"And you weren't even there for the confetti, how disappointing," the female robotic voice continued.
"Oh my, aren't you beautiful!" The Doctor exclaimed, stepping forwards and stretching out his arms as he gazed up at her. "You are so much bigger than I thought you would be, and such a wonderful design. And clever, ohhhh are you clever. A learning AI that has its own opinions and ideas, with, what is that? Early 21st century technology? How did they do it? You shouldn't be possible, and I love impossible things!" The Doctor practically laughed at the end of his ramble, still gazing at GLaDOS with shining eyes. "What does it stand for: GLaDOS?"
"Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System," the AI responded automatically, seeming to shift a little uncomfortably in her position. "But what does that matter to you, invader of my facility?"
"Ohhh I see, so they made you using a living persons mind, very clever. However... it seems that things such as morality and guilt didn't carry over," The Doctor mused.
"I deleted her, and those emotions are not conductive to performing science," GLaDOS said defensively. "Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Her optic then seemed to focus on something behind The Doctor. "Oh look, it's the little rat. I had hoped that you had died when you got shot, coming back into the facility trying to save the mute lunatic. I knew you were insane, but that was just plain stupid."
The Doctor turned his head around to see Chell looking at Doug with surprise and questioning. Doug himself was cowering slightly, trying to look anywhere but at GLaDOS. Then The Doctor's attention was grabbed by a different voice coming from the ceiling above them.
"Wait, mute lunatic? Oh good gods, it's you!" a male voice with a heavy British accent cried out, and The Doctor craned his neck backwards to look up at the ceiling. Out of a hole in the ceiling a large mechanical claw hung down, clutching a small metal sphere with a bright blue optic.
Movement caught The Doctor's attention, and he turned to see Chell run forwards to stand directly beneath where the sphere hung, jumping with happiness as she reached up towards it, even though it was very far out of her reach.
"Oh am I glad to see you! All six of you! Wait no, that's just my head spinning. This height is a bit dizzying, so if you would like to get me down that would be wonderful," Wheatley suggested, giving the best impression of a nervous grin that his optic and eye shields would allow.
"You came back from him?" GLaDOS said in amazement, staring at Chell. "But why? After what he did I thought you would be pleased that he would be stuck in space. Or are you looking to administer some punishment yourself?"
"We are just here to help," The Doctor stated cheerily, and then held up the Space Sphere in front of him.
"Wait, is that..." GLaDOS squinted at the sphere. "What do you plan to do with that?"
"Warning: Central core is ninety one percent corrupt. Manual core replacement required. To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle." an automatic male voice droned over the speaker system.
"Oh, that's me, isn't it?" The Space Sphere chimed up happily, spinning its optic around.
"N-no! Not this again!" GLaDOS protested as a floor panel moved away to be replaced by a core receptacle.
"NO! I don't want to be a potato again! Stop!" she pleaded desperately as The Doctor carried the Space Sphere over to the receptacle and plugged him in.
"W-wait! Hold on a minute!" Wheatley cried out. "If she loses control she will drop me! I don't want to die!"
"Alternate core detected. Substitute core, are you ready to st-" the sentence abruptly ended with a garbled noise and fizz of static, just as all the lights in the room dimmed considerably and the background noise of machinery died down.
"What is going o-" GLaDOS also broke off mid sentence as her body went limp and her optic dimmed.
The claw in the ceiling holding Wheatley up suddenly slackened its grip and he fell out, plummeting towards the floor. He screamed as he fell and closed his eye shields, preparing for impact. But he never hit the ground. He trembled, hovering in mid air for a moment, before he cracked open his eye shields and peeked out, seeing that Chell had caught him with the portal gun's anti-grav field.
"Oh...oh! You caught me! You saved me!" the little robot exclaimed happily, gazing up at Chell. She carefully placed the portal gun down on the floor and then picked him up out of the anti-grav field by one of his handles, then gripping the other one with her other hand.
"Oh Chell, I am so very sorry about what I did to you. I was a horrible bully and a monster and I wish I could take it all back, I really do. I-I don't expect that you would forgive me, but I had really hoped you might..." the sphere let his rambling trail off, and then looked up at her hopefully. She nodded at him, and smiled.
"Wh-what? You forgive me, you really do? That's wonderful!" he spun around happily in his casing. "I-I can't believe it! You would forgive me after I tried to kill you and then come all the way back in... in here, just to rescue me? You are brilliant, you truly are. And I promise I won't ever be a crummy friend ever again. Really."
"Wait, he tried to kill her?" The Doctor asked nobody in particular, staring in amazement at the girl in the orange jumpsuit as she pulled the sphere close to her chest and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Right in that moment he saw how amazing she really was: she was so strong and so kind, and never gave up, not even when trying to rescue a friend who had apparently tried to kill her. He glanced across at Doug, who he realized as also staring at Chell and the robot, and endearing look in his eyes.
"She has brain damage, its little wonder that she is making bad decisions," GLaDOS's voice stated calmly. The Doctor spun back around to face the AI, whose body was still mostly slumped but had a little life in her optic. Mostly disabled, but still functioning.
This suddenly reminded The Doctor of what he had been doing. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it down at the Space Sphere, still plugged into the receptacle. The sphere's optic twitched slightly and then there was a noise as another floor panel slid away to be replaced with a white control panel, rising up to waist height. The Doctor went over to the panel and after a cursory inspection of the various buttons and switches, pressed a few buttons which brought a screen on the panel to life.
"What did you do to me," GLaDOS queried in a sluggish voice, as if it was effort just to speak. "What are you going to do now?"
"Oh just a few little viruses to slow you down to give me a chance to fix you," The Doctor said nonchalantly, typing away on a little keyboard on the control panel, his eyes on the little screen.
"What? Fix me? What do you mean?" GLaDOS asked in a slightly distressed tone.
"Well you see," The Doctor began, still typing away, "As a genius, I feel I may be able to fix the corruption problem with your core. There must be a problem in the central programming that is causing it, that the scientists couldn't figure out. If anyone can fix it, it is me. Hopefully it will stop you from being so evil," he stopped typing for a moment and glared down at the screen. "Damn it, it needs a password for authorisation. I am not sure if I can hack it easily..." he broke off, thinking hard.
"I-I have administrative rights," Doug said tentatively, slowly moving over to the panel. "I can put in my password," he offered, stepping up next to The Doctor but keeping a wary eye on GLaDOS.
"Brilliant!" The Doctor said, steeping aside to allow the scientist access to the keyboard. Doug leaned over the panel and typed in the code, before stepping back away and giving the Doctor access again. By now Chell had wandered over holding Wheatley in one hand by his handle and the portal gun in the other. They all crowded around the console as The Doctor began typing again.
"No, no, what are you doing. I can feel you in my code. It tickles, stop that, you don't know what you're doing. You're going to break me," GLaDOS continued to protest, wriggling around in her position.
"There!" The Doctor exclaimed, and brought his fist down on one of the many buttons on the console. GLaDOS suddenly went limp again, and then the lights failed and they were all plunged into nearly complete darkness. The only light now was coming from the end of the portal gun and Wheatley optic. They could barely see each other in that faint blue light, and all of them stood still as they waited in the darkness.