Author's Note: Thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes and for my operation. At least if the thyroidectomy goes wrong and I end up with laryngeal nerve damage I'll have an excuse to wear an orange jumpsuit. I'll still be able to type though. I might get stuff done while I'm in hospital. Probably new stories, because I might be finished this one by then.

Oh, and this fic has apparently been added to "The Truly Epic Femslash Archive" C2 page. That's pretty awesome!

Also, I've decided that Robot Woman by Newton Faulkner is an excellent ChellDOS song. Or even Cave/Caroline/GLaDOS. It's even posted by "MegaNerdify" on YouTube. It must be a sign.

Chell just about dropped onto the floor into a fit of mouth-foaming insanity when the warm hand was removed from inside her jumpsuit. What the hell was going on?

'Not finished here! Hello?'

She could have throttled the android. GLaDOS was deliberately doing this. She was sure of it. It had been the plan all along. This was revenge for that sparrow. Chell wondered if sinking to her knees and begging would have made any difference. Screw pride. Pride was for people who hadn't felt what a couple of GLaDOS's fingers were capable of doing to the human body. She dug her fingers angrily into the Companion Cube as the android slipped out of her grasp and walked off to God-knows-where.

Doug Rattman, however, cowered under the glare he was receiving from the same supercomputer as she walked past. Just one more reason for her to want to kill him. It wasn't like it was his fault. He had been good and went for a long walk while the two of them dried off and changed clothes. He hadn't exactly expected to return to see the test subject barely managing to stay on her feet while leaning against the AI. At first he had thought that GLaDOS had killed her. A hand through the stomach tended to do that. Then he realized it wasn't her stomach that she was touching, and Chell wasn't having any objections to it. In fact, he had nearly died of shock when he saw her kiss the same being that loved to make their lives miserable. How long had this little relationship of theirs been going on, anyway? It was kind of weird. He could understand that Chell might be feeling a little lonely, but to go to GLaDOS for comfort? Better question; had she been doing that when GLaDOS was still in her main chassis? The thought sickened him, and not just because of the incalculable...mechanics...of that particular mental image. It was more the fact that GLaDOS was allowing it to happen.

He knew she hated those horrid little humans touching her. She always had since those programmers had been taken off the project through no fault of their own. So why was she allowing it now? She didn't even look like she was enjoying it until Chell had dragged that startled expression onto her face by touching something she shouldn't. The AI had simply been displaying that same bored look that she always did. Doug could have sworn she was paying more attention and getting more stimulation from the data coming up on the screen of the laptop than what she was from Chell.

Then again, she was supercomputer designed to process vast amounts of information not just from the facility and the computers within it, but also from what she was monitoring of the humans that lived within it. And not many of them actually were still living in it. To have only a minute amount of data seeping into her systems because of the Black Mesa incident must be driving her insane – she probably had to find other ways to stimulate her mind; she would have been starving for it.

When Chell had been testing it wouldn't have been so much of a problem – she was destructive and required GLaDOS's attention lest she blow something else up. Having to assist the test subject with a simple human need like that required next to no thought. As she had put it herself; "Speedy thing goes in. Speedy thing comes out." And after a bit of fiddling, test euphoria happened. It really wasn't that different to the concept behind portals.

In a way, he could almost feel sorry for the AI. She wasn't getting anything out of this. Once again, she was just being used like a machine. At the same time he had witnessed Chell making an effort to include her as well despite her knees wanting to buckle underneath her. He only hoped GLaDOS would recognise that. It was different to what happened the last time that Aperture tried to-...

'Don't even go there, Doug.' He was forced to remind himself as he scratched his fingers through his hair and beard.

Yet despite feeling a little bit sorry for her, he couldn't ignore the lingering thought that this could just be part of some sick game that the supercomputer was playing with the unsuspecting girl. He knew that she knew how attached humans became to objects in the event that they were denied human contact for a long period of time. The Companion Cube was proof of that. To add the element of sexual favours into that could potentially destroy the test subject completely. She knew it. SHE FUCKING KNEW IT. And she was going to keep doing it, too! This was Chell's one weakness, and she was going to exploit it for all it was worth. Doug ground his teeth together angrily, his hands clenched into fists at the sides of his head.

Chell wasn't going to survive.

She had thrown too much trust into the artificial honey of GLaDOS's smile. It wasn't honey, he wanted to call out; it was ice. But he knew she wouldn't understand. She was stuck there like a butterfly, not knowing its wings were about to be pinned. She was merely an experiment under the cold eye of the scientist that had trapped her in a jar. And when the scientist was done, she was going to be put at the back of the shelf amongst the hundreds of other failed experiments, left to collect dust and be forgotten.

Oh, Chell.

Don't let her do this to you. Don't let her win. Open your eyes. See her smile. It doesn't love you. Not like I do.

But she didn't open her eyes. She had just kept desperately kissing two lips that spoke nothing but lies and false promises. The worst part about it all was that Chell – in all her intelligence – knew it too. She could taste the toxin on her tongue, and yet she continued to breathe it in. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it. She was merely a toy for a spoiled child to play with. Right up until she broke and was tossed aside for the next one.

And she was so close to breaking.

When Doug finally picked up the courage to walk around the corner, he saw the test subject sitting on her bed with her back to the wall. Her knees were drawn up and she had her face buried in her arms. She looked tired. Frustrated. He couldn't blame her. GLaDOS had left her high and dry. There was no satisfaction in that. Just a terrible itch that needed to be scratched.

You've forgotten about me.

His mind screamed.

I can fix it.

Look at me.

But she never did.

Doug hugged his Companion Cube. Poor Cubey. It was going to need a bath. And grief counselling. It was probably going to end up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after witnessing that attempt at copulation between a human and a machine.

Chell just got up and punched him in the face.

What GLaDOS didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Damn that little Rat.

GLaDOS stalked around Caroline's office in a fit of fury, trying her hardest to wear a hole in the carpet from all her pacing. How dare he interrupt science? All of that data was completely wasted now. Chell probably thought that it was all the fault of the AI that her choice in leisure activity had been abruptly ceased. From what she could gather, humans tended to have two reactions when interrupted like that. Anger and frustration. Anger led to physical violence. Frustration led to squirming and then sexual violation of the offender by the afflicted party at a later date. And fun times were had by all.

Still, the possibility that the test subject would want to continue their little experiment after what just happened was slim to nil. Chell was probably going to want to lull her into a false sense of security and then, when she least expected it, thrust her moist crotch all over the AI's delicate parts before tearing out all her precious and extremely expensive hardware. Then she'd find a way to put it all back together in the form of a cabbage. Or maybe a lemon. Or if she was reallyunlucky, she'd be a stalk of wheat. Or some cake. Ohhh, that was a terrible thought. She'd be filled with cream and rubbed all over the test subject's gelatinous body, and then be licked off just to spite her. She knew what fat kids were like with cake.

So GLaDOS threw a pencil.

And a stapler.

And the computer monitor sitting on the desk.

She got so much satisfaction out of seeing the plastic box explode all over the wall that she almost didn't see the orange portal open up behind her. Or the body flying through it that dragged her to the floor by the shoulders.

:::You are NOT doing that in my office!:::

Caroline shrieked from somewhere within the AI.

:::Shut up. You did. That was a horrible way to let me know you'd taken up spelunking.:::

GLaDOS replied haughtily before blocking the connection. She could still hear the muffled protests of the human that had been forced into her head.

But it was much easier to ignore her when there was science to do.