Hello, and welcome to Falling Slowly: The Love Story, the prequel to Wayward Son: The Claptrap Story. The title is based off of the song 'Falling Slowly' from the musical Once.

First off, I should probably warn you, this story is based on some of the SPOILERS based off of some of the spoilers to Wayward Son. In fact, this story revolves a pairing that is only revealed in the last few chapters.

I would greatly recommend reading that story before reading this one.

If not, then I will summarize the spoilers at the end of this chapter. to give people context.

Angel did not like going to work with her daddy.

For one thing, there was nothing for her to do. Sure, she could wait around at his cubicle, drawing pictures, but all he had were pens! You can't draw anything good with pens!

For another thing, her dad was always busy. He brought her along because her mother was away, but he was barely paying attention to her. He was glued to his computer.

Angel wasn't entirely sure what it was Hyperion did, but there sure were a lot of cool and colorful machines. She saw a lot of them on the way in.

This place WAS interesting. Just not the part her dad work in.

She looked up at her father. He seemed to be cringing at something on his computer.

He won't notice her slip away.

That was a spaceship.

That had to be a spaceship.

It was big. It was shiny. It was...spaceshipp-y.

They seemed to be loading something.

They were going on a trip!

Angel wanted to go to space! Space was cool!

She looked around. Nobody was looking at her. Everyone seemed to be busy doing their own thing. Daddy always said that she should try to stay out of people's sight.

That was why she had to hide her markings.

She figured it was better that way. She saw other kids at daycare who were different, and they got made fun of. This was probably for the best.

She was looking up at the spaceship when she felt someone tap her shoulder.

She turned around.

"Hi!" A boy exclaimed. "Admiring my ship?"

The boy was about a year younger than her. He had messy, dirty blond hair, green eyes, and was missing a tooth. He was wearing a green t-shirt under a blue jacket, and brown shorts.

"Your ship?" Angel asked.

"Yup!" The boy grinned. "I'm taking her out in a few days! My pa and I are going to a new planet!"

Angel raised an eyebrow.

"So it's your daddy's ship?" She asked.

"Well, both of us have the same name, so it's basically the same!" The boy exclaimed. He paused. "Are you coming with us?"

"Oh! No, I'm just exploring." Angel replied.

"Cool!" The boy exclaimed. "I was thinking of doing that! I've been in this hanger all day! Let's see the rest of the building!" He grabbed Angel's arm and ran toward the door.

"Wait!" Angel exclaimed. "I don't even know your name!"

"Oh!" The boy turned around and grinned. "Name's Clyde! Clyde Trappington The Second!"

Angel looked at the boy. "My name is Angel."

"So, what does your dad do?" Clyde asked, as he and Angel walked through the halls of Hyperion.

"I don't really know." Angel replied. "He said something about 'monkeys' and 'code.' Mommy said it's important. What about your daddy?"

"My dad's a scientist!" Clyde replied. "He's doing really important stuff! At least, he says he does. I remember hearing some people say this was 'busy work,' which I think is a good thing, because it means he's working!"

"That does sound good." Angel said. She didn't really know what to say to him. They were clearly different kinds of kids. Angel was a always a quiet child. Clyde, however, hadn't stopped talking since they left the hanger. she put in her comments when she could, but it was pretty obvious that Clyde was really driving the conversation.

"Look, a room!" Clyde exclaimed. Angel looked at the room Clyde was pointing at. It had a few diagrams of a planet in it, as well as a symbol that looked like an upside-down V in a circle.

"What is it?" Angel asked.

"Pandora!" Clyde exclaimed. "I'm going there tomorrow!"

"Are you afraid?" Angel asked.

"What's the worse that can happen!" Clyde exclaimed.

Angel decided not to answer that one.

"What happened to your arm?" Clyde suddenly asked.

"W-What do you mean?" Angel asked.

"It's all wrapped up!" Clyde exclaimed. "Like a mummy or something! Did you get hurt? Is it one of those girly things?"

"I can't show it to anybody!" Angel exclaimed. Clyde was somewhat taken aback by the sudden exclamation. Angel noticed this, and began to backtrack. "I-I mean, my daddy said that bad people will come after me if they know about it."

"...I'm not a bad guy." Clyde said, looking slightly away.

Angel thought to herself. What could be the harm in showing them to a random boy? He was younger than her, so there was no way he could possible be out to hurt her. Honestly, he didn't seem like the sharpest knife in the draw.

"...Ok. But you have to promise not to tell anyone!" She said, as sternly as she could.

"Cross my heart!" Clyde exclaimed.

"No. You have to pinky swear!" Angel said. She know that was binding.

"...Ok. How secret is this?" He asked, as they pinky swore.

Angel unwrapped her arm.

"...Woah." Clyde said. "Your parents let you get a tattoo?"

"I was born with them." Angel replied, looking at the marking on her arms. "My daddy says it means I'm going to grow up to be one of the most beautiful people in the universe!"

"...I'm pretty sure most dads say that to their daughters." Clyde commented.

Angel pouted. "But it's true! My daddy even showed me books about it! There are a bunch of pretty ladies with markings like mine. Like princesses!" She sighed.

"Why would you want to be a princess?" Clyde asked. "They're girly!"

"...I'm a girl." Angel reminded the boy.

"It's still girly." Clyde said. "I'd want superpowers!"

"Superpowers?" Angel asked.

"Yeah!" Clyde exclaimed. "Like being able to shoot things out of your hands, or pick things up with your mind, or flying!" Clyde exclaimed, acting out each motion as he described it. Angel laughed.

"That would be cool!" Angel agreed. She thought for a second. "Why not both?"

"What do you mean?" Clyde asked.

"A princess with superpowers." Angel replied. "That's what I want to be! A princess with superpowers!"

Clyde looked at the girl. "...Yeah, I could see that. You'll need a dress or something, though. I'll just stick to superpowers."

"Yeah. I don't think you'd look pretty in a dress, anyway." Angel joked.

"Well, yeah. Not as pretty as you, anyway." Clyde said, looking out the door.

Angel blushed at the compliment. She tried to hid it by wrapping her arm back up. Clyde, however, didn't notice.

"So what do you want to do now?" Clyde asked Angel. He noticed the she was blushing. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that she wandered away from her Daddy while he was working." A voice replied from behind Clyde, making him jump.

"Daddy!" Angel exclaimed.

"I didn't think I'd have to worry about boys trying to take you away for a while." John joked, kneeling down to the children.

"We were just exploring!" Clyde exclaimed, somewhat defensively.

"I bet you were." John said, smirking at the kid. "What's your name, son?"

"Clyde, sir!" Clyde grinned. "Clyde Trappington! Named after my dad!"

John frowned a bit. "Trappington...Down in research. I've heard of him. He's going to…" His eyes suddenly widened. "You're going to Pandora."

"Yup!" Clyde exclaimed. "It's going to be fun!"

Jack looked at Clyde sadly."But...you're so…young. And it's...dangerous."

"I know! I'm like a scientific marvel of planet traveling!" Clyde exclaimed.

John cringed to himself.

"Daddy?" Angel looked up at her father, causing him to look away from the boy.

"Yes, dear?" John said.

"When he comes back, can Clyde come over and play?" Angel asked.

"That'd be fun!" Clyde exclaimed. "I'd have a bunch of great things to tell you about Pandora!"

John looked between the two smiling children. He sighed sadly to himself. "Of course he can. If-I mean when he comes back."

"Thank you, Daddy!" Angel exclaimed. She and Clyde grinned at the man.

Suddenly, the intercom buzzed to life.

"Would Clyde Trappington Junior please report to the hanger? Your father is looking for you." The voice buzzed.

Clyde cringed to himself. "Seems like they noticed I'm missing." He grinned. "Welp, better go do my duty! Nice meeting you, Mr. Angel's dad!" He waved at Angel as he walked away. "Bye, Angel! See you when I get back! I'll tell you all about it!"

"You better!" Angel shouted back. The boy disappeared, and Angel was still smiling. John sighed. He should probably break it to her.

"Sweetie…" John said. "I'm probably going to say thing about all of your crushes, but you might be better off forgetting about young Clyde."

"Why, daddy?" Angel asked, confused.

"Well...Let me tell you about Pandora…"

Ok, so this interested you in Wayward Son, go read that.

Here come the spoilers.

For starters, if you don't know your Borderlands, John is Jack.

So let's talk about Clyde. Clyde is the son of Doctor Trappington, a Hyperion scientist sent to Pandora to study the wildlife. Trappington thought this was a waste of his skills, so he was irritated. He was also slowly losing his mind, becoming more and more adept at the Pandora lifestyle. He was still a genius, so Hyperion planned on uploading his mind and copying it into a guide-robots around the planet.

Trappington, however, had other plans. He had discovered a Lost Vault. It was the Vault that was used to create the monsters that were housed in various other Vaults. Trappington planned on entering the Vault to become something greater.

However, it turned out that the mind upload Hyperion was planning for him was much more lethal then he anticipated. If he allowed Hyperion to (painfully) upload his mind, he would never be able to enter the Vault. He planned on hacking the Hyperion device to allow his mind to be uploaded directly into the Vault, and he planned on working with whatever that lead to.

Trappington began to have second thoughts. He was worried the hack wouldn't work. He was worried that his mind was going to be the one that was forced into a guide system. The "Mind Donor collection" drone was already outside of his tent.

Then he remembered his son.

His son, who he hated. His son, who annoyed him. His son, who he was positive was just a drain on their resources.

So he sent his son away with the robot.

Clyde Trappington Junior's mind was forcibly and painfully uploaded. The rest of his mind was copied and torn into pieces, becoming a hive-mind of various copies of the same broken mind. A copy of Clyde's original mind was left in the hive mind, left in the isolation of his own mind. However, his mind wasn't the mind the program was expecting. Something went wrong with the upload.

And that's how Claptrap was born.

For those of you who already read Wayward Son, let's talk for a bit.

I tried to make young Clyde resemble Claptrap. I always thought of Claptrap as Clyde's childhood mind grown up, not a grown up version of mind. The phrase 'man-child' comes to mind. This story is going to somewhat explore the events that made Clyde, well, Clyde.

I also wanted John to contrast how much of a dick Jack is. John's a good father, and Angel hasn't killed anyone yet.

We'll skip ahead a few years next chapter. And after that, I'll tell you the other thing I'm doing with this story.

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