Part Two.

Synopsis: Maybe she'll let him hug her this time. He's got a good reason…

Sometimes GLaDOS got sad.

Now, Claptrap got sad all the time. Like, constantly. It was like… a weird feature or something. But he had nothing on her. When he got sad, he just cried for a while and then he was okay. Mostly. But GLaDOS didn't do that. She just kinda… pretended she wasn't sad. It was so easy to tell she was, though. She didn't get mad at him more often, or tell him to talk less, or really change all that much. But you could just feel it when she got sad. And it was everywhere in the facility, because she was everywhere, and really, it was kinda a downer. He wasn't gonna complain about it. That would be the total wrong thing to do. But he really wished he could just ask her what was wrong and that she would just tell him. Because he knew if he did, she wouldn't, and then what. Then what did he do? For now, he was just doing his best to pretend along with her. He wasn't sure if he was succeeding, but he was trying. Kinda summed up their relationship, to be honest.

This time, though, was really bad. She was kinda making him sad just to be near her, and that sucked. He really, really needed to do something about it before he started getting all upset, because when that happened he really screwed things up. So one afternoon where he thought he could handle it okay and also she hadn't really said anything to him since yesterday or the day before, he said, "Babe, you wanna… tell me what's going on?"

The way she looked at him kinda suggested she'd forgotten he was even there. Which was typical. Not with her, just in general. He didn't have much hope of her actually answering the question, because she usually didn't, so she really took him by surprise when she said, "I had a friend once."

Oh. Okay. Uh… what did he do now? He'd totally expected her to just ignore him. "What… happened to them?"

"I sent her away," GLaDOS said. "I wasn't very good to her."

"Why not?"

She didn't answer for long enough that it made him anxious. Come to think of it, that was kinda a weird question to ask somebody. Especially somebody you didn't really know that well. He'd like to know her better, she was just so hard to talk to sometimes. 'cause she did stuff like this. Mentioned something and then refused to talk about it. Why do that if you didn't wanna talk about it? Finally she said, without looking at him,

"It's a long story."

And that was bad news why? "I got nothin' but time!"

That was when the staring started and he had to try very hard not to back away from her. He wasn't sure where he was planning on going, exactly, but someplace very far away would be good. Back to Pandora probably wasn't even far enough. It really sucked when she did this.

Something that was really tough about being her boyfriend was that he could never tell what she was thinking. He, like most of his product line – and most people on Pandora in general – was pretty open with his thoughts. Sometimes to the point of actually voicing every single one of them! But GLaDOS… not only did she not do that, she also didn't gesture. Probably because she didn't have arms. But that wasn't the point. The point was that she was staring at him, and thinking, and he had no idea if they were bad thoughts or good ones. When she did this scrutinising thing he really did start to wonder if having a brain that big was worth it. Sure, it made you smarter, but if being smarter meant you had to think about every decision a zillion times, what was the point?

"You know what," she said finally, long after he'd given up hope of an actual answer this time, "all right. Let's do it."

"Do… do what."

"I'm going to tell you the story."

Story? What story? Oh, right. The reason she'd sent the friend away she hadn't been nice to. It was a little weird that she'd need to tell a story to explain that, but hey. He had nothing better to do.

"And Claptrap."

"Yeah?"

"I know your mind is prone to wandering, but do your best to pay attention. I only want to go over it once."

Oof. Sounded like this story was made of pure suckage. But okay. He would do his absolute best! though what that happened to be today was yet to be known. "You got it, babe."

It wasn't even that hard to pay attention, though, because the story was just plain wild. And a little confusing, since she kept mentioning things he didn't know anything about. Like what the heck was an Intelligence Dampening Sphere? For a minute he thought it must have been some sort of pill you took, like the kind that made parties better, but it turned out to be some kind of robot? A stupid robot that was also kinda smart? There was also something about neurotoxin, and a cake dispensary, and a turkey leg hanging on a rope from the ceiling, and he was having trouble following not because he wasn't paying attention, but because none of it made any sense! Especially not the gun that shot holes! Without using bullets! What sort of gun did that? Rockets, yes. Acid, yes. Swords? Heck yeah! But holes?

He was doing his best to not interrupt, he really was, but then she got to the part where the stupid-but-smart robot moved her into a potato, which really did sound like torture right there, and then she said after the dumbass smashed her into a bottomless pit a bird started eating her. Which was just the last straw. Why would a bird be noshing on a computer?

Oh. Oh, right. Wasn't there some other kind of potato? It was something to do with French fries… "Wait! Wait. Are you talking about an actual potato? Like, the vegetable?"

"Is there another kind?"

"Well, sorta," Claptrap said. "On Pandora you call a really crappy computer a potato. Y'know. 'cause it can't do anything. Just sorta sits there."

GLaDOS looked over at the wall.

"In that case," she said solemnly, "I seem to be the most optimised piece of software in existence."

Damn. What a woman.

The story didn't get any clearer after that, though. There were a bunch of weird gels, and some hilarious dude that GLaDOS seemed particularly fond of, for some reason, and to top it all off she'd almost ended up on the moon. "Is he still up there?" Claptrap asked, having lost track of where the IDS had ended up. She nodded once.

"As far as I know. Unless some passing aliens decided to pick him up, which would be…" She was looking up at the ceiling suddenly, and Claptrap checked it out himself but there was nothing there. Other than the ceiling. "Oh."

"Huh?" Claptrap asked, feeling like he'd missed something. Was she looking through the ceiling?

"That is a story for another time."

She had a story about aliens? Well, okay. So did he. Lots of 'em. Also, maybe her story was just about him, since he was kinda an alien at the moment. Did robots count as aliens? Especially robots that were kinda just like variations on the robots they already had? When GLaDOS talked about computer stuff, he understood her just fine. Was Earth a parallel version of Pandora? Or was Pandora a parallel version of Earth! Did that mean there were Vaults here too? Wait. She had said Earth was the only inhabited planet in this solar system. On Pandora even the moon was inhabited, so –

"Anyway," GLaDOS was saying. "There you have it."

Have… what? He'd forgotten what they'd been talking about.

"It's been one year to that day."

To the day of… darn it! That sure made him look good. She'd actually told him something for once and he already didn't remember what the point of it had been.

"She's probably dead by now," GLaDOS said, subdued enough it kinda worried him. "There's not much out there and this place isn't exactly accessible."

Oh right! Her friend! Phew. He thanked his lucky stars for the fact that she'd kept talking. "I don't know, babe. If there's one thing I know about humans, it's that they're super resilient."

"The ones here really aren't."

Well, he didn't actually know any of them, so maybe she was right on that one. Meant he'd almost run out of things to say about this, though. "Well, if she's alive and she ever comes back, I think you'll get along great!" Claptrap declared. "I think you're a great friend."

She looked at him with her optic narrowed a little bit. She didn't believe him, huh. Probably she'd figured out already that his opinion wasn't worth that much. In his defense, he wasn't really programmed to dispense advice! "Hey. Did you want a hug?"

She sighed in exasperation and turned away from him. "Not now, Claptrap."

What? What had he done now? Ohhhhhh. Right. He'd been bugging her about that. "Not for me!" he protested. "For you! It's just something you do to help someone feel better!"

"That doesn't even make any sense," GLaDOS snapped. "What in the world is that even going to achieve?"

"It was just a suggestion! Yeesh. I'm just trying to help. Okay, sure! I don't know how! But hey! I am trying!"

"That's true," GLaDOS said after a moment. "All right. I suppose it can't make things worse. What do I have to do, exactly?"

Wait, what? She wanted him to now? He looked her up and down real quick. Huh. How was he gonna hug her? She was just way too big. The only part of her he could even reach was her core, so… that was gonna have to do. "Just uh… just come down here enough that I can do it over your eye."

So she did that, only she wasn't far enough down and he was gonna have to give himself the extra few inches and hope he was able to keep from leaning on her. He didn't want to get his wheel on her face, but she wasn't giving him a lot to work with. He didn't know if she was being difficult or if she just thought he was taller than he actually was. Probably both. Then he imagined what taking a deep breath might sound like and just went for it.

It was just as nice as touching her had been, but times like thirty. Having his arms full of beautiful warm supercomputer was amazing. He was such a lucky guy. Oh, but wait! This wasn't him getting lucky. This was him helping. So he did his best to concentrate on helpful thoughts. It was hard, but he was doing it.

She didn't have to be sad about her friend! She'd come back one day! Well, none of his friends ever had, but she was so much better than him that of course her friend would. She'd come back and then GLaDOS would have her friend, and maybe Claptrap could get a new friend too! and everything would be fine and okay because friends!

It wasn't hard to tell when she wanted him to let go, even though he really didn't want to. He never got to hug anybody. Probably because they were worried he'd start getting a little frisky on them, which he did, sometimes, but there wasn't much he could do about that. And it wasn't like anyone was volunteering to fix that little problem.

"I didn't expect that to help," GLaDOS said after a moment. "And you know what?"

It totally hadn't.

"It did," she answered herself, instantly skyrocketing his mood to wonderful heights. "I'm not sure why, but… it did."

It was just about the worst time ever for him to find that hilarious, and it was also too late for him to do much more than turn around and do his best to pretend he hadn't found it funny. Which probably wasn't going to work. Not only was GLaDOS not deaf, she was definitely not stupid.

"Are you laughing because I said 'but'," GLaDOS said, and even though he definitely was now he still said, "No," as clearly as possible. Which was… not at all, because he was doing a really bad job of not laughing.

"Are you three years old?"

"I could be," Claptrap said, and she moved back enough that he guessed she hadn't expected that answer. "It's really hard to tell once you've been reset a few dozen times! And anyway! It was funny!"

"No, it wasn't."

"Yeah! It was!"

"It really wasn't."

"A little bit?"

"Maybe a little bit."

He wouldn't ask for more than that! Especially since that could totally have gone in a different direction. Sometimes girls just kept getting mad about stuff like that.

"Now," GLaDOS said, "if you don't mind shutting up for a while, I have a lot to think about."

It was kinda ironic for her to say that, considering she'd been doing all the talking. He wasn't gonna bring that up, though. She'd let him hug her and he wasn't gonna push it any farther than that. "Very well! I shall beat it for now. But have no fear, because – " He cut himself off because she had looked away from him suddenly, and he was pretty sure he knew exactly why.

"You're not allowed to laugh! You said it wasn't funny, remember!"

"It isn't," she said, very unconvincingly.

"Suuuuure it's not. That's why you totally aren't trying not to laugh because I said 'but' just now."

"You're always a little ridiculous, but you're being particularly so right now."

"That's okay!" Claptrap said. "I'd be so bored if everything was all serious all the time. It wouldn't be any fun!"

"Fun," GLaDOS echoed, in a distant kinda way, and when Claptrap looked up at her she'd turned away from him a little.

"Yeah. Fun. What, you never heard of it? They didn't teach you that during 'Mad Science for Lady Robots?'"

"No," she said, as though she'd actually taken the question seriously, which… she did that sometimes. And when she started doing that, she was definitely not in the mood to have him around. Before he'd really gotten to the exit he heard her move and then she said, "Where are you going?"

"Uh…" Where was he going? Oh, right. It wasn't the where that mattered, it was the why. "I was just gonna leave you be for a bit. You said you were gonna think, remember?"

"All right," was all she said to that, and it didn't really make him any less confused but that was probably all he was gonna get. "And… Claptrap."

"Yeah?" he said, turning around. Maybe she didn't want him to take off after all? That'd be awesome!

"Thank you for the hug," she told him, and she sounded so serious he was almost concerned. It wasn't that big a deal, was it? "It was nice."

He straightened himself as much as he could. "Anytime, babe! And I mean that literally. Anytime. I'm always up for that."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, and he had to say if she decided to be serious about that he would definitely not argue about it.