Author's Note: You know you're addicted to Portal when you're thinking about it while writing your grocery list, and almost write "Space" instead of "Milk". I'm not sure whether I should be proud of that little blunder or just glad that I caught it in time.
When Chell had left, it hadn't been to go and see Billy. In fact, she hadn't seen anyone except some guy in a tractor over in one of the fields. She'd stomped through the golden grass for some time until she'd reached the babbling stream hidden over by some trees. Though it couldn't really be called that. It was barely even a trickle to get her hands wet. But the noise it made was calming enough for her to lay down on the bank and close her eyes for a while to help dissipate the anger and embarrassment of being confronted about her unnatural relationship with a machine. With GLaDOS.
It had been so much easier in Aperture. She hadn't had to worry about these kinds of thing. Doug had been a bit weird about it, but at least he understood what it was like to care about something that nobody else thought was real. It had seemed so normal and natural back then to be with the AI. It had all changed.
Taking the garter out from her pocket, Chell smoothed the crumpled up fabric out on her leg. It wouldn't do her any good to ruin the delicate thing. GLaDOS would probably have a conniption if she destroyed anything else. Or maybe a meltdown. One had to remember she wasn't human, after all.
Chell rubbed her fingers along it. The touch of the scratchy lace felt calming in her hand, and allowed her to think. Soon enough, she felt like she could stuff it back into her pocket and trudge back to the cottage where Mrs Keegan and GLaDOS awaited.
She had gone in search of the android first, not quite wanting to deal with the old woman just yet. Slipping into the garage, however, produced no results. Giving only a cursory glance at the scraps of metal sitting on the floor, she stepped over them and wandered inside, searching quietly for GLaDOS. Eventually finding her in the kitchen at the sink, she watched for a moment as the dusty figure scrubbed at some grease stains on her hands. It didn't take long at all for her to choose to go a bit closer.
GLaDOS felt the tug upon her arm, but barely even looked at the test subject. Instead, her angry glare remained focused on the black marks marring her skin that just refused to come off no matter how much soap she used. When Chell's hand reached to her chin, the AI shied away from the touch until another attempt was made, the firm grasp tilting her head enough that a horrible glob of saliva could be slathered onto her cheek when it was spat onto a piece of paper towel.
Chell scrubbed furiously at the black streak upon the supercomputer's face, and sure enough she had it removed in barely any time at all. Her attention was then turned to brushing some of the fine grey powder from where it rested on the normally clean clothing. Wrapping her arms around GLaDOS's waist and burying her head in her chest, Chell soon found the sound of the crinkling linen shirt under her ear to be even more relaxing than the tinkling of the stream. She definitely should have gone to her first, but she couldn't trust herself not to make GLaDOS angry with her own frustrations. Not taking into account the stiff spine and refusal to touch her, the former test subject closed her eyes.
:::Oh thank god!:::
Caroline breathed a sigh of relief as she recognised the sudden stream of data that represented GLaDOS seeing Chell appear in front of her.
:::What?:::
:::Nothing!:::
But GLaDOS could feel how relieved Caroline was at the test subject showing up. It caused her to run a quick check on her systems. It took only a moment to diagnose why the woman was too happy to see the girl. Pulling that crushing weight back so it wasn't completely smothering the other being in her consciousness, the AI did her best to keep her feelings to herself.
:::Don't be like that.:::
Caroline soothed, and GLaDOS let Chell take her chin to scrub at the smudge on her face.
:::See? She cares about you. You could have walked around all day with that on your face, and neither of us would have known. We would have looked like idiots.:::
But GLaDOS didn't reply. She just continued to glare at the test subject, who was blocking her ability to effectively clean her hands by her incessant need for affection. But somehow she managed, even though it hadn't dislodged the girl. What exactly did it take to get rid of her, anyway? Obviously she had some sort of an inability to read body language. But the longer the girl clung to her, sneezing and wiping her runny nose all over her lovely shirt from all the dust, the more the AI relaxed into her embrace. But only because she was getting sick of holding herself so stiffly. She definitely wasn't relaxing because of any soothing properties such things as hugging contained. Maybe the effects of the Anger core were finally wearing off now that she had been spending a lot of time out of her main chassis. An important piece of hardware like herself wasn't subject to the chemical processes known to produce emotions in humans. So it couldn't be that.
The top of Chell's head just seemed like a good place to rest her chin; that was all.
Plus, humans were squishy. And squishy meant that it was a comfortable thing to rest against, unlike the cold metals of Aperture's labs.
But the squishy human ended up wiggling out of her grasp as soon as she heard Mrs Keegan pottering about, not giving the supercomputer much time to rest after all. Instead, the girl stood there nervously next to a grumpy looking AI when the old widow wandered into the kitchen as well.
Mrs Keegan gave the two of them a lingering glance, most especially Chell. An awkward silence crossed the room prompting the supercomputer to make a hasty retreat back towards the door leading out to the garage. She didn't want anything to do with either of them, she reasoned, gritting her teeth together tightly. They were both obviously conspiring against her.
:::You know that isn't true. You were doing so well. Just stop-...:::
Caroline was cut off when the former test subject did her work for her, snagging the AI by the arm. But it was GLaDOS that ended up breaking the silence.
"I'm going back to Aperture."
"I think that's for the best." Chell murmured in reply.
For the best?
GLaDOS felt something sink inside her, like as if one of her cooling fans had slipped out of place and was blowing on something it shouldn't. Or maybe it was like when the scientists had knocked her offline. Only now she was awake to experience it. It was terrible.
She stared blankly at the girl in front of her, one eye dangerously close to twitching in some kind of malfunction.
"You need to go and find some new clothes. Unless you want to look like a farmer." Chell continued, poking the AI in the chest. She just couldn't imagine that she'd be comfortable in denim jeans and a flannelette shirt.
"Not quite your style."
Oh. Right.
She was dirty. This was her only set of clothing.
Chell wanted her to come back.
Both Caroline and GLaDOS felt the weight of the AI's explosive indignancy ease off their chests as they realized that she wasn't being shunned. So she hadn't come all this way for nothing. But that didn't explain that little chat with the wrinkly hamburger that was plotting to knock her test subject up like some kind of brood mare with the help of the dense farm boy across the street and whatever dangled between his legs. And GLaDOS was sure that whatever dangled there wasn't going to be enough to keep Chell happy.
At least, she was mostly sure.
Whatever he could do, she could do better.
With some delicate manipulation claws and the power of science, she could easily invent all sorts of things for the girl to play with and keep her interested. Of course, there were a couple of things that she couldn't provide. Like a beating heart. And mini humans. Those seemed kind of important. Lots of people appeared to want them.
Oh god.
What if Chell really did want mini humans?
How was she supposed to compete with that?
Thankfully the girl hadn't noticed the way that GLaDOS's face fell at her thoughts, as the little pile of metal on the floor of the garage had caught her eye again. While the AI wandered off out the open roller door and down the street in a rather robotic manner, the test subject had already deemed it necessary to scoop up the remains of the music box when she realized that the little figure was not that of the original. In fact, it looked like a little turret. Throwing a cursory and curious glance at the AI's retreating back, Chell placed the pile of metal upon the work bench and examined it further.
It was definitely going to require a bit of work to put it back together, but she found that when she wound it up, it still played its tune. And even though it was somewhat wonky and distorted, she recognized it immediately. A small smile crossed the test subject's face. How cute. GLaDOS must have been missing Aperture and her little turrets to have created this. Life on a farm with next to no technology available except a television and a beat up old truck must not be very exciting for her. There was nothing to test, and nothing to remind her of her home.
So Chell resolved to have the music box fixed by the time that the android got back from her little foraging mission. Hopefully she'd manage to find something better than an outfit from the 1970s or a plain old lab coat. There weren't exactly many fashion options that were appealing down in those labs. Not that she'd particularly mind if GLaDOS showed up only wearing a lab coat and nothing else. Except maybe that garter.
A dopey grin crossed her face, and she picked up one of the tiny screwdrivers and a pot of glue that was lying around. For an AI that was anal about cleaning everything, she sure as hell left a mess in her workspace.
Shrugging it off, she set to work.
When GLaDOS finally returned in a clean outfit, she'd hardly expected to have her repaired music box thrust into her arms by an excitable lunatic. That...wasn't supposed to happen. She stared at the little turret on top, even as Chell tried to show her that she'd fixed it by winding it up and letting it play the song again.
:::Well, that backfired on us.:::
:::Spectacularly.::: GLaDOS agreed.
How exactly was she supposed to give it to her now? GLaDOS frowned and pushed past the test subject, cradling the music box in her arms. For now she'd go and hide in the spare room with all the boxes. There was probably all sorts of treasures in there to go sniffing around in to keep her occupied for a while until she felt like speaking to people again.
Chell looked a little miffed at the way she had just been blown off by the android. GLaDOS had barely even looked at the thing she'd repaired. All that effort, wasted. But then again, she looked like she had something on her mind. Maybe it was Caroline chatting to her again. Though it wasn't like her to just space out like that.
She wouldn't really find out until later while GLaDOS spent the whole day moping about. When it had been time for bed, Chell had retreated to her room to find the little music box sitting on her bedside table under the shade of the lamp. The AI was nowhere to be found, but a little note accompanied the gift.
I made it for you. I just saved you the effort of destroying it.
—GLaDOS.
Chell snorted at that. Typical AI. But still, it was kind of sweet. Folding the note up, she resolved to keep it. She tucked it away inside the music box's little compartment. It wasn't like she'd ever had a note or a letter written to her before. Especially not one so beautifully written in the perfectly looped calligraphy that could have only come from the hand of the world's most intelligent supercomputer.
Of course, she'd didn't know that it had taken GLaDOS exactly 34 tries before she had managed to coordinate her stupid human digits around those primitive sticks they called pens and figure out how to make it all swirly and neat when drawing letters on the page.
And GLaDOS would never tell.