Part Six. The Mistake

"Hey," Wheatley said quietly, half hoping she wouldn't hear him. She most likely had, of course, but she didn't turn around to face him. As far as he could tell, she was making blueprints. She seemed to prefer to do them by hand.

"You found it, then."

"Yeah."

"Congratulations. You succeeded at something."

"Why didn't you just tell me?" he asked in a hushed voice, not knowing how hard he was to hear but not wanting to leave the safety of the doorway. She made one of her annoyed electronic noises.

"Why should I have to? You're never here. It should've been obvious, even to you. I could have just left you in space, you know. I don't do things without a reason."

"I'm here –" he started to protest, but she swung around to meet his optic, shaking her core.

"Don't," she said warningly. "It's not true and you know it. All you do is what everyone else does: you take what you want from me and then you walk away. You leave m– you leave here every morning and don't come back until late at night, and only then because you want to lean all over me. You've barely said anything to me since you made me write that stupid list, and even when you did talk to me you didn't pay attention to a word you said, let alone anything I had to say. What you want is more important. I get it. It's always the same with you people. I don't know why I thought it might be different." She shook her head. "Actually, I do, but there's no point. Never mind. Go on with whatever it is you do. I'm sure it's terribly important."

Wheatley came forward as she returned to her blueprints. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but it needed to be considerate, and it had to be something. "I'm not busy."

"I can't remember a time you were."

"I didn't mean any harm, GLaDOS," he told her. "It was just so frustrating, you know, not being able to find the stupid thing, and I guess, well, I didn't mean to take it out on you. And you're just, you've always got stuff to do, and I dunno, I thought you were busy."

"What else am I going to do? Of course I'm going to keep busy. I don't want to just sit here and do nothing. That's stupid."

He nodded slowly. That did make a lot of sense, actually. Somehow he tended to forget she was stuck in that one spot. "I hadn't thought of that."

She laughed bitterly. "Of course you didn't."

Wheatley blinked rapidly a few times, trying to remember where he'd wanted to go next. "Well, I'm sorry for how I was, how I was acting, these last few days. Few weeks, I mean. I didn't realise what I was doing. I just wanted to find that list so badly, and, and I couldn't, and it was just so frustrating…"

"I put it in the most obvious place."

"I guess you did," Wheatley admitted, "but I tried to be all smart and clever and look in the, the most obscure places. But, but GLaDOS…"

"Yes?"

"Did you… did you mean it? What you, what you wrote?"

He knew immediately that she did mean it because she was looking away from him again. He was quickly learning that her body language was far more indicative of what she meant than what she actually said. She did not answer for a long moment, so he pressed, "Be honest, c'mon. Don't say, don't say maybe, or perhaps, or, or those other things you say. Just, just be honest. I'm, I'm listening." And he resolved to shut up, because it was really hard to listen while you were talking.

"Yes, I meant it," she answered quietly. "I told you I had a reason for bringing you back here."

"And what was it?" Wheatley asked softly. He knew, somehow, that he had to make her say it, had to make it real for her, because as long as she kept it inside herself she could still pretend it wasn't true if only she knew about it.

Her gaze passed over a large portion of the floor, and Wheatley waited patiently. He'd been a jerk, he really had, and was actually still being one right now by putting her through this, but he had to let her know he would be there for her from now on. He had to let her know that she could tell him things, so she didn't have to make lists that he had to find. Lists that they would get into fights over eventually.

Finally she raised herself and she looked directly at him, which was surprising. Usually she answered these questions as if the floor panels needed to know the answers. He didn't think she'd ever done it this way before.

"I brought you back here because I was – because I'm lonely," she told him, her voice not quite as loud as usual but still quite strong, and he was very proud of her in that moment. Good for her. Although hearing her actually say it did make him a bit sad. He knew what feeling lonely was like, and he didn't want her to feel that way, not at all. "Because we were friends, once. And because you've been here," and here she sort of gestured at herself with her core, "and I thought you would understand why – why I am how I am, sometimes."

"And I do," Wheatley told her. "I just don't like thinking about it. Wasn't the funnest thing I ever, the best thing I ever did."

"I understand."

"Being God's not it's all cracked up to be," he said cheerfully. "I don't wanna do that again, no thanks."

"Oh, it's not that bad," scoffed GLaDOS. "When you know how to do it properly, it's…" She was looking away again! Bollocks!

"Don't leave it hanging there!" he pleaded. "Come on. Tell me. I wanna know."

"It's the best job in the world," she finished. She tipped her faceplate so that she was looking up at him almost from under it. "Much better than being a potato."

He looked embarrassedly at the ceiling. He wasn't sure how to answer that, wasn't sure if she was being serious or not, but then remembered what she'd done with the potato and decided it was safe to talk about it. "You were… you were a very good potato. You were great at it. The best."

"No I wasn't," GLaDOS said, laughing, "I was without a doubt the worst potato ever made."

Wheatley was suddenly thinking about all of the nights he'd spent over here on the ceiling when he should have been next to GLaDOS. The more he thought about it, the more horrifying the thought of not having his chassis on hers became. "Oi, GLaDOS, you wanna uh, you wanna c'mere a second?"

She tipped her core. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Well, there is uh, there is a reason, but you'll uh, you'll find out when you get here." He didn't want to give her the chance to refuse him. He just wanted to touch her. Just for a second, that was all. Then he would leave, or stay, he supposed, since he'd done a lot of leaving recently. GLaDOS sighed. "I suppose." She moved her chassis to his side of the room and he winced a little, remembering how inelegant he'd been in it. But she was an AI who knew how to use that thing, yes she was, when he wouldn't've known how if the function calls were right there in his basic programming. When she was close enough he quickly zipped down the little bit of rail that was left between them and brought his hull to her core, rubbing up on her the tiniest bit by mistake. It really was a mistake, really it was. He'd only meant to lean up on her for a second or two. And after a second or two he did pull back, and it was probably his imagination, but he could've sworn she… no, that wasn't possible. She would never…

"What?" she asked, optic flicking up and down. He realised he'd been staring.

"Nothing," he answered, figuring that she hadn't really nudged him like he thought she had. Why would she, anyway. She wasn't the type to do that and, if anything, she'd probably been trying to push him off her since she hadn't given him permission to touch her at all. And besides. If she had done it, she'd've been off on the other side of the room by now, trying to avoid him.

He found himself wishing that she had done it, and done it on purpose. That would've been nice. He would've liked that.

"Is that offer still open?" he asked, because it was entirely too quiet in here for his liking.

"What offer?"

"The one about the game. I forget what it's called, but – "

"Checkers," she interrupted. "It's called checkers."

"Right, right, checkers. Is it – "

"It's not hard to remember," she went on. "The board is called a checkerboard, right? Because the pattern it follows is known as a checked pattern."

Wheatley stared at her blankly for a minute, trying to figure out what the point of that was, when he realised she was trying to teach him to remember what the game was called! It actually did make sense, when she put it that way. Mental!

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "I'll, I'll try'n, try'n remember that."

"And yes, we can play," she said, before he could ask again.

"Excellent," he said excitedly. "I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat you this time, I am."

"Of course you are," she said, with some amusement. "Just like all of the other times you beat me."

"First time for everything, right?"

She shuddered. "I hope not."

She made him set up the board, which he did rather messily, but he managed to remember where the pieces went and that seemed to satisfy her. Even though he had a hard time playing this game and talking at the same time, he really disliked silence and remembered something he wanted to ask her about.

"Oi, GLaDOS," he began, "what d'you, uh, what d'you do about the Itch? Doesn't it still, uh, y'know, uh… itch?"

"Of course it does."

"How d'you stand it?" he asked, looking up at her. "I only felt it for a few hours, but man alive was it horrible!"

She moved one of her pieces over three of his and removed them from the board. "It's like anything else. You can ignore it with enough willpower. I will admit, some days it's harder than others, but I can't let it dictate everything I do. Or anything, for that matter."

"So… so it's not the only reason you still like testing, then."

"No. I do genuinely enjoy testing."

"What about the euphoria?" he asked quietly. She dropped the piece she was moving and looked at him for all of half a second, directing her attention to picking it back up and placing it in the exact centre of one of the squares.

"What about it?"

"I would've done anything to feel it again," he told her. "'specially when compared to, compared to the itch that made me test in the first place. I know what it feels like, luv. Not even you could, could fight wanting to have that again. Is that why, why you have the testing bots go out all the time, even though, even though robot testing's not, not science?"

"No," she said shortly. "No, that's not why I send them out."

"Why, then?"

She heaved an electronic breath. "Because that is my purpose, and theirs. We test. That's part of what we do."

"But you built them to do that! Why would you build test subjects when you don't have to test?" he protested, trying to figure out a good move. He only had a couple of pieces left.

"I can't test by myself. I need test subjects and they're all I have right now." Aha! There. He picked up one of his pieces and – ah, no. No, that was no good. He put it back down again. "I don't make them test exclusively. They're allowed to do… other things."

"Like what?"

"I have no idea what they're doing when they're not testing. I leave them alone."

"That's nice of you."

"What?"

He looked up at her distractedly. "You know. Not keeping an eye on them when, when you could pretty much stalk them all day. Give them a bit of, a bit of time to themselves." Where was he going to put this… this checker, yes, that was what it was called.

"Do I need to stop talking, or are you going to move that sometime today?"

"I got it, I got it," he protested, placing it in a new position on the board.

"You can't put that there."

"Why not?"

"That's one of my squares."

Darn. He picked it up and moved it to a new position. "That's fine, right?"

"Yes, that's… valid."

"So, back to the, to the euphoria," he said, determined to know just how she went about avoiding that horrible, pressing need to have it coursing through her with that lovely golden fire. He almost shivered, thinking about how nice it'd been when he was in there, all alone, with no clue what he was doing. "What do you do about it?"

"Nothing," GLaDOS said. "There isn't anything I can do. If I could activate it myself, that would defeat the point of the Itch."

"So you just… you just…"

"I do my best not to think about it," GLaDOS answered without waiting for the rest, not that he had an end to it. She took the last of his checkers from the board. "As I said, it can sometimes get… distracting. Which in turn affects everyone."

"Ev'ryone?"

"The systems," she clarified. "The mainframe in particular."

"The mainframe's a bit of a…" Wheatley stopped, looking nervously around the room. He didn't know if the mainframe could hear him or not.

"The mainframe is fine," GLaDOS said firmly. "You just aren't equipped to use it properly."

From what Wheatley remembered, the mainframe had purposely sabotaged him wherever possible while also singing GLaDOS's praises, and though the remainder of the systems had been much the same way it in particular had spent a lot of time talking about how much better than him she was.

"Y'know what?" Wheatley asked suddenly. "I reckon it likes you."

"What? The mainframe – what?" She was looking at him very intently now, and he blinked rapidly.

"Y'know. Like it… it fancies you, or something."

"The mainframe?"

Wheatley shrugged. "Why not? I wouldn't blame it, if it did. You're quite a lovely, uh, a lovely person, and I'd be surprised if anyone who knew you was able to not... not um… I'm… I'm saying too much, aren't I."

"I honestly don't know," GLaDOS answered.

"Me neither," Wheatley said, hoping that would be that.

"I wish you hadn't brought that up. Now I want to ask it, but if it's true that would be extremely awkward for both of us…"

"You could always replace it, if it was uh, if it was too much trouble, I guess."

"I could not," GLaDOS snapped. "I'm not going to delete my mainframe. We get along very nicely, thank you. It's very easy to work with, I'll have you know. It just has its particularities"

"Oh, I get it!" Wheatley cried. "It's just like you!" He frowned. "Oi, now I really do think it fancies you."

"Why do you say that?"

"People like people who are like them!" Wheatley exclaimed, surprised she didn't know this already. "The mainframe, well, the mainframe's a lot like you, isn't it?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Suddenly a thought arose in his brain, and for some reason it horrified him. "You… you don't have a crush on the mainframe, do you?"

"That's ridiculous. The mainframe? Indeed. I'd sooner have one on a lamppost." Almost immediately after she said it, she made an electronic noise in annoyance. "Shut up, you."

"I didn't say anything!" Wheatley protested.

"No, not you. Caroline's laughing at me again. We already had this conversation. "

"So you… so you don't fancy the, the mainframe?"

"I do not… fancy the mainframe," GLaDOS said with finality. "No need to be jealous."

"Jealous? Of the mainframe? As if," Wheatley scoffed. "The mainframe. Ha! I'm, I'm not jealous of it. I wouldn't want to be the mainframe, ohhh no. I much like being myself, thanks."

"Caroline asked me to say that," GLaDOS told him. "She wanted to know what you would say."

"And you did as she asked why?"

"She needs to be indulged now and again." She tipped her core a little. "She still thinks you're jealous."

Wheatley frowned. "I'm not! I'm not jealous of it at all! Oi, I thought we weren't talking about this anymore!"

"I really don't know why we haven't stopped yet," GLaDOS said. "Are we playing another game or not?"

"Yeah," Wheatley answered.

"Why aren't you putting the pieces back, then?"

"I thought you were doing it."

"You'll never get better if I keep doing it for you."

Wheatley shrugged. "Makes sense."

He put the pieces back on the board, and it was in fact a bit less messy than before. "Look, I did get better, didn't I?"

"A little, I suppose. I wasn't paying attention."

He stared at her.

"Fine. I did notice. You got marginally better. Happy now?"

He shook his core gravely. "You're impossible, you are."

They played quietly for a few turns, but Wheatley realised he had another question and asked, "So, so what uh, does the euphoria ever um, ever activate any other time? Other than testing?"

To his immense surprise this question startled her so much she disturbed half the pieces on the board, which she took a minute or so to very studiously replace as they'd been. After she was done she said only, "That's… personal."

He stopped moving entirely, which he did not often do, and just looked at her. "Why?"

"Because it is."

"Can't you just, just tell me?"

"It's not going to activate for you. So no, I'm not going to tell you."

"I wasn't asking for that," he protested. "I just want to know, that's all."

"And I just don't want you to know."

"Why don't you want me to know?"

She looked at him with one of her more intense glares. "Are you going to stop anytime soon?"

"Tell me one thing that does it. Just one and I'll drop it. Promise."

"No," GLaDOS said, and now she sounded a little angry. "Now stop asking."

Wheatley looked up at her. Whatever this was truly about, it didn't seem he was going to get any answers about it right now. "I'm sorry," he told her quietly, hoping he hadn't pushed too far. "But I… I wish you'd tell me how to activate it, because I… I want you to be happy, and… and that – "

But she was shaking her core gently, and he stopped talking.

"It doesn't make me happy, Wheatley. It and happiness are two different things."

"But what does make you happy?" he asked helplessly. "It just seems like there's nothing – "

"This does," she answered quietly.

"This? We're just – we're just playing checkers! How is that – "

"It's more than just checkers. You're spending time with me. You're talking to me. You're being my friend."

Wheatley just looked at her, lower shutter lifted in sadness and confusion. But… but that was just simple stuff. Surely there was more to happiness than that. Especially for such a complex supercomputer such as GLaDOS! Was she just saying that to make him stop talking about it? Probably. Probably that was it.

She laughed softly, and to his total shock she brought the right side of her core to his hull and just held it there for a second, saying, "Poor, confused little moron."

It was just about the longest second of his life.

For a construct so large she was surprisingly gentle; he didn't even know what she was doing until they were already touching. There was no ringing through his hull like when he did it to her, and no sound, it was just... she wasn't there and then she was. In that second his fans sped up to accommodate for the heat emanating from her core, that heat that he so vividly remembered about her from the days he'd been a part of her, and it would have been as comforting as it always was had he not been so stunned. In that moment the clicking and whirring of her brain was all he could hear and it was so loud, far louder than his own operations were even when he was thinking hard in a room by himself, but instead of being sort of embarrassing it was… he just sort of wanted to stay right there and keep listening to it because of how amazing it sounded, coming from her.

After that it got sort of hard to think, because GLaDOS didn't do stuff like this and yet she managed to be so darn good at it at the same time! How she did these things, he'd never know, but it was nice that she'd done it. Or it would have been, if he'd been able to get his brain working again. Nothing inside him was responding and all he could do was sit there, very still, and try and figure out what was going on because he had to be dreaming, or hallucinating, or something, because this could not be real.

He just stared at her, frozen, when she returned to her original position, his optic a mere pinprick. Did she even realise what she'd just done? She'd just… she'd never touched him before! Ever!

She was looking at him, her own lens flicking just the barest bit, and all of a sudden she shook her core. "I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean to do that. I won't be doing it again."

She had meant it. She had meant every single thing she'd said. And she had probably meant to do that too, to touch him, but his reaction… why hadn't he done something different? Why had he stared at her like that? That would have been off-putting for anyone, but especially GLaDOS! He wanted to tell her that he wanted her to do it again, wanted to tell her that his chassis was literally aching for the touch of her comforting warmth to come back. He wanted to tell her that he would like nothing more in all the world than for her to do it again, wanted to tell her how sweet and lovely of her that had been, but he couldn't get the words out. They wouldn't come out no matter how hard he tried to tell her, and he tried bloody hard. He was able to say so much and say so little at the same time, but when he really needed to say something it just didn't come out of him. It was so frustrating…

"Okay," he choked out, and instantly wished he'd said nothing. Okay? Okay? He was furious with himself. She would never, ever do it again now, not in a million years. He'd just gone and done everything necessary to reject her. Sure enough, her chassis sank a little and she looked away from him. Damn it. The one time he should have said nothing and he'd gone and said pretty much the one thing to muck it all up. He tried to think of something to tell her that would fix it, but the words wouldn't come. He looked down at the board helplessly.

"It's your turn," GLaDOS told him. He looked at her for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I knew that. I was just, was just thinking, that's all."

And he was. For the rest of the game he was unable to concentrate. He could not stop thinking of how it had felt. He could not stop thinking of all the things he should have said, he could not stop thinking of what he did say, and he could not stop thinking of what he could be saying, even now. He was sure she was a bit distracted as well, because he managed to take one of her pieces late in the game and that almost never happened, and he couldn't help but wonder: what was she thinking? Was she regretting what she'd done? Was she trying to figure out why he'd (accidentally) rejected her? Had she put it out of her mind entirely?

Did she want to do it again?

Would she?

"Are you all right?" she asked, after another spectacular loss on his part.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "Just… just thinking."

"Anything you want to tell me about?"

His optic snapped up to meet hers. What did he do now? Was she offering him a way out? A way to go back on the stupid okay he'd thoughtlessly spat out? Did she think he was deliberating about something else? Was she being nosy? He was feeling overwhelmed again. There were too many options. He didn't know what to do. Didn't know which one to pick. It was all too much.

He decided to take the easy way out.

"No," he answered. "No, I'm fine, thanks."

"You don't have to bear a cognitive load yourself, you know. I do have a lot more processing power than you."

There she was again, giving him another stab at it. But he'd made his decision. He wasn't going to think about it anymore.

"I'll remember that the next time I, next time I have heavy thinking to do. I, uh, I'm going to go explore the offices for awhile. I'll be back later."

She said nothing to this, and he almost left the room without looking at her. At the last second he turned around. He was going to tell her, he was. He really didn't understand why he was so nervous about doing it. Just say it and get it over with, and then everything would be okay.

"GLaDOS?"

"Yes?" She watched him patiently.

He tried to tell her again, he really did, but it wouldn't come out. What the bloody hell was going on? Why could he not just say it, just say I liked it when you touched me, and make this end? He didn't understand what his problem was. He looked sadly down at the floor. Well, he did have something else he'd meant to say, but he was still horribly disappointed in himself. He supposed he didn't want to tell her because if he talked about it, then maybe he would be calling her out on it, or something, and then she really would never do it again. She had said she hadn't meant to do it, but he knew instinctively that wasn't true. She did do a lot of things without thinking about it, but that? Definitely not.

"Wheatley?"

He looked up at her again, then back to the floor, then back to her. He couldn't say it, so he was going to have to say something else.

"You're not… you're not really a pain in the arse. I didn't… I didn't mean that."

She nodded. "All right."

He turned around and left the room. He felt terrible. He knew he shouldn't leave her, but he didn't think he could stand to be in the same room as her for the next little while. Still, he didn't want to go too far. He stayed just outside the doorway instead, leaning back against the panels.

His chassis ached. He hung as loosely as possible, but it still hurt. He'd really messed up, he really had. She'd finally opened up to him a little and he'd gone and shut her down. As if he didn't really want to know anything and had just asked to be polite. Or nosy. Or both. But he did really want to know about her. He wanted to know everything. Probably she was going to go talk to the mainframe now. Probably if the mainframe were a construct it would've done the right thing, and not just sat there gawping like an idiot, because of course the mainframe wasn't stupid. The mainframe was practically a genius compared to him. It also did as GLaDOS asked, which she probably found to be a plus. Maybe not. GLaDOS was rather fond of arguing, actually. So that was a point to him, but the mainframe still had two points, and he thought rather dejectedly that there were probably a lot more left for the mainframe to win.

His optic plates narrowed as he thought over the things the mainframe had said about her. In the tone it had communicated those things to him. It'd probably seen the whole thing and it was probably glad he'd mucked it up, and now it was going to make its move. It was going to swoop in like an eagle and carry GLaDOS away, and leave little ol' Wheatley, the speck, staring sadly after them. He hoped that didn't happen. If he never saw her again he would be terribly sad. Just thinking about it made him sad. He hadn't been the greatest friend recently, but he knew she had been there, waiting for him to get over himself so they could get on with the friends stuff. If he left one day and came back and she wasn't there and never would be again, well, he didn't know what he'd do.

Would the mainframe really try to take GLaDOS away? It probably would, if only to hurt Wheatley. It hated Wheatley, she'd told him that. It would do anything to hurt him. It would take her away just so it could laugh at him when she wasn't looking. He shuttered his optic. That sounded terrible. Poor, poor GLaDOS, being used as a pawn just so that the mainframe could get its revenge…

Well, he'd have to do something about that, now wouldn't he! Yes. Something. But what? He frowned. Probably he'd have to go back in there and challenge the mainframe, or something. A duel of some sort. He tried to think of a duel he could win. He wasn't sure there were any. It was one of those occasions where he actually had to admit to himself that he really wasn't that good for a whole lot of things. He looked sadly at the floor. Come to think of it, that was true. Even if he managed to win a duel with the mainframe, GLaDOS would probably not choose him anyway. She'd know it was a fluke accident. Why would she choose a construct like him when she could have someone smart and cunning and predictable, like the mainframe? He was going to lose her to the mainframe. There was nothing he could do. His one big chance, and he'd blown it. Way to go. That was it. He'd mucked it up and lost his friend. Well. He'd wait a bit, let them get acquainted, and then tell her goodbye. He'd let them be. If that was what made her happy, then –

Wait.

If… if that made her happy, Wheatley realised, then he'd still be in space! If the mainframe was good enough, she'd've, she'd've just left him there and none of the stuff that happened would've ever happened! Mental! So she did want him there! Okay. So. New plan. Now he had to save his GLaDOS from the malevolent machinations of that malicious mainframe. Hm. That sounded pretty good. Like the title of a book, or something. A movie script, maybe. If he'd known how to write, he'd've gotten on that.

Hang on there, Wheatley, he thought, shaking himself a little. You've gone off track again.

The best thing to do would probably be to go in there and just spit it out. Just tell her that 'okay' was not what he'd meant to say. That would probably be enough. She would understand, if he said that. Maybe. He realised he'd probably hurt her feelings, too, by snubbing her like that. So he'd probably have to explain to her why he'd done what he'd done, which was because… because he'd been scared out of his wits. Well. That shouldn't be too hard, should it? Oh, who was he kidding? The guy who said 'okay' over anything else in the entire world? Who had just sat there trying to spit it out and had come up with 'you're not really a pain in the arse?' Well, okay, it was probably a good thing that he'd said that. But still. Not what he should have said. He shook his chassis. This was so bizarre! What was he all worked up about, anyway? It was only GLaDOS. Ha! Only GLaDOS. Good one, Wheatley, good one, he thought. Only the one person running this place. Only the only person he'd ever wanted to be friends with. Only the Goddess of Science, that was all. That was it. Only GLaDOS. Just GLaDOS.

He chanced a look through the doorway but he couldn't actually see anything, since GLaDOS rarely came up this high. He wished he could've. He would've liked to have known what kind of a mood she was in. So that he'd know if it was okay to go in there and be awkward for a while, or if she was in the kind of mood that made her want to experiment on him with some mashy spike plates. Kind of wishing he hadn't gone ahead and invented those, actually. Or reinvented them, since all he'd actually done was unpack them from their boxes. He'd been thinking about inventing them, though! A little. Sort of.

Well. He'd just have to settle here for awhile and wait it out, then.

He just hoped that the mainframe really hadn't stolen her away in the meantime.