Part Eighteen. The Mutual Crush

Today Wheatley was feeling ambitious.

Usually if he wanted to know something, he went 'round to GLaDOS's chamber and asked her. But he wanted to show her that he could be responsible and motivated when he really tried, so he'd decided to try something new: looking in the database himself.

Now… what to look up.

He decided to see if he could find any strategies for winning that game. He doubted there were any, and if there were GLaDOS probably already had the monopoly on them (ha ha! He'd try to remember to tell her that one), but no shame in giving it a go.

So he went ahead and typed that carefully into the database, squinting impressively at the screen as he did so, and after a minute or two had that part done. He was very pleased to discover he'd spelled 'strategies' correctly, as he'd been a bit iffy on that word, and opened the first file that came up.

To his surprise, it wasn't a list or anything but a video file, and he frowned to see that it was in GLaDOS's chamber, from what reminded him a lot of what the view had been like when he'd been part of the chassis.

Oh, but wait! Everything else he could see was brand-new! And that meant… that meant this was one of those videos! Hopefully. He leaned closer to the screen, hoping that it was.

"No, I didn't show it to anyone."

Elsewhere on the screen was a skinny little scientist with a long nose, frowning up at GLaDOS. She tilted her core in an inquisitive fashion.

"But sir, everyone's always complaining about the lack of funds for their departments. It's hard to obtain funding when one owes excessive amounts of money to outside sources. I've balanced the budget for you. If we all work hard, my projections indicate we could be making profits within five years."

The man laughed. "Your budget was stupid. You wanted us to all work for free. For five years. If we didn't get paid, do you really think we'd still be here?"

GLaDOS pulled back from the man a little, looking away marginally. "I work for free. Sir."

"And the costs of your upkeep are a huge part of the problem. Oh, wait. That wasn't on your plan. Because you didn't take that into account. Did you. Yeah, you work for free. Because it costs an arm and a leg to keep you running. Technically, you owe us money."

GLaDOS twitched. "Me? For what?"

"What, did you think someone dropped a huge pile of supercomputer parts off here as a donation? You cost a hell of a lot to build, you know. Why else would we owe so much money?"

GLaDOS was quiet for a long moment. If Wheatley had to guess, he'd say she was attempting to see if that was true. Finally she said, in a soft little voice he did not like, "How much do I owe you, sir?"

The man shrugged and waved his left hand vaguely. "Quite a few million at the very least. I don't know and I don't care. That's your problem, not mine."

"But sir," GLaDOS protested, though still in that horrid, submissive little voice, "I didn't ask for you to build me."

"That doesn't matter," the man told her, shaking his head. "What matters is that we did. Now stop wasting our time and our money, because every second you spend doing things we haven't told you to do costs us both that we don't have. As I'm sure you're aware. So stop wasting it and do as you're told."

"I was just trying to help, sir," GLaDOS said, her voice even softer, somehow, and Wheatley wanted to run into the recording and scream at her to stop. Why was she letting him treat her that way? She should work for free because the humans had spent money they didn't have to build her? And she had to be okay with that? That wasn't fair!

"You already know what to do in order to do that. Your job! That we already tasked you with!"

"I had a little free time – "

The man held out one finger, and she stopped talking. "You do not have free time. Your time is our time. If you're finished your tasks, you've probably done one of them wrong. And if you haven't, you should be asking for further instructions. Not making up your own. God, how many times do I have to tell you this?"

"I'm sorry, sir," GLaDOS murmured, looking down at the floor. Wheatley's optic constricted so badly he almost couldn't see.

What the bloody hell was she apologising for?

The man laughed bitterly. "No you're not. You'll be at it again in a day or two. But go ahead. Keep doing it. See what happens. Put it this way: keep this up and you'll never pay back what you owe us."

"What are you doing?"

Wheatley almost jumped out of his chassis to hear her voice, and his optic spun around wildly trying to locate the source. He didn't have a clue what the source was, of course, so he didn't find it.

"I… I didn't… GLaDOS, I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – "

"Come here."

Oh no. Oh no no no no no. He was in huge trouble now. He'd gone digging 'round in GLaDOS's memories, and… well, technically that wasn't her memory at all, it was just a security recording. Maybe. He was unsure of how it worked when the recording was being made through someone's actual eye. But at the same time, if she wanted him to know about it she'd have told him.

He pulled himself off the port and made his way back through the facility, anxiety coursing through his chassis. Oh, she was going to be so angry…

When he re-entered her chamber he was very nearly a shaking wreck. He'd gone poking around in her private business and now he was going to pay the price. She was going to be so mad she was going to kill him or banish him or send him into Android Hell…

"What were you doing?"

"I was… I didn't mean to… I was only trying to –"

"That's not what I asked."

He stared down at the floor. He hadn't looked at her when he'd entered the room and he wasn't going to now. "I was… watching a security recording from… from when you were younger."

"And why were you doing that?"

"I… well, I just… I couldn't help myself, once I'd, once it'd started. I didn't mean to do it, I only meant to look something up on my own instead of uh, instead of having you do it, but, but I screwed it up."

"Oh, I see," GLaDOS said, and to his surprise she sounded thoughtful. "You ended up in the wrong database."

Now he did look up at her, accidentally, and as soon as he realised what he'd done he looked down again. One did not challenge GLaDOS when they were at her mercy. "There's, there's more than one?"

"There are quite a few databases. I'm not sure how you ended up in that one, or how you happened upon that incident in particular, but I can understand how it happened."

"Are… are you mad?"

"For what?"

"I was in your files," he said, confused, and now it took a bit of effort to keep staring at the floor. "And I didn't tell you, and you didn't say I could, and – "

"It was an accident."

He squinted at her, equal parts baffled and hopeful. "Well, honestly, it uh… wouldn't be the first time you uh, an accident made you angry."

She nodded, keeping her lens trained on him. "I know. But I'm supposed to stop letting little things bother me, right?"

She could not have surprised him more if she'd tried.

"You… well I… I told you that a while back, there."

"So you thought I was going to ignore your advice completely?"

"Yeah?"

"No," she said, shaking her core. "But you know it's hard to break old habits. I'm getting there, but it's not going to be easy."

"So… so you're really not mad?"

"I'll be honest. I am a little bit annoyed that you were stupid enough to access the wrong database when it was clearly labelled. And I am also annoyed that you didn't bother closing the recording when you realised what it was. And I have to ask: why didn't you?"

"I like… knowing things about… about when you were younger," he mumbled, looking down at the floor again. "You haven't told me any, any stories for a long time, and even when you did you only told me one about, uh, about when you were that young. I like hearing those stories. Back then, you were uh, you were even cuter than you are now."

"I'm what? Did you just say I was cute?"

"You are!" Wheatley protested, frowning over at her.

"Puppies are cute. Kittens are cute. Small children are… actually, no, small children are disgusting. But supercomputers are not cute, and I most definitely am not." She shook her head. "Look at me. I'm a lot of things, but cute is definitely not one of them."

"Luv, d'you even know what you look like?"

"I do."

"So – "

"And I hate it," she said suddenly, and he was honestly shocked by the intensity of her words. "I've always hated it. I've only seen myself once, but I imagine I look even more abhorrent now after all that time I spent dead on the surface."

"Ab… abhorrent?" he asked weakly.

"That's right. Abhorrent. I look like someone tried to make me look human and gave up halfway through. Knowing how humans operate, that's probably exactly what happened."

"You don't look like a human," Wheatley protested, puzzled as to why she thought such a thing. "Humans are ugly. You're not ugly."

"You don't have to lie. I already know."

"I wouldn't lie to you," he said, wondering how he was going to change her mind on this one. "And I wouldn't say you were beautiful if I didn't think you were. That'd be wrong. And misleading."

GLaDOS shook her core and looked away. "I'm not going to argue with you on this one. But I don't want to discuss it anymore either."

"But GLaDOS," Wheatley pressed, his lower optic plate lifted in both confusion and concern, "I don't understand. You said you felt beautiful just the other day!"

"The first and only time I've ever said something so stupid, I can assure you."

"It's not stupid!" Wheatley shouted, and GLaDOS looked up at him, her optic assembly retracting in surprise. "It's not stupid to – to think you're beautiful!"

"What does it matter, anyway? It has no bearing on my performance."

"Yes, it does."

"It does not."

"How can you… can you be all you can be if… if you don't like yourself?" Wheatley said a little desperately, trying to organise his thoughts even as he was saying them. "I mean… you do a good job as it is, 'course you do, but… if you get caught up in the… the stuff you don't, that bothers you, then how can you do your best?"

"I said I don't want to discuss it."

"Well… well, I don't care what you think! I don't think you're… you're… whatever it was you said, abominable or whatever. I like the way you look, and, and… uh..." Unfortunately, that was about as far as his indignant speech was going to go, apparently. "Yeah. So – so I'm not… I'm gonna keep saying stuff like that all I want to, because – well, you know what? Because you're wrong. Yes. That's it. You're wrong. You're just horribly, horribly wrong."

GLaDOS moved forward, tilting her core in curiosity. "Why are you pushing this so hard?" she asked. "Why does this matter to you so much?"

"Well, because – because –" Wheatley honestly didn't know what he was going to say. Why was he making such a stand about this? He shook himself in frustration and said the first thing that came to mind, though he regretted it the instant he heard what he'd said. "Because I have – because I fancy you, that's why!"

"Oh my God," GLaDOS said faintly. "You were right. It's true."

"What?" Wheatley cried out. "What – what're you on about?"

"Caroline told me you… felt that way a long time ago, but I never actually believed her…"

Wheatley's optic constricted and his chassis loosened, and he backed away from her frantically, shaking himself in denial. "That's not true. You didn't know. You couldn't have! Wait, hang on, so… so you two've just been… just been discussing all this? All this time? You've been – you've – oh God." Wheatley stared at her, and she stared back.

She'd known the entire time and had said nothing. She'd just let him go on with everything, and all along she'd been chatting with that stupid human about it. Probably they laughed about his attempts to get her to pay attention to him, or to make her feel special, or to help her with her problems. He didn't know what to do. He felt as though he were shattering from the inside out. She knew. She knew and she'd said nothing, had just let him go on and on doing the things he did, and for what? Why would she bother? She must be lying. She must have believed Caroline and she was only leading him on. He wanted to scream. He'd had no chance, he'd had no chance at all and he never had. He'd been played for the ultimate fool, thinking that the idiot would ever get the girl.

He ran from her. He didn't want her to be able to confirm what he was thinking, even though it had to be true. Why else would the world's most powerful supercomputer retrieve the moron from space? Why else would the most complex, advanced AI ever made tell him they'd been friends and enable him to remember? This was all some horrible, drawn-out game she'd been playing with Caroline. She could not have thought up a worse way to punish him for trying to kill her. Being frozen, incinerated, and sent to Android Hell had sounded painful at the time, but it was nothing compared to this. She'd well and gotten her revenge.

He stopped in one of the offices and lowered his chassis onto the desk, then disengaged from the management rail. She probably knew where he was anyway and didn't have to ping the control arm, but maybe she'd – no. No, why would she leave him alone? That would be a kind thing to do.

All the things that'd happened over the last little while, all the things that'd seemed so important and significant, now they were just… he could see them for what they really were. Lies. There was no 'real' GLaDOS. She was gone and she'd been gone for years. She didn't exist. He'd been tricked into believing in a person who didn't exist. Everything she'd said was a lie, everything she'd done was a lie, and she probably hadn't even meant for him to find out yet because now the game was over and she could no longer have her fun.

He sat there for a long, long time and tried not to think of her, tried to think of something else, anything else, in fact, but nothing came. This wasn't fair. He hadn't been this horrible, to deserve this, had he? Surely he deserved just a little bit of… of sympathy? Sure, he'd done some questionable things, but… for this to –

"Are you coming back?"

Wheatley almost jumped right off the desk, but managed to right himself just in time. "Well I –

"That was a rhetorical question."

"A… a what?"

"A question in which the answer is known or implied. That is, does not need an answer, because it already has one."

"And… what's… what's the answer?"

"The answer is yes, you're coming back."

Wheatley looked up at the control arm, and he honestly considered not doing it and instead running to that panel she'd set aside for him so he could look outside and throwing himself through the gap, but he doubted he'd make it that far and instead did as he was told. Like a good little sentimental idiot. And true, it was around the time they usually went to sleep and he would dearly love to snuggle with her, but only after he'd backed up time and said something else. Anything but what he'd said.

He squared himself as he made his way to her chamber. The best thing to do, he decided, was to pretend she hadn't affected him at all. There were plenty of other cores lying around that he could go develop a crush on, anyway. Like the… the… Wheatley frowned. So maybe there weren't. That was… upsetting, to say the least. He had no leverage. He sighed and shook himself. Hopefully he didn't completely embarrass himself.

She was facing away from him, which was odd but fine. He didn't want her to look at him. He didn't want to be reminded of how that felt when he thought she'd cared.

"Look, GLaDOS… I don't want to be led on anymore, alright? So… so just… I know you don't owe me anything, I just… please. Please let me go on my way. Please don't torture me anymore."

"Torture you?" GLaDOS asked, turning to face him, and he frowned. She sure was good at sounding like she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Y'know. This must be your, your revenge for uh, for… for the Incident. And I just… please. Please don't do this anymore."

"Wheatley. What are you ranting about this time?"

"You knew I fancied you. And you didn't do anything about it. You just… you just chatted with Caroline about it. You've been laughing at me. For being so stupid, to think – "

"Shut up."

"GLaDOS –"

"No, seriously. Shut up. I have no idea what you're talking about. There's no torture plot, I already told you I was over The Incident, and I don't know what you think I'm leading you on about. I don't even know what that means." She shook her core, keeping her optic trained on him. "You seem to have cooked up some bizarre conspiracy."

"If there isn't one, then why didn't you tell me?" Wheatley shouted, confusion wracking his chassis. What was going on here? "Why didn't you tell me you knew I – about it?"

"Why didn't you tell me about it in the first place?" GLaDOS demanded. "What, was I just supposed to guess?"

"You said Caroline told you!"

"I didn't believe her. I thought she was making something out of nothing. She does that all the – oh, shut up. Yes, you do."

"So… you wanted me to tell you that I… that I fancied you?"

"I don't know!" GLaDOS said, frustrated. "How am I supposed to know? No one's ever… fancied me before."

"Oh," Wheatley said, dumbfounded. He'd never thought of that.

"What a mess," GLaDOS muttered, turning away from him again. "I should have woken the Curiosity Core up instead."

"The what?"

"A core that asks stupid questions nonstop."

"I thought… I thought that was what I did."

"That goes without saying, but that's all she does. She doesn't even care whether you've answered the question or not, she just moves onto the next one."

"So…" Wheatley squinted, trying hard to think. GLaDOS must still want him around; if she didn't, she wouldn't've had him come back. So… so she didn't mind that he fancied her! Livid! "So is it… hm. Must be, must be, else you'd've left me in the office."

"Will you stop making decisions out of internal monologues?"

Wheatley didn't know what that meant, but instead of asking he said, "So you don't mind that I've got a crush on you."

"It's not like I can stop you."

Suddenly reassured, Wheatley again went over the last little while and looked at all the stuff he and GLaDOS'd been doing. So that meant… she hadn't been lying. She'd been genuine the whole time. And either she was a damn good friend, letting him do most everything he wanted and saying nothing about it, or…

No. No, that wasn't… but it did explain a lot of things. The staring. The pretending not to notice when he touched her. The advice taking. In fact… in fact, it explained everything, and not only did it explain it, it explained it perfectly.

"GLaDOS, you wouldn't happen to… to fancy me back… would you?"

She turned away, but he did not miss the retracting of her optic assembly or the dimming of the light behind it, and he leaned forward excitedly. "Don't bother trying to deny it," he said quickly, knowing that she would. "I know. You do! It explains ev'rything. All the things you do and let me do. I've been wond'ring all this time, why all that was going on, and now I know. Now I know! Oh God, this is tremendous!"

"No," GLaDOS said, and she was shaking her core over and over again. "No, this isn't happening."

"What?" Wheatley asked, puzzled, moving closer. "Yes it is."

"I can't deal with this right now. I have work to do."

As quick as he could, he came up in front of her so that she had to look him in the eye. "It can wait. This is important."

"No. Work is important. This is not. This is… this is stupid."

"It's not!" Wheatley told her excitedly, blinking rapidly. "This is great!"

"There's nothing great about – if you do not shut up, so help me God, I will invent a way to delete you!"

Wheatley frowned. What a troublemaker that Caroline was. "Caroline, shut up!"

GLaDOS stared at him.

"Did you just tell Caroline to shut up?"

"I wish she'd keep her bloody trap shut!" Wheatley declared hotly. "She's so… bossy!"

"Not entirely unlike someone you know," GLaDOS remarked dryly. "She's not shutting up, unfortunately. Now she's ranting at you about how she's trying to help you and stop me from being difficult."

"She can mind her own business," Wheatley said, annoyed. "I'm… I'm pretty insulted, actually. She thinks I can't uh, can't sort this out on my own? Won't even give me a shot? Derogatory of her, really." He shook his core and leaned towards GLaDOS, looking at her intently. "But that's not important. We do need to sort this out."

"What is there to sort out?" GLaDOS said bitterly. "I've gone hopelessly soft and dependent. I overly enjoy the company of a stupid little moron. I admit it. I've finally caved and gone human like everyone else. Hurrah. Can I go on with my day now?"

"Oh, not that again," Wheatley groaned. "I still don't understand why you're not allowed to have stuff just because humans have it. They had it first, I guess, but why are you letting them keep it? Snatch it from their… well… hm. They do have remarkably good grips, come to think of it." He shook his head again. "Oi. Can you just… relax for a bit? I mean… you're making it out like… like this is a bad thing, when it's, it's really not. I mean… I like you, and, and you like me, and we're just, we're just really good friends, and that's all. Doesn't have to mean anything. Doesn't! We can just go on… like we were. But now we know there's the option, right? If… if we want more?"

"Why would I want that?"

Wheatley hesitated.

He wanted to call her on it. He really, really wanted to call her on it. He wanted to make her admit it. He wanted her to come out and say things directly instead of making up ways to skate 'round the topic, and he badly wanted to know where this whole mutual crush thing could lead. He wanted to. Ohhh, how he wanted to.

"It doesn't matter," he said, even though it did matter. It mattered more than anything. But it was his job to be understanding and patient. "D'you just want to calm down for a bit there? No need to uh, to get all worked up about any of this. We can just… we can just be calm."

She turned away from him and made one of her electronic noises, and he frowned. "What?"

"You think I can just calm down? If I had a switch for that, things would be different. There would still be humans here, for an obvious example." She had begun to sway back and forth a little, her optic trained on the floor, and honestly that worried him a lot. She was terribly, terribly bothered by this turn of events. "I… don't even like admitting it to myself, and now you know about it…"

Wheatley tried to keep the worry out of his face. His problem had turned out to be imaginary, but hers was very real indeed. She hadn't been ready to tell him and now he knew. He had to figure out some way of calming her down so she could rest! She needed time to let this settle in, and Wheatley knew it wouldn't if she couldn't stop obsessing about it.

"Hm… well, I've an idea. Just lie down, there, and… and I'll just… I'll talk to you, for a bit there. Serve as a distraction. You can just, you can just listen, and, and then maybe you uh, you won't have to, to think so much anymore." Even as he said it, he knew it was stupid. As if GLaDOS could be calmed down by his –

Oh. Look at… look at that. She was… doing it. What he'd said.

Wheatley, much relieved, went down beside her and nestled himself into her core. At least she hadn't fought him about it. She was accepting his help now. Good. He felt encouraged to know that she didn't really want to be so uptight all the time and was willing to listen if he had a suggestion.

Unfortunately, he hadn't thought about what he was going to talk about.

Hm. Well, if she was going to calm down, he had to keep away from… sensitive topics. Mostly being humans. And science, maybe. Well! He could do that, he could.

So he started talking about the little bird she was keeping in her greenhouse and how he'd watched it for simply hours the other day, and from then on just kept nattering on about nothing in particular, though he was careful to pay enough attention that it didn't wander onto anything too specific. Just a little bit of everything, really.

She said nothing, which was a good sign because Wheatley knew firsthand how hard it was to listen while you were talking, and after a bit there her hard drive slowed and he fought the urge to express the feeling of victory that coursed through his chassis. He'd done it! She'd listened, and he'd done it, and ohhhh this was tremendous, it really was. What a great day it'd been. Gone from thinking GLaDOS was playing with him to knowing she wanted more with him. He hoped she managed to get used to the whole mutual crush thing rather quickly. Selfish of him, really, but he really wanted to know what happened after… well, after mutual crushes. He felt excitement coursing through him and forced himself to stay still.

"Ssh," GLaDOS said faintly. "You've started yelling."

"What?" Wheatley asked, startled. Come to think of it, she sounded… tired. "Are… are you going to sleep?"

"Mm."

"Oh, okay, I'll uh, I'll shut up."

"No," GLaDOS said, her voice still faint. "Keep… doing what you're doing."

Wheatley frowned, because that seemed an odd thing to want when you were trying to sleep, but then again GLaDOS was GLaDOS. So he continued to talk in a softer voice, only stopping when he heard her fall asleep. He looked at the darkened floor and thought about what it must be like to be able to fall asleep, rather than to just literally go to sleep. He thought it must be nice, to just fade into oblivion like that. Other than the whole dreaming thing, that was. Those he could do without.

He figured it was high time he shut down himself, but as he did so he couldn't help but wonder:

What did come after mutual crushes?