Author's Note: Hey there, I'm back! Writer's block is a bitch. To tell you the truth, the story would probably have ended on this chapter, but there were a few things that I HAD to mention, so there will be a little more. This time, the chapter was a little longer, to compensate the time it took to write.

"I love you too."

Things hadn't been the same since that day. She had forgiven GLaDOS and they had resumed talking as always, but any other intimate activities had come to a full halt. Sure, a lot of holding hands and talking had ensued, but she hadn't tried doing anything further in that realm and the AI hadn't asked it from her. Not even testing.

She knew she wouldn't be able to do it. There was just something stopping her. It wasn't the fact that the other one was a robot, because that she had overcome a long time ago. No, it was something else.

She felt… empty. Missing. Every time she thought about it, she looked down and remembered… what was the point? What was the point of keeping moving on? She knew now, why she had come back. She had once thought that it was for company, but now she realized that she had first returned to Aperture for something else. She had returned for a miracle.

Deep down, she had hoped. She had hoped that the AI had someone else in storage. Hoped that even if she had no one, she could use her own body to make more humans. But now, that perspective seemed gone. Hope was lost. So, why keep going?

For her.

What?

She is the reason. The thing that you must keep living for. The thing you know that you can't live or die without, because you can't bear the thought of being without her, and you know that she can't bear the thought of missing you too.

Why?

She loves you and you love her like you've never loved anyone before. That's enough reason to keep going. Even is the hope of humanity's return is truly lost.

What do you mean?

It means that you should fucking talk to her. Remember? The thing you told her to do with you? Talk. Move your mouth and emit sounds. Perhaps she has some solution to your problem.

Really? I have spent so much time here that even my conscience is treating me like I have brain damage?

Yes.

"I love you too."

She couldn't believe she had said that. But she had.

And she believed every single world of it.

She could say it. She had said it. She would probably say it again many times.

She loved that human, and there was nothing she could do about it.

It was obvious, really, when you looked at it. Clear as crystal. She just had never had the guts to say it, to admit it. All fault of her damn pride. Not wanting to go as low as one of them. She should be better than them in every single way. She was, in every aspect but one. She felt as deeply as them. She loved, she hated, she feared.

Human.

Even now the word came with a little of despise and disgust.

But now that she had finally admitted it, things were no longer as they were. Chell had forgiven her, but things were different. They were far more intimate than before, but still, so far apart. But it didn't matter. What mattered was that they were back together.

But that didn't mean that the Itch would stop growing.

She managed to withstand the first few days, but she was soon desperate. She had decided not to ask Chell, even for normal testing, to give her time to cope with everything that had happened. She wouldn't ask it from her, she didn't have the right.

But the Itch was still there.

Soon she started sending the Bots to the Testing Tracks, in hopes of getting some release, but it didn't work. It never had. After Chell left, she had started experimenting with the bots, only to discover that they didn't do a damn bit of good.

She often wondered that it would be funny to see what would have happened if the Moron had won. To see his face when he discovered that he had just killed his only chance of relief. Funny, except for the fact that in that scenario she would be dead.

After a while she discovered all those humans, stored for ages, and got Orange and Blue to get them for her. In a desperate search for relief, she had killed the ones that weren't already dead because of some malfunction within a week of testing. And then came the worst year of her existence. Slowly going mad from the lack of Euphoria. It became easier to cope with it after a while, but it was still maddening.

And then Chell had appeared. And then Chell had tested for her. And then Chell had …fucked her. And then Chell had discovered what she had done and now she was back in despair, lacking her so needed relief.

But the Itch didn't stop.

The bots didn't stop the fruitless testing. The computers didn't stop working. Science didn't stop being made.

Until that, on the tenth day, it did.

And then it came back on.

And the Itch was no more.

Chell had searched for the AI, but she was nowhere to be seen. The huge chassis was deactivated, but the android had vanished. It was starting to worry her. Atlas hadn't seen her all day. P-Body hadn't seen her since she had told him to stop testing, a few minutes before. The last time Chell had seen her was on the previous day, before going to sleep and telling her to stop making the bots test so much.

After some time of searching, Atlas approached her and motioned for her to follow him. After walking a while, they reached the Personnel's Surveillance Room, a small room with a wall filled with small televisions, each one showing a different place in the facility. Next to the televisions was a small control panel, with a small microphone on the side, probably to make emergency announcements.

Weird, GLaDOS had access to the cameras through her chassis, so there was no reason for these cameras to be on. She had been in that room before but there was never anything working so she didn't even think of looking for her there, but now she could search the entire facility easily.

She approached the controls and, after fumbling with them a bit, she managed to discover how to switch the cameras that were being displayed. Slowly, she passed through the several image feeds, searching for the AI. No, no, no, no, no- wait, what was that? Was she… No, she couldn't be… She zoomed into the crouched image in the empty room and as it became clearer, she had to fight the urge to laugh, but failed miserably.

She clenched her belly, trying to make it stop hurting from laughing so much but she couldn't stop herself. The scene, and the reaction she knew was going to happen, was just too funny not to laugh. It shouldn't even be possible in the first place.

Eventually, she managed to control herself. She took a few deep breaths to calm down. She really shouldn't do what she was going to do, and she was evil for even thinking about doing it, but resisting the urge was impossible.

With a few clicks she pulled up a map that showed where the android was and ran off to the room.

GLaDOS was tense. She and Chell were good again, but that damn human was still… hesitant. And it had been her fault. She wouldn't force her to do anything, but the need for Testing Euphoria kept growing, day after day.

She had sent the bots to test, but it hadn't worked, as she knew it wouldn't. It was a fruitless experiment. She had done that before and it hadn't worked… But while she was doing fruitless experiments that she knew would fail, there was another one she could try again.

Slowly, her hand slid in her underwear.

Her eyes jolted open and she quickly pulled her hand back out and stared at it as if it just had turned into a cat.

She looked at her hand, the same hand that had just caused a tingling sensation in her pants.

For a second, she almost began "experimenting" right there, but then she remembered that if her test-subject caught her doing that, she would never live it down. So she carefully searched for a room where she knew that Chell wouldn't find her, before running off to it.

It was one of Aperture's old Psychological Testing rooms. They would use it when something would require direct researcher-subject interaction. It just had a table, two chairs and a one-way mirror. On the other side of the mirror there was a room where the other scientists would stay while the experiment was in progress. It was an illusion, of course, a smart use of light so that it would seem that it was a one-way mirror, while it was only a piece of reflective glass. If someone was to turn on the light on the other room, GLaDOS would be able to see them perfectly. Not that any of that mattered, of course. The single reason that GLaDOS had chosen that room was because it was far from the main part of the facility and that Chell probably didn't even know those rooms existed.

And then the AI was alone.

…

Slowly, her hand slid back in her pants and touched the small nub right between her legs.

She shook as a jolt of pleasure passed through her. She closed her eyes and hissed in pleasure as she leaned in the wall, overwhelmed.

She didn't know how she had done it or why it had worked, but it didn't matter now. She could figure it out later. Right now she had an Itch to get rid of.

The android slid a finger in and clutched at the wall as the feeling flooded her sensors, now blind to the rest of the world, focusing only on the divine bliss she was receiving.

Chell ran through the facility, following the map she had gotten, until she finally reached the Psychological Testing Area. She reached for the handle but her hand stopped a few centimeters away from it. She had been here before. They had brought her here for some tests before hiring her, to make sure they were not hiring someone insane. Looking back at it now, she didn't see the point of it. All of Aperture's top scientists, including Cave Johnson, were batshit crazy.

But the thing that made her stop was not the memory of the tests, but the fact that she remembered that there were one-way mirrors in those rooms.

She slowly backed away and entered the "Staff Only" door.

She felt the pleasure building up to its apex, getting ever closer. She gripped tighter at the clump of metal she had tore off the wall in the middle of her Testing-Euphoria-induced haze. She was all alone so there was no need to be discreet. She moaned as the waves of relief washed through her, bringing her nearer, nearer, nea-

Her moaning stopped as she finally climaxed, too struck to be able to say anything. She bit her lips as everything exploded inside her circuits, the delicious turning on all the right circuits.

She remained leaning on the wall for a while, as the aftershock passed. She dropped the clump of metal that used to be a part of the wall on the floor and opened her eyes, relieved.

Her eyes met the one-way mirror and for five seconds she saw the state she was in. Her hair was a mess, her shirt apparently had come off at some moment and she had a dumb look on her face.

And then the lights on the other side of the one-way mirror turned on, revealing Chell with the biggest fucking grin she had ever seen.

"-so there I was, worried about you, searching for you and when I finally find you, I find you doing this. Something so dirty, something so naughty, something so… human." She put quite the emphasis on that last word, that piercing concept that the AI hated so much that Chell could see as a chill ran through her mechanical spine.

Human. Something she refused to be with all her will.

Chell stopped for a second before continuing. Perhaps now would be a good time. She couldn't keep it secret forever. And she also couldn't lose the opportunity to mock her. "Do you want to know a secret sweetie?"

"What?" answered the AI, who was trying really hard to not bolt from the room and go hide in a hole.

"Do you remember how, sometime ago, when we found that manual about you, you complained that there was a part missing?"

"Obviously."

"Well," she said, approaching the android's ear "guess who took it?"

The android eyes jolted open, shame replaced with rage. "You did what!?"

"Wanna know what was in it?" Said the test-subject with a naughty look on her face, barely holding her laughs from the hilarious situation.

"Of course I want to know your blasted human! Do you know the harm you could have caused? Tell me at once before I scan your brain to remove the information!"

"It spoke about your Testing-Euphoria center. It was how I found out that the direct manipulation of it would cause stimulation. It was there that I found out that the stimulation could only be provided by what you considered a human being."

Chell allowed some time for the AI to understand the full implications of what she had just said. It took the time of the AI taking two full steps towards her before stopping, as the idea finally sunk in.

What she had just heard had stabbed her in the chest like a butcher knife.

"Apparently," continued the test-subject, without realizing that she had touched a very sensitive spot and that it would be wiser to shut the hell up. "It is linked directly to your definition of what a 'human' is!" The laugh was still in her voice.

"shut up." There was no joking in that whisper.

"No denying it now, right?" she kept going, deaf to what the android was saying.

"Stop it, right now."

"You are like me! Totally and completely hu-"

She stopped talking as an open silicon hand slapped across her face.

She only had the time to see the tears and the anger in the AI's face before she took off running.

Note to self: Do not fucking joke with the "you are human" thing again.

It did not take much effort to find GLaDOS again. She now rested on top of her chassis form, which was still off and lying on the ground, hugging her legs with her head between her knees. Her black shirt was back on. Chell climbed the cables and metal struts until she finally reached the top of the gigantic machine and sat by her side.

"I am NOT like them."

"I know."

"And I am NOT a human"

"Yes, yes you are."

"SHUT UP!"

"You are, and you know you are."

"You know NOTHING about me!"

"I know a LOT about you! I know that you can think, you can feel, you can fear, love, fell sad, feel happy feel horny, feel pain, be despaired and, when you don't hate their guts and isn't going insane for lack of Testing-Euphoria, be compassionate."

"I am a machine, not one of you."

"GLaDOS, being human has nothing to do with what you are made of. The scientists that worked here, the ones that created you, were not human. They were monsters. Homo sapiens yes, but in no conceivable way, human. They were not like me, like you or like most humans that lived back then. They didn't care for others. If they saw someone on fire and they had a glass of water in their hands, they would drink it. Humanity is not only for beings made out of meat, but for beings made out of love and care. And I know that, while you may have lacked those in the past, you now possess them in greater quantities than most people I have seen."

"You are using quite the broad definition of 'human'"

"But the same one that you are, apparently. You have the best of us. You have what makes one person like the other. Empathy. Even if at the most basic level, you are like me, and you know you are, or else… you know… you wouldn't be able to do what you were doing back there."

"…"

"Come 'ere", she said, putting her arm around the AI's shoulder and snuggling closer. "It is all right. You are with me."

"I am scared. I didn't used to care about others, but now I do. And I am scared that I will become like them without even noticing. I am scared of what they did and of what I can do. That I will hurt myself. That I will hurt you."

"That won't happen. You have me, remember? I won't let that happen. You stay as annoying as you are, and if you go mad, I will just blow you up and put you in a potato again."

"Like you could ever do that again."

"I did it twice and I can do it once more! Don't you tempt me, you foul machine."

"Heh…" said the android, raising her head, her face wet of tears, and kissed the test-subject. "No… not 'it', huh? Not anymore. 'She'. I think I can deal with that."

Humans. Perhaps they weren't so bad after all.

The kiss prolonged itself and heated up. Slowly, GLaDOS pushed Chell until she was lying and then she got on top of her beloved test subject. Slowly, her hand slid down, this time earning no protests.

Suddenly, the lights in the room switched to red and a loud siren began to echo through the facility.

To say that GLaDOS swore a storm would be putting it lightly.

"Alarm, cancel!"

Suddenly, the noise stopped and the lights returned to the usual white. The couple reluctantly climbed down from the huge faceplate, for if an alarm sounded in Aperture it meant that things were going to shit quickly.

GLaDOS sat on her chair and began to quickly type, trying to find out what the hell had interrupted her. It seemed that some valuable property of aperture was in risk of being destroyed, but what?

As her lover typed away, having to access things manually since she wasn't in her chassis, Chell worriedly waited. It wasn't everyday that you heard Aperture sound an alarm. The last time she had heard one as loud as that one, it was because a homicidal AI had taken control of the facility and was trying to flood it with neurotoxin.

Finally, the AI found the source of the problem. Shit. Not that. Anything but that. She really didn't want to deal with that in the middle of an identity crisis... Well, it had to happen sooner or later. For a moment, she thought about lying, telling Chell it had been nothing, but the idea quickly vanished. She took a deep breath and asked:

"Chell, do you like riddles?"

"Huh, yeah, I guess?"

"Care to solve one for me?"

"Shoot."

"What is spherical, moronic and falling out of orbit?"