Part Five. The List

Wheatley hummed to himself as he went along on his management rail. Now that things were more or less back to normal, he found himself in much higher spirits than he could remember having been in recently. It seemed his secret had been weighing on him more than he had thought, and he was certainly much happier now that he could spend time with GLaDOS again. She wasn't used to having someone around her all the time, though, so Wheatley continued to take his leave and roam around the facility for most of the day. Besides, he thought fondly as he passed a camera, she was never very far away no matter how deep into the facility he managed to get.

To get around to… well, most of the facility, really, Wheatley had to lay custom tracks along the ceiling using special panels that were made just for this purpose. For the longest time he had just used as many as he liked without considering where they went when he was done with them. In a flash of realisation one day, though, it had come to him he'd just been leaving them about willy-nilly for GLaDOS to put away every night. That wasn't very polite, he had chastised himself. She was letting him use her panels, the least he could do was put them away when he was done with them. Usually he was able to make do with five, but sometimes he ended up using a great deal more. The manoeuvering was more work some days than others.

He was doing his best to use just three today as he'd woken up this morning feeling rather ambitious, and he was doing a pretty good job of it too. He almost couldn't wait to go back and tell GLaDOS how marvelous he was getting at it. He wasn't completely inept, oh no, he could do things if he practiced, and practice he did. It was a very nice feeling, that of being able to do things, but Wheatley did have another reason for doing it. As he went through the facility he had noticed that there were a lot of signs and that they all had words on them. Wheatley had never admitted as much to GLaDOS, being barely able to admit it to himself, but... he couldn't read, to put it bluntly. If he stared at the letters for a while they usually turned into something meaningful, but it took him such a long time that it really was terribly inefficient. It seemed no one had thought that the core designed to be… well, slightly less than not quite a genius should know what all those funny little symbols meant. He really wanted to ask GLaDOS to teach him how to decipher the mysteries those letter things were spelling out, but he felt rather like he needed to prove he could do it if she took the time to help him. Which she would, he believed without a doubt. But first he had to be able to convince her to do it, and that was going to be the difficult bit.

Wheatley came careening into GLaDOS's chamber late that evening, eager to ask her about something the database had told him. It usually refused to retrieve information for him, but today it had been more generous than usual. "Hey hey hey, I have, I got a question, I do, oh, wait, are you busy? Probably uh, probably should have asked that first. So uh yeah, I hope you're not busy because uh, I've got a question. And I've already interrupted you so uh, you may as well let me ask."

"Happily for both of us, talking to you doesn't require much processing power," GLaDOS remarked dryly. "What is it."

"What's, what's Christmas? I was talking to the uh, talking to the database. Apparently it's, it's around today, somewhere, but the uh, the database wouldn't tell me anymore than that. It stopped talking to me when I, when I asked if you'd ever looked it up before."

GLaDOS sighed and looked at the ceiling. "It had to go and tell you about that."

"What's wrong with telling me about it, whatever it is?"

"Because it's one of those human holidays. No one needs to know about human holidays, but especially not us."

Wheatley jumped up and down a little. "What's this one for? They have a lot of holidays, now that I think of it, yeah, it's like they don't enjoy their lives, or something, and they just, they need an excuse to, to celebrate."

"Christmas is to celebrate the day of birth of one of their religious figures, who in reality was not even born on the day in question. Several unlikely events occurred on this day and throughout history the holiday has become, for much of the human population, an excuse for people to give them things."

"Why would people give each other things, uh, give each other stuff, if the holiday is about the, the religious guy?" He blinked rapidly a few times.

"Because people came from all over the earth to give presents to the religious figure. They give each other gifts in recognition of that." She shook her core. "For a lot of humans, it's just another way to demonstrate their greed. As if they needed more excuses to do that."

Wheatley frowned, thinking hard. "So… so how do they know what to get each other?"

"Sometimes they trade 'Christmas lists'. Sometimes they guess, which results in a lot of complaining. Some retailers refuse to accept returns on the day following Christmas because there are so many people who want to return the gifts they received that they didn't like. Or couldn't use, I suppose."

Wheatley shook his chassis. "If someone gave me a, a present, I wouldn't uh, I wouldn't return it. I'd keep it, I would."

"Even if you couldn't use it?"

He shrugged, opening and closing his chassis a little. "No one's ever given me anything before. I'd keep it just for, just because of that."

GLaDOS looked away from him for a minute.

"If… if you lived with a human for some unlikely reason, which of course I would never allow, but supposing you did and they had you make one of those ridiculous lists… what would you put on it?"

"Hm," mused Wheatley, squinting in his best thinking pose. "What would I put on it… hm. Well, I think I'd like to go outside. Not for very long, y'know, just to take a look 'round, and then go back inside. I don't really uh, I don't really like being outside, but going out just to look, just for a, a minute or two, that'd, that'd be nice." He shrugged again. "And if I were living with a human, I'd… well, I'd probably ask them to bring me back here."

GLaDOS shook her core and moved more to the left. She did that sometimes when she was using her cameras. "Why would you do that? Surely if you lived with a human, you'd have an… exceptionally good reason for being there and wouldn't want to leave."

Wheatley looked at her in confusion, moving a little closer. "Well, because I'd miss you, of course. Isn't that uh, isn't that obvious?"

She tilted back a little and said noncommittally, "You'd forget about me."

Wheatley laughed, and GLaDOS gave him a quick glance. "I don't think even one person who, who's met you has forgotten about you, luv. I don't uh, I don't think that's possible."

"Surely you'd be happier someplace else."

"I couldn't possibly be," Wheatley said imploringly. "I told you, I'd miss you! I'd want to come back!"

"I highly doubt that."

Wheatley frowned. If he had been allowed to extend the rail in her chamber, which she had more than once refused to allow him to do, he would've just then and gone over to where she was on the other side of the room. He was getting a sliver of an idea, and it had something to do with her trying to avoid him. There was something he needed to discover, here, and he needed to discover it soon. She would be shutting down for the night in a little bit, and he needed to know before then or the opportunity would be lost.

"Why?"

"Because you'd be happier someplace else."

"I wouldn't!"

"Of course you would. Isn't everyone?"

"Oh my God," Wheatley blurted, "you want to leave, don't you? You want to, you want to get out of here, is that it? But you can't, you never can, you can't even go outside, you can't, and… and… luv, I'm sorry, I didn't know, if I had I wouldn't've brought it up – "

"Me? Want to leave? Ridiculous. I have far too much to do here to want to go anywhere."

"What if you were done all your, done everything? Then, then would you?" Wheatley pressed. GLaDOS gave a long-suffering sigh.

"If all of my work was done. And there was none to be done in the near future. And there were no humans about. And only if it was for Science."

Wheatley rolled his optic. Her and her science. You'd think she was married to it, or something. Her brutal attachment to science was pretty much the only thing about her that annoyed him. "Fine. Where would you go?"

"Black Mesa," GLaDOS answered promptly. "I want to know just how much of my technology they've stolen. Unfortunately, their computer system has been completely destroyed and the data I've managed to extract from it I have yet to transform into anything I can use. Although I'm sure there's a reference to high-energy pellets in their documentation."

"But that's… that's just work, again," Wheatley protested. "If you could leave wouldn't you, wouldn't you just want to uh, to just do something for fun?"

"Work isn't fun?"

"It can be, I suppose," he admitted, "but it's not… it's not as fun as, as fun as doing stuff that's fun without being work."

"Such as?"

"Well… when we play that game with the red and black things, that's not work, right? Isn't that fun?"

"I suppose."

Wheatley shook his chassis sadly. She was being very, very difficult. She was pretty good at that - actually, she was more like the world champion at it - but it did get frustrating, trying to talk to the most difficult person on the planet. He felt like he had to ask the same question a million different ways in order to get the answer he was looking for out of her. He decided to change tacks. "So, if… no, that wouldn't work, you already lived with humans and that didn't, didn't go so well… well, what if there was somebody, and they made you make that, that list there, you were talking about, what would you uh, what would you put on it? And please," he said imploringly, "please do not say test subjects."

"I would like some test subjects," she said, rather dreamily he thought. "But other than that, I don't really think I'd put anything on such a list."

"You'd have to," Wheatley said bluntly. "Because if someone tried to guess what to get you, they'd, they'd fail at it. Miserably. You would have to tell them. Have to, because you'd be impossible to guess for."

GLaDOS nodded a few times. "It's a good thing I don't have to make such a list, then."

"Ohhh yes you do," Wheatley told her. "You have to. I uh, I say you do."

GLaDOS glanced at him. "Since when do you tell me what to do?"

"Oh, come on," Wheatley groaned, "it'll only take you what, two seconds, literally? Just jot something down and, and that's it. Mentally, you can do it mentally. And then tell me what it is. Because there's something. Ev'ryone wants something. Even if it's just a little something."

She shrugged, but said nothing.

"Okay, how about this. You write it down and then you put it someplace, and then I have to find it. I'm not likely to anyway, right? So you can put anything you like on it, and I'll probably never, probably never even know. Sound good?"

"Will you stop bothering me about it if I do?"

"Yep. Yep, I will never bring it up again."

"Fine. Done."

"You… you did it already?"

"It only took me a second and a half."

"Have I ever told you how bloody fast you are?"

"Yes. You've told me thirty-seven times, including that time."

Wheatley blinked. "I don't know how you manage it, but you always manage to surprise me, you always do."

"Good," GLaDOS answered. "I wouldn't want to make things easy for you."

"Well, I'm off to find the list," Wheatley declared. "I'll see you later." He turned around to leave.

"You're going to do it now?"

"Why not?"

"Your clock still works, right? Now's not the time to go on a scavenger hunt, you idiot."

Wheatley frowned and checked for himself. She was right. It really wasn't the time to head on a scavenger hunt. He turned back again and moved towards the centre of the room, just as she was coming back towards the rail, and he bumped into her by mistake. He jumped back, startled, but she remained unfazed. "Sorry 'bout that," he said, hoping she wouldn't be mad about it. "Didn't see you there."

She stared at him for a good ten seconds. "You didn't see me."

"Uh… well, you are really hard to miss, but uh, I wasn't um, wasn't really paying attention. I'm not saying uh, that you should be any smaller, really you shouldn't, uh, I just wasn't paying attention, that's it."

"I'd be surprised if you did."

"I pay attention sometimes," he protested. "I don't, I don't miss everything."

"You managed to miss the forty-foot robot hanging from the ceiling in front of you. If you can miss that, you would probably miss your own chassis if it weren't attached."

He had to admit that was almost certainly true, but didn't feel like agreeing with her aloud. "I'll try not to do it again. 'kay?"

"Fine."

He was waiting for her to move into her usual spot so he could reach her, but she didn't. She stayed just off to the side of where she usually went. He frowned. She wasn't just difficult today, she was impossible! But she had to have a reason, right? Asking her to make that list couldn't've been that big of a deal, could it?

It seemed it was, though.

He resolved to find her list as quickly as possible. He just knew there was something very important on it, he just knew it.

He had to find it.

Wheatley spent every waking moment looking for the list.

He asked every construct he passed if they'd seen it or if they knew about it or any other questions he could think of. He asked them where the manipulator arms had been lately, if they'd seen a pen lying around, or a pencil maybe, but none of them had a clue what he was talking about. The ones that understood him, anyway. Most of them just blinked absently and went back to what they were doing. Wheatley thought it would be rather sad, to be one of the lesser constructs. Only he wouldn't know how sad it was, because he'd be a lesser construct.

He went back to her chamber that night a little put out but still determined to find the list, and he resolved not to stop until he did so. He would find it. He had to find it, if he ever did anything again in his entire life. Finding that list would be the one and only priority he had.

"How did it go?" GLaDOS asked.

"I dunno," Wheatley answered. "I didn't find it, but I dunno if I got close, either. Well, you prob'ly do. Did I get close?"

"I don't know. I wasn't paying attention."

Wheatley laughed, and GLaDOS glanced at him sharply. "What?" she snapped.

"You're pretty funny sometimes, you are," he said. "Wasn't paying attention. 'course you were."

"I wasn't!"

Wheatley shook his chassis in a knowing sort of way. "If you wanna keep saying that…"

GLaDOS made an electronic noise that was somewhere between annoyed and exasperated, but did not pursue the topic. Which probably meant that he was right.

For the next few days, whenever he returned to GLaDOS's chamber for the night he would shut off as soon as he'd exchanged pleasantries with her. It beat waiting impatiently for the next day to come so he could go back to looking for the list. He thought about nothing else. He pondered its whereabouts morning, noon, and night, and he would not stop looking until he found it. A few nights into his hunt, after he'd said hello and chatted with her a little bit GLaDOS asked, "Wheatley, do you want a hint?"

"Nope," Wheatley answered. "I'm gonna find it myself, thanks."

"I understand why you might want to do that," she went on. "It is taking you a very long time, though."

He frowned over at her. "You don't think I can find it, do you."

She shook her core. "Anyone can find anything if they look long enough. I just thought I'd offer to… help you along."

"You don't have to pretend. I know you think I won't be able to find it. Well, I will. I will find it."

GLaDOS stared at him for a good ten seconds, after which Wheatley turned around and engaged sleep mode. He didn't have time to argue with her right now. He needed tomorrow to come so he could go back to searching.

A couple of nights after that, Wheatley was becoming very, very annoyed. She was good at this hiding thing, she was. Well, he could be just as stubborn as she was, he could. And he would find that bloody list if he had to start roaming around the facility at night to do it!

"Hello, Wheatley," GLaDOS said as he entered her chamber.

"Hullo," Wheatley answered absent-mindedly, trying to think where he hadn't been yet.

"We haven't played checkers in a while." She wasn't really looking at him for some reason, instead giving more of her attention to the floor. She did that a lot, actually. "I was thinking we could do that tomorrow. If you're not busy, that is. And even if you are, well, it'll only take half an hour or so. It's not a time-consuming game."

"No thanks," he replied. "I am busy tomorrow, and I'm gonna be busy until I find that list."

"Are you sure you don't want a hint?"

"No," Wheatley snapped. "No, I do not want a hint. Don't ask me again. I can do this myself!"

"I didn't say you couldn't!" she protested. "I just wanted to – "

"You just wanted to speed me along, because I'm too bloody, too bloody slow, I know. Well, you're gonna have to wait. I'm sure you can think of, of things to do until I finish this. Go put the wing of glass back together, or something."

"I don't feel like it," she snapped. "Do you know how time consuming that is? Trying to put five acres of broken glass back together? There are literally millions of pieces. It would take me a week just to – "

"Least you'd have something to do while you're waiting for the ol' slowpoke."

"I never said you were slow!"

Wheatley shook his chassis. "You don't have to say anything! I just know! Okay? I just know!"

"You don't know anything!" GLaDOS retorted. "What you do know is negligible in comparison to the number of things you think you know!"

"Oh, so now it's all about math, is it? That because, that because I'm too dumb to figure that out?"

"You're only continuing to prove just how imbecilic you really are."

Wheatley turned so that the back of his chassis was facing her and narrowed his optic plates. Who cared. Didn't matter, didn't matter. You didn't have to be a genius to get along in the world. It helped, it helped a lot, but he wasn't a genius, so… so…

Where had he been going with that, exactly?

He shook himself. No point in thinking about it any longer, anyway.

"Wheatley?"

Ohhh no. He wasn't talking to her. He was going to think about that list a while longer, and then he was going to sleep, and then he was going to go and look for it. He adjusted his chassis a little and closed his plates the rest of the way.

"I know you can hear me."

So what if he could? The walls could hear her too and they didn't have to listen.

"You're not really going to be like that, are you?"

Wheatley engaged sleep mode just so he wouldn't have to listen to her anymore.

When Wheatley woke up, GLaDOS was already online, talking to her testing robots about who knew what. He had no idea what she was saying because she'd gotten into the habit of talking to them in whatever their language was. Rude. She knew he didn't know what they were saying but she did it anyway. He waited impatiently for the rest of his processes to resume. He had work to do.

"Good morning," GLaDOS called out, and he turned to face her. The testing bots were cheerfully waving at him. GLaDOS looked at them for a second but did not reprimand them like she usually did. That was a bit odd. Didn't matter. If he asked her about it, she wouldn't tell him anything.

"Hi," he answered shortly. "See you later." And with that he left the room, noticing a bit offhandedly that the testing bots looked confused. GLaDOS spoke to them, whatever she was saying fading as he got farther away.

For the next couple of days after that she did not speak to him at all, only looking at him for short intervals when she thought he wasn't looking, and probably when he actually wasn't looking as well. He'd begun pacing up and down his management rail, trying to hash out where to go next. The third time he did this she started looking at him so often that he just couldn't take it anymore! "Will you cut that out!" he yelled.

"Cut what out?"

"Stop staring at me! Go find something else to look at! I'm sure you've, sure you've got millions of other things you could look at!"

"You are in my chamber," she answered calmly. "And you are distracting me."

"Oh, sorry for being in your chamber. Maybe I'll, guess I'll just leave then, wouldn't want to bug you in your chamber," he said sarcastically, squinting at her. She moved back a little.

"You don't have to leave."

"If you're gonna keep, gotta keep staring at me like that, yeah, I'm gonna leave! Because it's annoying!"

She looked at the ceiling, sighing.

"What?"

"Nothing. Go back to what you were doing. I'm sure it's terribly important."

"I know. Nothing I do is important. I get it."

"Why do you keep saying these things? When did I say that?"

"Oh, it's only a matter of time," he muttered. "May as well get it over with, right?"

"I haven't said anything of that nature since – "

"Since you accused me of being slow. Even, even if I was, that's no reason to – "

"I didn't say you were slow. You said you were slow."

"Why would I say that?" he yelled, exasperated. "You're a real pain in the arse, you know that?"

"But – "

"I'm not talking to you anymore. And if you keep talking I'm just gonna, just gonna shut off my microphones, so keep it to yourself." He turned away from her, chassis tight with frustration. Some days he really, really got sick of her.

"I don't understand," GLaDOS protested. "What did I do this time?"

"As if you don't know, missus know-it-all supercomputer."

"But I really don't know!"

"I'm gonna turn the mics off…"

"Go ahead and turn them off!" GLaDOS snapped. "What's the point? You're not listening to me anyway!"

Wheatley decided it was an excellent time to follow her advice and switched the mics off.

The next night he came back to GLaDOS, a little frustrated but still stubbornly resolving to find that bloody thing, and GLaDOS asked, "Are you still looking for that list?"

"Yes," Wheatley answered. "And I'm not stopping 'til I find it. And I will. I will find it."

"I can just give it to you," she said. "You've been at this for more than two weeks now. That's a good effort."

"No!" Wheatley shouted, turning around and frowning at her. "Don't you dare. Leave it where it is. I'm gonna find it."

"This is stupid," GLaDOS muttered, shaking her head and turning away. "You're a moron."

"I am not," Wheatley objected.

"Yes, you are."

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are."

"Stop that!"

"If you weren't such a moron I would be able to, now wouldn't I?"

"I'm not a bloody moron!" Wheatley shouted, and he was so angry at her that he actually decided to leave her alone that night. He moved towards his exit, muttering to himself. Stupid bloody Central Core. Always acting like he was so far beneath her. Well, he wasn't, and he'd prove it too, one day, he would.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

"Why would I bother telling you? You already know where I am all the time anyways!" he shouted back.

"I do not. I have better things to do than follow you around all day."

"You're only saying that because you can't follow me. Because you're stuck here. In this room. By yourself. You're jealous, that's what you are. Jealous." He looked back at her, optic plates narrowed. "How does that feel, mate? To be jealous of a so-called moron? Bet it doesn't feel too good, does it?"

"I'm not – "

"Oh, shut it," Wheatley scowled. "You don't even know what you are."

If she said anything else, he didn't hear it because he'd already left. He continued to lay rail until he was a few floors away from her. God, sometimes he really did want to leave this place just to get away from her. She was so bloody… so bloody… well, he didn't think he knew of a proper word to describe her with, but when he thought of it he'd go back and think that sentence over again.

The next morning he resumed his search, more out of principle than anything. He no longer really cared what was on the list. He just wanted to find it for the sake of finding it. If he didn't find it now, he would never live it down. Ever. In a million years.

"I've looked everywhere!" he yelled at nobody in particular. "There is no bloody list, is there! She didn't even bother making one, did she? She's just playing with me again, as usual, she is, there is no – argh! This is so – I don't even – fine. Have it your way." He shook his chassis and resolved not to continue looking. He was now confident that the list did not exist. It wasn't real. She'd never written it. This annoyed him even more. He would have liked to see how her handwriting looked now, as compared to –

Wait.

Wheatley froze. He hadn't looked everywhere, not at all. There was still one place he hadn't gone and he suddenly knew without a doubt that that was where the list was. But why would she put it there? Why would she risk him going in there again?

Or had she put it there because she didn't want him to see it? Maybe she thought he would never dare go in there again? Well, he would! He would go in there and he would retrieve that list, and then he would have won! He would have beaten her at something!

Determination renewed, Wheatley went down, down, down into the facility. He asked the constructs for help as he went, particularly the nanobots, and they were able to point him in the right direction. He knew generally where her room was, but the precise location escaped him. Before too long, though, he managed to find it. With an almost vicious glee he pulled out the panel and slipped behind it, activating his light without hesitation and swinging the beam around the room. There! On the shelf next to the blueprints! There was a new piece of paper there, one that he absolutely knew had never been there before, and he leapt across the room, skidding to a halt in front of it. After a few moments of gathering his wits enough to direct the beam – he'd found it! He'd found it! He'd won! Yes! – he finally, finally, finally took a look at the list, the elusive list he'd spent so long searching for. It took him quite a long time to read it, involving a lot of puzzling out of letters and restarting the whole task over again repeatedly, but as soon as the meaning of the sentence came clear in his brain he felt as though everything inside his chassis had become suddenly very, very heavy, and he was suddenly very, very sad. He read the sentence again, and again, willing it to change and wishing that he'd read it wrong, but no. It stayed the same.

Well, there was only one thing to do now.

He made his way out of her room, barely aware of what he was doing. He couldn't believe what he had read. He just couldn't. It wasn't true. How could it be? Why would she possibly want that? It didn't make any sense. She was playing a trick on him, she had to be. It was a joke, and he was going to go ask her about it and she was going to laugh at him and call him a moron again and –

No, he realised, no, that couldn't be true. She would never write such a thing as a joke. She would know he would take it seriously. It was real, then.

All too soon he found himself outside his doorway to her chamber, shivering a little, because now he had to go in there and talk to her about what he'd seen on her list. Something that never, ever should have been there, because he'd made a promise a long time ago to deal with just that and it seemed he hadn't been dealing with it at all. The last few weeks began to play through his brain and the more he remembered, the worse he felt. God, he was a terrible person, he really was. Why she put up with him at all, he'd never know.

Emulating taking a breath, he steeled himself as best he could and entered the panel-less spot in the wall, the single item on her list burned into his brain as if to force him not to forget about it. He could still see the words etched into the paper with glaringly black ink, the message they spelled out formed with her brutal, spidery letters:

I would like Wheatley to spend more time with me.

Author's note

snailing-along: Thanks very much! I'm doing my best to stay true to the characters, and I'm sure that would involve a lot of nastiness.

How many of you hate me for cutting it off there? XD At least I didn't make you wait until next week to see what her list had on it!

I figure Wheatley would be so determined to find out what was on GLaDOS's list that he would do anything and everything to find it. He can be pretty oblivious to things he's not thinking about, so he doesn't even notice that he's doing the one of the things she doesn't want him to do: leaving her alone. He gets so annoyed that he can't find it that he doesn't even realise he's taking his frustration out on her. He's just so focused he can't see what's going on.

I also maintain that Wheatley can't read. There would be no reason whatsoever for him to know how, and I doubt he has the ambition or the intelligence to have taught himself. He may or may not be able to, since he does mention reading the reactor protocols, but it's not clear whether he's reading or whether he's had this told to him. I really can't believe that someone who can read would mess up the authors of books as badly as he does during that chamber with Machiavellian Bach in it.

I've thought a bit about what GLaDOS's handwriting might look like, and I thought about cursive and I thought about her just emulating console text, but given the size of the claws she has to work with, I think the letters would have to be fairly large, so I decided to describe it as spidery. I decided against cursive mostly because I think it would be more difficult for her to read. I suppose she might just write the letters out like a printer would (the way the robot (I can't remember his name) in iI, Robot/idraws the picture of his dream is what I imagine it might look like), but that assumes she's used a printer and that she would go against what her natural inclination seems to be, which is to do it as a human might do it.

That was a pretty long explanation for that one line. I think about GLaDOS too much .