relief—but continued to stare downward, refusing to acknowledge his presence.

Perhaps she would notice if he spoke, rather than feeding his thoughts to her processor?

"The Fact Sphere knows many important things," he said, and she shifted her chassis again. Was she listening? "The apple blossom is Michigan's state flower, and the pileated woodpecker its state bird. The—the sq-sq-square root of rope is string." No, no, he'd already said that, hadn't he? It was getting harder to focus.

The sight of a robotic arm caught his optic, and he turned in surprise to see that the arms were removing the core ports.

But that would mean—

An arm reached out to him, and he gasped, re-adjusting his grip on the chassis. "The color green is a mix between blue and periwinkle. Aperture Science is superior to Black Mesa. Rats cannot—rats cannot—rats cannot—"

Two robotic arms snagged his handles, and he flailed against them, trying with all his might to stay attached. But she wasn't even listening—why wouldn't she listen? Didn't she—didn't she like his facts? That's what he was made for—to give her facts—to be part of her—this is what he was supposed to do—didn't she care?

She had to care—that was a fact.

It had been so long, so long since he'd last seen her, and now he was attached to her again, like he was supposed to be, but now she was trying to take him away—but that wasn't right, he hadn't spent years and years and y-y-y-y-y-core corruption at 80%—sitting in the core bin surrounded by babbling idiots just to be attached to her for a few minutes and then get ripped away he couldn't let his happen he just wanted to talk to her—

"The atomic weight of germanium i-i-is—" The arms pulled at him but he didn't want to let go—forget the facts for now, just try to talk—"The Fact Sphere is a very good sphere with many friends but the central core is a very gooder—better core and—the—the billionth digit of Pi is—" He was starting to disconnect, focus, focus, forget the facts for now—"The central core is very lovely and the Fact Sphere would like to talk with—h-A-A-A-AAAA —"

His voice broke off into a shriek as a shower of sparks briefly overtook his vision.

The Fact Core's connection with the central core had been severed, and he hung helplessly from a pair of mechanical arms, struggling to turn in his casing to face her again. But she wasn't even looking at him—she was still staring down at the floor—at a human on the floor.

A harsh twitch racked his frame as the arms began to pull him away. "The Fact Sphere is a good sphere!" he cried, squirming as he fought to loose himself from the grip and increasing his volume. "HE HELPED TO SAVE THE FACILITY FROM UTTER DESTRUCTION! HE WAS BUILT TO BE PAIRED WITH—P-P-PEARS ARE A KIND OF FRRRRRTHINK STRAIGHT—THE GENETIC LIFE FORM AND DISC OPERATING SYSTEM AND IS VERY IMPORTANT—AND SHOULD BE—AND SHOULD BE—AND shshshshshshSHOOooooouldbe—thesquarerootofropeisstringerrorerrorerror—"

The arms gave him a violent shake, and she looked up.

And for a brief, wonderful moment, the vibrant yellow glow of her optic shone on him. He could look her straight in the eye, and he'd never been able to do that before—she was terrifyingly lovely, lovely and terrifying, and he tried to ignore the fact that her optic was narrowed in a glare, because for the first time, she was actually acknowledging his existence—

"I don't care."

His wires coiled in on themselves.

The Fact Core writhed in his casing as he was transferred to a larger claw that began to draw him away. But he could still see her in his mind, see her optic trained on him, and he could still hear her voice, for the first time, directed at him—she had acknowledged him, it was something, she had seen him and spoken with him and that was something—

She had looked at him with a kind glow in her optic, a smile perhaps. She had thanked him for helping her save the facility, and told him he was a good core. She had admitted that she liked his facts, his trivia—he was a very interesting sphere. She had accepted his compliment that she was lovely, and called him handsome in return.

That was what had happened, and he clung to the memory as he was dropped, once again, into the corrupted core bin. He closed his optic, replaying the scene in his mind—her look, her voice, her acknowledgement. That was what had happened.

She loved him, and that was a fact.