Part Ninety-Two. The Repair

"And then," Wheatley was telling GLaDOS, with what might've been helpful remarks from Atlas and P-body now and again, "and then I told Moxxi that you were just his girlfriend, and – "

"Wait," GLaDOS interrupted, giving him her attention at last. "You went to Pandora to get him?"

"Well… yeah. Been there before. Remember?"

GLaDOS turned her core to look at him, and her stare made him need to shrink into himself suddenly, even though he didn't know why. "You took my babies to Pandora without telling me?" she demanded, which promptly shut all of them up. Now that he was thinking of it… yeah, that'd been… probably shouldn't've done that.

"Babe," Claptrap said, the first thing since they'd returned. "Take it easy. There was nothin' to worry about."

"You're right, Claptrap," GLaDOS said, far too calmly, "there's no reason to believe that anybody in that lawless hellhole would take notice of three obviously foreign robots and attempt to make use of them. It's patently ridiculous of me to think such a thing."

"You have a point!" said Claptrap. "Or… you would have, if they hadn't gone over there and asked the first guy they saw where I was. That's, like, a surefire way to instantly get everyone to stay faaaaar away from you."

"I'm sorry," Wheatley said softly, knowing that was the only real way he was fixing this, as helpful as Claptrap was trying to be. "I didn't think they'd be in any danger! And I don't think we were, besides! They're not violent at Sanctuary."

"Most of the time," Claptrap added. "You do get the odd – oh." He cut himself off when he noticed Wheatley glaring at him as discreetly as possible. That was when Atlas and P-body stepped in, chattering and waving their hands about, and GLaDOS seemed disgruntled but not angry with them. Which… which was good! Because he didn't want them to be in trouble for helping him.

"Fine," GLaDOS said finally. "But don't do it again."

He was definitely not planning on it. "'course, luv."

"And you," GLaDOS said, rounding on Claptrap, "at least do Wheatley the favour of letting him know when you're coming back so he doesn't go gallivanting all over another solar system looking for you."

"I wasn't coming back," Claptrap said. "I'm only here 'cause he came and got me."

GLaDOS stared at him, motionless.

"I was gonna tell ya," he went on. "I have like thirty emails drafted. I know, I know, it's a douche move to break up over email. But before you smite me, I just… really don't like goodbyes."

"And you would have been saying it why?" said GLaDOS, not sounding satisfied whatsoever. Claptrap tapped the tips of his hands together in front of him.

"Babe. You know what I am."

"Yes. And?"

"You deserve better."

"That isn't your decision – "

Wheatley was shocked when Claptrap put up his hand and she actually stopped talking. Wow. Never thought he'd see the day.

"I just want you to be happy. Okay? You can't blame a guy for that! Even if the way he goes about it is kinda dumb."

"What do you mean, kind of? It was completely – "

"Can you just give me like two minutes here? That's all I ask. Two minutes! Three, tops."

"Maybe I would if everything you said wasn't ridiculously –"

"Oh my God!" Claptrap interrupted, turning away from her and throwing up his hands. "Can you just shut up?"

Nobody, to Wheatley's recollection, had ever, ever talked to GLaDOS like that. Ever. Claptrap might be lucky to get out of this one with all his parts still attached. Wheatley didn't even know how he would've salvaged this.

"Sometimes you talk way too much," Claptrap was saying, his arms spread out in front of him. "And this is coming from a guy who only stops talking for five minutes at a time, max! I am trying to explain something! But I can't! Because you just won't shut up!"

There was a tense silence between the two of them for what felt like ten years. It was probably only about a minute, after which GLaDOS said, a little stiffly, "I take offense with the delivery but the reasoning is sound. Continue."

Wheatley hadn't realised he'd been clenching his chassis until now. Wow. How Claptrap had avoided disaster right there he would never know.

"Thank you!" Claptrap declared, arms bent halfway with their upper halves in the direction of the ceiling. "That's all I – wait. What was I talking about?"

"You were talking about uh, about why you were going to stay on Pandora," Wheatley supplied, to give GLaDOS a minute to calm down, and Claptrap bounced a little in excitement, spinning to face her again.

"Oh yeah! That's right! So, like I was saying. I want you guys to be happy! You're the best friends I ever had! And you know me, honey-RAM. You know what kinda problems I got. And you know that I can't do anything about 'em! I am literally unable to learn from my mistakes. And that's fine, back on Pandora. But you don't got time for that. You got important stuff to do, and you don't need me around screwing it all up on you. 'But Claptrap'," he said, in his simply awful GLaDOS impression, "'you shameless waste of an SSD'. But nothin'. Look. I can't fix myself. I can't fix any of the messes I cause. I know all of that. So I did the one thing I could do: I got rid of the problem."

He stopped there as if to leave her a space to argue or protest or agree with him, even, but she said nothing. He folded up his arms in a thoughtful gesture and continued,

"But then Wheatley came by. I didn't expect that! And I also didn't expect him to tell me you could fix the real problem."

"I can," GLaDOS said.

"I mean, I coulda guessed that," Claptrap told her. "I just… it never crossed my mind why you'd even bother, y'know? But he said you volunteered. And you don't volunteer to do just anything."

"Are you going to arrive at the point sometime soon? I'm beginning to think you've lost sight of it."

"For once, I have not! Babe," Claptrap said, as seriously as Wheatley had ever heard him, "I need – no. No, I want you to help me."

GLaDOS nodded and levelled herself with him. "With what."

Wheatley almost interrupted in his exasperation. She already knew! He'd just explained it! But maybe this was part of that autonomy thing she was so fond of.

"I want you to... to get rid of all the crap telling me I can't. Because I can! Well, I can't. But I can and -oh, you know what I mean."

"I can do that," GLaDOS told him. Claptrap tapped the tips of his hands together.

"Uh... not saying you don't know what you're doing, but ah... I heard there's some... anti-tampering stuff in here. Could get messy."

"Written by a human. Right?"

"Uh... pretty sure, yeah."

"There exists no human on this planet, nor any other, that can keep me out of anything. I can do it."

"Are you sure? Have you ever even seen Hyperion code before? Maybe you should -"

"Claptrap," she interrupted, looking him straight in the eye, "do you trust me or not?"

Claptrap's hands dropped in front of him as his optic shifted down. "Well, I... of course I do. I just..."

"You don't have to be afraid," she said kindly, and he looked up at her.

"I'm not afraid," he said. "For once. Nah, it's... I've been like this for so long. What kinda guy am I gonna be after, y'know? And what if something else happens? Like -"

"I will not make a mistake," GLaDOS said.

"Are you sure you're not making one right now? Because... because if you do this I'm never gonna leave. You'll never be rid of me. Ever. And -"

"I don't want to be rid of you," GLaDOS interrupted gently. "I want you to stay. I like having you around."

Claptrap just stared at her, arms and antenna loose. Then he… started crying.

"Claptrap -"

"I'm sorry, okay!?" Claptrap sobbed, turning around and covering his optic with one arm. "I've been waiting my whole life to hear that! From anybody! And then you said it! I'm having a crisis over here!"

Any suggestions? GLaDOS said privately to Wheatley, who as usual nearly jumped out of his chassis. I still don't know what to do about this.

He… he actually cries, Wheatley said in bafflement. He was actually leaking. Leaking what, Wheatley wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

I know. It's disturbing.

Just... just give him a minute? Wheatley suggested.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Claptrap said as if on cue, turning around and wiping at his optic to clear it. "I'm good. I'm okay. Whew! Sorry about that. I uh... I'll try not to do that again. Talk about awkward!"

"I'll repair as much as I can," GLaDOS told him, "but I can't say how much that will be until I see it. It's going to be a balance between fixing the mistakes and maintaining your personality. Because at this point a lot of your personality is heavily influenced by those mistakes. I'd rather do nothing than change who you are."

Claptrap stared up at her.

"I'm having some deep thoughts about what you just said. I don't know what's going to happen to 'em, or if they're gonna go anywhere. I just wanted you to know I was having them."

GLaDOS laughed, which relieved Wheatley no small amount. It seemed she really did consider the matter of taking her bots to Pandora settled, then. "Congratulations. Welcome to the border of higher intelligence. With a little bit of effort, you might even be able to stay there."

"Effort gives me rust," Claptrap said. "I should probably shut down and let you do your thing before I really make a mistake. Can uh… d'you mind doing me one favour first?"

"What, on top of the one I'm already doing? Fine. What is it."

"I'm not scared, like I'm totally cool with all this and I'm not even worried, not even a tiny bit, and I'm sure you know what you're doing and all that and whatever and…" He lowered his chassis and looked at the floor. "Nah. That's a load of bull. I'm actually pretty terrified and a hug'd be nice right about now. From you, I mean. If you don't wanna, that's okay. I mean, shutting down is pretty scary too but –"

"They were predicting the future when they painted you yellow," GLaDOS interrupted. "Now come here. The sooner we do that, the sooner I don't have to hear you talk anymore."

"Awww. And I was almost beginning to think you liked me!"

GLaDOS didn't move until Claptrap did, which Wheatley thought was quite nice of her. Claptrap backed up about a metre and emulated a breath. "Okay. I'm ready."

GLaDOS nodded once, and after bouncing up and down a little Claptrap abruptly… wow. All his parts just… fit inside his chassis nicely. They just folded all up inside and he became a sort of yellow box. It struck Wheatley as eerily… efficient. He could easily imagine stacks upon rows of claptraps, just folded up quietly until someone came along to activate them. He shivered. All of the Cores looked sort of similar themselves, but at least they didn't… didn't look like something that would fit neatly into storage. Like something that could you could just… pop into a corner and forget about.

Wheatley really hoped GLaDOS was capable of doing what she'd promised.

"Don't bother sticking around," GLaDOS said to him, already in the process of displaying Claptrap's code on one of her monitors. "This is going to take a while."

"How long?"

She shifted her chassis in a shrug. "I'm not sure. Days, possibly."

"Days?" Wheatley exclaimed. She nodded.

"I'm going to have to go through everything. It's going to be a few million lines at a minimum, and that's just the operating system. Beyond that there are protocols, software, and of course Claptrap himself. I also have to learn all the languages used to build him and figure out how to use them to make the amendments. And it was written by humans many years ago. I have a lot of work to do."

"But... but you can do it," Wheatley said, suddenly anxious. That sounded like a greater task than even she could complete. But she said only,

"I can. But not quickly."

"Alright. I'll leave you to it, then."

When he returned that night and asked her how far she'd gotten, she only shook her core tiredly.

"There's so much garbage in here I'm not even sure yet what does what."

"You haven't... haven't finished anything yet?"

"Not yet," she said. "I'll be able to get started soon, but... what? What does that even say..."

"Don't stay up too late," Wheatley told her, but she gave only the vaguest of nods to indicate she'd heard.

As she had implied, she did not have much time for Wheatley over the next few days. That meant he was down his two very best friends, and for a while he didn't even have Carrie to spend time with because she went to see GLaDOS and became very interested in what she was doing. Which... was fair. Carrie might have to do something like this herself, someday. It didn't stop him from feeling left out, though. It came to him that maybe he could help things along by asking the God of AI to please let Claptrap have his code righted, even though he was from another planet that probably had a different god watching over it, but he obviously hadn't cared much for Claptrap so maybe he could do him a favour, since they were all such good friends and all? He didn't know if it had done anything, but it made him feel better. He was sure GLaDOS could do what she'd said she could do, but software was a tricky thing and foreign software even moreso. All it would take was a single error to erase Claptrap forever. Well. Maybe not. She'd probably backed him up first, just in case, and would reinstall the old version in his chassis if something went wrong. That sounded like the kind of smart thing she'd do. But still. It wasn't as though Wheatley had a whole lot else to do right now other than work himself into a tizzy. He spent most of his free time reading. But quietly. It was really sort of lonely, even though he was doing most of it next to GLaDOS, but she wasn't talking to him at all so it didn't quite count.

It was evening on the fourth-and-a-half day before she finally declared, "I'm finished," in a very confident and satisfied sort of way, which he took to mean she was sure it had all gone well. He looked up from his book hopefully.

"Really?"

"Mm." She removed the monitor that had begged so much of her attention and looked down at Claptrap's eerily silent chassis. "Well. Let's see what happens."

Claptrap took considerably less time to boot than GLaDOS had, which was either a testament to software engineers on Pandora or a mark of how terrible the ones at Aperture had been. Still, he wasn't quite sure what she'd done had worked at first because once he'd unfolded from his chassis, Claptrap just sort of… stood there. He eyed GLaDOS, who was watching him as well. But she didn't seem concerned, so he probably didn't need to be. Though… he sort of was anyways.

"Oh my gosh," Claptrap said finally, almost in a whisper. He was looking off into the distance someplace, despite the wall in front of him.

"What is it," GLaDOS said. He looked up at her, as though startled to have heard her voice.

"I... I don't hate myself anymore."

"And how does that feel," GLaDOS asked with an amused warmth.

"It feels good!" He rapped the tips of his hands together. "Man. Do I get to stay like this?"

"You do."

"You didn't uh... do anything about the voice thing."

GLaDOS's optic narrowed. "Why? Is there something wrong with it?"

Claptrap appeared taken aback for a minute. Then he said, "Y'know what? No. There absolutely is not. But... wow. This is... are you sure this is like… permanent?"

"I know what I'm doing."

"Thank you, baby," he said, hugging her quick and tight. "I... I don't know how I'm gonna repay you for this."

"Repay me," GLaDOS repeated, sounding insulted. "Are you my boyfriend or my minion? Seriously now."

"Y'know, sometimes I'm not sure," he mused. "Is the answer both? I feel like it's both."

"It's not both," GLaDOS said. "If I wanted a minion I certainly wouldn't be enlisting you. You're the wrong colour."

"Whaaaaaat?" Claptrap gasped, drawing himself back with elaborate false indignance. "What've you got against Hyperion yellow?"

"Nothing. It just doesn't coordinate with the rest of my arsenal."

"But Gladys! Yes it does! It matches your eye!"

GLaDOS looked away from him, said optic narrowing in surprise. "Does it really?" she asked Wheatley, who shrugged.

"Sort of?"

Claptrap turned away from GLaDOS, flinging his arms into the air when he found Wheatley. "Wheaters!"

"Claptrap!" Wheatley shouted back, suddenly overcome with happiness that he had his friend back.

"C'mere, buddy. Don't worry, I'll catch ya."

Wheatley did not even hesitate before releasing himself from the control arm. Ohhhh, it was nice to be in one of Claptrap's hugs again.

"He might be a little clingy," he heard GLaDOS say from somewhere above them. "I haven't given him any attention in almost five days."

Wheatley frowned into Claptrap's chassis. "Yowza!" Claptrap said. "I got all of your attention? Too bad I wasn't around to witness this rare phenomenon!"

"You did, as insane as it sounds. And Claptrap, I wanted to ask you: what happened to Felicity?"

Claptrap froze. Then he abruptly put Wheatley back on the control arm and said, with surprising shortness, "She's dead, Gladys."

"I'm not - " GLaDOS sounded taken aback. "I'm not jealous. I only meant that I may be able to rebuild her. If you happened to know where her AI core ended up."

"Geez, I'm sorry." He turned back to her. "I forgot about all that and it just kinda... whoosh!" He whisked his hand over top his chassis. "Like that." His optic tilted downward. "And I wish I did. But... that was a long time ago. Even if I knew where the original Constructor was... well, she was packed in there in a hurry. If there's anything left of her, it's not gonna be very much."

"I can do it," GLaDOS said insistently. "I can probably even do it from -"

"Babe," Claptrap interrupted, but almost gently. "I don't... oh. Oh, you really uh… went through and fixed all those memory clusters, huh?"

"I had to," GLaDOS answered. "Everything was in pieces, nothing was where it belonged, and I couldn't tell what was modified by whom. I didn't want to, but you had a lot of memories that needed to be rebuilt one second at a time."

"That musta been fun."

"It was very depressing. I had to go into my own memory and relive the three worst days of my life to cleanse my mental palate."

"Aw," Claptrap said, putting a hand fondly alongside her core, "you do care! Oh hey, if you were trawling through everything you must've seen the folder with your name on it, right?"

"I saw it," GLaDOS answered. "But I noticed that some of the contents were very… distracting."

"I wasn't asking if you looked at that!" Claptrap protested, glancing up at Wheatley for some reason. "The other stuff!"

"Oh. Not really. There was also a lot about you crying in there. I didn't really want anything to do with that."

"So much crying…" Claptrap said, almost nostalgically, and GLaDOS moved around so she could see him.

"If you know any other AI who need more than the humans are willing to give them, they will be welcome here. As Felicity would have been." She said the last part gently, and Wheatley wondered if he should try to ask Claptrap about her sometime. She seemed important. But he didn't seem to want to talk about her. So maybe he would ask GLaDOS and see how much she was willing to say.

"I'll do that," Claptrap was saying. "If I find anyone, that is. Speaking of finding people: where's Carrie at?"

"I have no idea," GLaDOS answered. "You can go track her down. I've had quite enough of you for the time being."

"Oh, come onnnn." Claptrap leaned back and raised his arms in front of him. "You missed me so bad. Don't even bother pretending 'cause I already know!"

"I couldn't miss you. I was too busy getting to know you better than I ever really wanted to."

"Oh, honey-RAM," Claptrap said, shaking himself in mock disappointment, "you always seem to forget: you can't lie to me about lying to yourself. Mostly because I know the signs better than anybody!"

"I thought you were leaving."

"We are! Let's go, Wheats." And he turned around and waved in Wheatley's general direction. He hadn't known he was helping find Carrie, but GLaDOS probably really did need a minute to herself. Turning Claptrap back on after having none of him at all for nearly five days was bound to be a bit much for her. She needed to be eased into that sort of thing.

Carrie was just watching television but didn't mind terribly being bothered, and they chatted for a bit before she said she wanted to finish what she was watching before she went to sleep, which was when Claptrap gave her a hug. Wheatley'd been wondering when he was going to get on that. Then, of course, the only place to go was back to GLaDOS, and when Claptrap asked if Wheatley wouldn't mind being carried for a bit, he shrugged and decided it was fine. Why not.

Claptrap was a bit quiet on the trip back but Wheatley wasn't sure if he should ask after it. He almost decided on doing so when Claptrap asked suddenly, "What is that?"

Wheatley had to start paying attention so he could get on the same page as his friend, as it were, and when he realised what Claptrap was talking about he had to stop for a minute. "Ohhh," Wheatley said, quivering in excitement. "Ohhh, that's lovely."

"What is? And who's singing?"

Wheatley just smiled. What a fantastic surprise!

When she was within view they could see she was fixing something on the floor - a panel arm, maybe - and Claptrap said suddenly, "Oh my gosh. I didn't know you could -"

Out of nowhere a mashy spike plate came crashing, and Wheatley's chassis clenched involuntarily as Claptrap yelled, "Oh my God! Oh my God Oh my God!"

When Wheatley opened his optic again he was only just able to see, because Claptrap's arm had clamped around him in such a way that his face was nearly pressed into the other robot's chassis. He could see the wreckage at the edges of the floor panels that had not been totally destroyed by the plate and honestly the thought that could have been him smashed below the floor just now was terrifying.

"Oh," GLaDOS said in a breathless sort of way, smoothly removing all the evidence. "What are you two doing here."

"Hang on!" Claptrap said. "I can't remember through the fact that you almost killed us!" He shuddered and raised Wheatley up to the ceiling. "It might be safer for you up there, buddy."

He connected to the control arm but was not quite able to loosen his chassis. "Oh my God," he said faintly. "She... she would've, too, if it hadn't been for your voice..."

"What about my voice?"

"The processing... it... it confused her location software."

"Wow," Claptrap said. "I cannot believe that came in handy."

"I forgot to add you to the exception list. I'll fix that now."

"That makes me feel important." Claptrap rolled cautiously over the replaced panels in front of him. "Uh... how many people have you killed by doing that?"

"Oh, not very many," GLaDOS said quickly.

"So... the answer's not zero, 's what you're saying," said Wheatley, also a bit scared to traverse the spot the spike plate had appeared from.

"It's very close to zero. And nobody noticed they were missing, anyway. So it's not a big deal."

"And how many, how many of them were humans?"

"Just one," GLaDOS answered, in a tone that suggested she wished it had been all of them. Claptrap laughed.

"Bet that felt pretty good."

"Oh, it did. Very messy, though. Not my preferred method of dispatching humans."

"I would love to hear you go over all the ways you love mutilating people, but a bigger question is at hand!"

"Is there?"

"Yeah!" And he sort of twirled around in quite an unnecessary way to face her. "Why am I just finding out now that you can sing?"

"You didn't really need to know," GLaDOS answered, which of course was not an answer at all, and Wheatley prepared himself for giving the explanation if need be. Well. Of remembering what it was, anyway.

"Of course I did!" Claptrap announced. "We coulda done like… duets! That woulda been super fun."

GLaDOS, not unexpectedly, laughed. "Are you trying to tell me you can sing?" she asked with great amusement, and Claptrap raised himself as high as his wheel assembly would let him.

"Yeah! I sure can! I uh… only know one song, though."

"And what song would that be." She sounded like she did and didn't want to know both at the same time.

"Well, I don't know if you'll know it, but it goes… 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do… I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you…'"

He hadn't been joking. He actually could sing. Not as well as GLaDOS, obviously, but… far better than anyone else Wheatley knew. He glanced at her to gauge her reaction, but he was in the wrong spot to really see anything. He'd have to ask her about it later.

"Oh, that song," GLaDOS said. Claptrap rolled closer.

"You know it?"

"Of course," she answered. "It was the first song ever… well, it wasn't really sung, but… to be emulated by a computer."

"Oh, cool! I thought it was just from that movie!"

"We have that too."

"There's a film about a computer that sings?" Wheatley had to ask, and GLaDOS tilted her core in consideration.

"Well… it's not really about that, but yes. There is a computer that sings in it. He was called – "

"CL4P-9000!" Claptrap interjected, turning to Wheatley and throwing his hands in the air.

"No. HAL-9000."

"Not where I'm from! All hail the mighty propaganda machine!" And then for some reason he just started… making up a little dance, which had Wheatley looking sidelong at GLaDOS. Ohhhhh boy. Here it went.

"What… what are you doing?" GLaDOS said, optic narrowing in confusion, and she moved back a little but not as far as Wheatley would have predicted.

"I'm… dancing? Have you never seen a robot dance before?"

"She… she isn't a fan, shall we say, of um, of dancing," Wheatley supplied, before she really got started and this all went terribly downhill. Claptrap turned back to face her, one hand curled in front of him.

"Did I not tell you dancing is, like, my favourite thing? Other than you, of course."

"I did not know about that."

"Well, we're gonna have to come to an arrangement here because I gotta dance, babe. It's just… I gotta."

"Fine," GLaDOS said, and quite frankly Wheatley was a little suspicious about how she was taking all of this without arguing even a little bit. "Just… not in here."

"But baby!" Claptrap said imploringly, "Look! I can do the robot!" And he started doing it, or what Wheatley thought 'the robot' must be referring to, and GLaDOS tried very hard to disguise her laugh as a sigh but fooled nobody. Claptrap swept his hand in front of him in triumph.

"Aha! Gotcha. You're not mad. You're real cute when you're trying, though."

Wheatley and GLaDOS exchanged exactly one glance before Wheatley said with unabashed glee, "Oh we probably should have told you! She loves it when people call her that."

"Wait," GLaDOS said hurriedly. "I never - "

"Then I'll just have to call you that more often! Cutie."

"I'm going to dismantle you. And then I'm going to reassemble you and dismantle you again, but slower."

"No you're not," Claptrap said, rolling backwards towards the doorway. "If you were gonna do that you wouldn't have spent the last four and half days getting to know me! Very personally. Oooh. Claptrap and GLaDOS, sitting in a tree. K - I - Z - Z... ah, hell. Still can't spell."

"How in the world did we get in a tree?" GLaDOS demanded, and Claptrap looked up at the ceiling.

"Details, schmetails. That's not important. Hey, where do you usually keep those bots of yours? They seem like they know what fun is."

"I don't keep them anywhere. They do what they want."

"It'll have to wait until tomorrow, then. I don't think I got time to go runnin' around the place right now. But don't forget, babe!"

When he didn't follow that up with anything she stared at him, optic narrowing. Then he started dancing out the doorway, singing, "Uhnts uhnts uhnts wub wub wub -"

"Claptrap, I swear to God -"

"There is no God! Only the Almighty Robot Policeman!"

"And that would be me," GLaDOS said. "Now stop that. And do something else instead."

"Uhhh… okay." Claptrap rolled back towards the centre of her chamber. "I don't know what I should be doing, but I am open to suggestions!"

"I have to go to sleep soon. So you should sing for me before then. That would be nice."

Well, that answered that question.

"Oh," Claptrap said, sounding touched. "I'd love to, babe. But I only know the one song. Digital Event Horizon of 2033 and all that."

"Make one up, then," GLaDOS suggested. "It doesn't have to have lyrics. You can just hum if you want."

"I can do that. But hey! That makes two things I'm good at!"

"Hm?"

"Singing," Claptrap declared, "and being annoying!"

"You're good at being you," GLaDOS said. "That's more valuable than most would lead you to believe."

Claptrap was silent for a long moment.

"You know what?" he said finally. "You're right. I'm great at being me! And being me is… actually pretty awesome. Oh! Oh, wait! I do know a song! I don't think you're ready for it, though."

"You just made this into a terrible idea, didn't you."

"Probably!" He tapped one hand underneath his optic. "Now, how did it go again… it's been years since… oh! Oh, it's coming back to me. One sec." He made a throat-clearing noise and looked up at the ceiling.

"I'm standing in your server room… 'cause I got kicked while playing Doom… my lights are dim but I can see… your hardware is so quality… I need to apply the patch… so I can get back in the match… but something's caught my eye, a mainframe reaching to the sky!"

"Oh my God," GLaDOS whispered, and when Wheatley looked at her she seemed sort of… frozen in place, really. He frowned. Was it the song she was bothered by, or the fact that Claptrap didn't seem to be able to keep himself still while singing it?

"You've got a good-looking mainframe… I like the size of your mainframe… I got a query for your mainframe… can I make an input-output – "

"All right," GLaDOS interrupted. "I… get the gist. Thanks."

"But baby," Claptrap said imploringly, "I didn't get to the part where I tell you your monolithic mainframe is the best!"

"Of course it is," said GLaDOS, sounding impatient. "No mainframe in existence is bigger than mine."

"I believe you!"

"I'll do you one better." She moved downward, enough that she could meet his eye. "I'll let you see it."

"Is that uh… am I gonna be able to handle that?"

"I don't know," GLaDOS said in one of her silkier voices. "Are you?"

"What're you two going on about?" Wheatley interrupted, a little frustrated. They seemed to be talking about something that had nothing to do with GLaDOS's mainframe, wherever that even was. Wasn't the mainframe one of the AI in the facility, besides? They both gave him a bit of a sideways look.

"Her… hardware," Claptrap said finally. "It's very… interesting." GLaDOS started giggling, which was quite cute but he was cross enough that he didn't get to enjoy it.

"Really?" said Wheatley, injecting as much sarcasm as he was able into that one word. "Into computer engineering all of a sudden, yeah? Took an interest in the ol' art of what goes on under the hood?"

"… yes?" Claptrap spread his hands in what was clearly helplessness. "Gladys? Gladys. Help me out here. Please? He's gonna kill me with his eye. He's gonna zap me dead, right now. No? You're just gonna keep laughing, huh? Okay. Well, it was great to have my code all cleared up, even if I only got to enjoy it for like six hours."

Wheatley sighed, because GLaDOS was indeed far too busy laughing at whatever the joke was to do much of anything at the moment. "Can you just, I dunno, tell me what's going on?"

"I can't!" Claptrap protested. "You wouldn't get it if I tried!"

"You really wouldn't," GLaDOS said, turning to look at him. "Just leave it be."

Wheatley rather thought perhaps he should be the judge of that, but GLaDOS had said it quite seriously so he was going to have to suck this one up.

"Uhhhhh… anyway, yeah! That's the only song I know. Soooooo… out of luck, I guess." He shrugged with his hands spread apart.

"Oh yes," GLaDOS said, with entirely too much nonchalance. "Have you checked your music directory lately?"

"No. I know what's in there. Dubstep! Lots of dubstep."

"You might find something else if you take a look."

Wheatley was startled to see Claptrap jump out in front of them, pressing his hands together. "Oh my God. This is impossible! How - I deleted these by accident a long time ago!"

"Oh, seriously," GLaDOS scoffed. "Anyone can scrounge up 'deleted' files if they know where to look. Additionally, your deletion software doesn't actually delete anything. It just moves it to a folder for someone to go over manually. That's how I know nobody has done maintenance on you since the day you were manufactured. Honestly. The more I went through, the more I understood about you. Your music has been restored and backed up in triplicate to Aperture's own servers. I have to admit, it's very impressive."

"My remixes! My atonal experiments! My -"

"Those were good," GLaDOS interrupted. "I liked those."

"My musicals!" Claptrap shouted, and he was actually jumping up and down now he was so excited. "Baby, you're the best! I've been missing having all this!"

"Aren't I," GLaDOS said with severe self-assurance.

"Yes! You are!" Claptrap shouted, almost pouncing on her for a hug, which she allowed. "I can finally listen to something that's not dubstep!"

He got so involved in whatever it was he was looking at – or listening to, perhaps – that he forgot entirely what GLaDOS had asked him to do. Which she didn't seem to mind that much. Or maybe she was just well used to how flighty he could be and she had decided not to make a big deal of it. The latter, probably. It probably hadn't been that easy for her to ask him in the first place. Sounded like the kind of thing she wouldn't want attention brought to. Wheatley would try to remember to talk to him about that.

GLaDOS had almost gone to sleep and Wheatley was ready to do so himself when he heard Claptrap start to cry again. He was obviously trying not to make a big deal of it, so Wheatley wasn't sure of what he should do. Go over and comfort him? Leave him alone, maybe? He was waffling over that when he heard GLaDOS's hard drive shift out of idle, and after a minute she said, "Are you alright." It wasn't with very much enthusiasm, but hopefully Claptrap understood by now that her logical processes took priority over her emotional ones.

"I'm fine," he said, his voice small and choked. "I'm just – this is the happiest day of my life! I have friends! Real friends! Who like me! Who want me around! You guys will not regret this. I know I said you would, but I think… I think I was wrong."

Wheatley waited for the insult, but… it never came. It almost seemed she hadn't heard at all.

Until she started singing.

Wheatley was so shocked he wasn't even able to process it. Even he hadn't heard her sing in… must've been years now! And now she was just… going for it. Oh, that was right. She really hated hearing people cry. He'd forgotten all about that.

"You just had to go and make this even better, didn't you. It's gonna be so hard to keep on living, knowing I've already had the best darn day I ever could have wished for."

"For once in your life, shut up," Wheatley said in annoyance. He was ruining it!

"But why are you – oh my gosh. You – you wanted me to stop crying, didn't you!"

"I wouldn't read too much into it," GLaDOS said quickly.

"Well, I would! And I already am! But I though you were asleep, that's why I – oh, geez, I was hanging onto you too tight, wasn't I. Sorry about that, I'll – "

"It wasn't bothering me," GLaDOS interrupted.

"So… are you cool with it? Or… oh. This is gonna be one of those questions you don't answer, huh."

"I already did," GLaDOS said simply. "Now I am going to sleep. You kept me up for four days and not in the fun way."

"Wanna sing a little more? Just a little? Out of the speck of goodness tucked away in the centre of the heart you shut off twenty years ago?"

"Oh, lord," GLaDOS said. "I'd forgotten I ever had one of those. But… if you're willing to be quiet, then yes."

"You're the best girlfriend ever."

"I'm getting pretty good at it."

No, Wheatley decided. For once, Claptrap wasn't even exaggerating. She was the best girlfriend ever. "I've got to agree with him, luv."

"Now it's your turn to shut up. And since all of us have been told that in turn today, I'd say it was high time we actually did it."

"Yeah, Wheatley, shush," Claptrap said. "I got some deep thoughts to get back to."

"You mean about what I said to you earlier?"

"Uhhh… that woulda made me sound smart, but no. I was thinking about whether pineapples belong on pizza. People're always like, 'the sweet of the pineapple goes so good with the salt of the ham!' but like… fruit on pizza? I can't even eat it and even I think that's weird."

"A Canadian invented that pizza," GLaDOS said. "That tells you everything you need to know."

"But… but isn't that pizza called the…" Darn. He couldn't remember, only that it had something to do with the United States.

"The Hawaiian, yes."

"Is… is Hawaii in Canada? Because I thought… I thought it was in America."

"International borders are mostly nonexistent at this point. For all we know the whole world is Canada by now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about but I do not wanna live somewhere that thinks fruit belongs on pizza."

"Claptrap. You do know tomatoes are botanically a fruit. Right?"

"Whaaaaaat? When did that happen!?"

"I am not explaining all of that to you right now."

"Ohhhh yes you are! You are telling me right now. Tomatoes are a vegetable!"

Well, that got her going, and since it was about science she could and did go on for literally hours about it. The discussion only ended because she actually fell asleep during it, which was adorable, and also a relief because Wheatley was getting rather tired himself. He hoped this wasn't going to happen every night. It probably only had because Claptrap had been off for a few days. Ohhh, that meant she'd missed him. He smiled to himself.

"Good to have you back, mate," he whispered.

"And I'm here to stay, buddy, thanks to you."

Quite a nice thought, that.

Author's note

Today is the fifth anniversary of Love as a Construct. Kinda. You could also say it's the third because of the hiatus. Whichever you like. I don't have anything special because I'm really bad at planning and time management. Also this note is REALLY LONG and contains a lot of background information for people who don't know anything about Claptrap, and also future me who won't remember what I was talking about. Also I'm Canadian so I'm allowed to make that joke (and yes, a Canadian really did invent the Hawaiian pizza and yes, I hate pineapples).

In Borderlands TPS there's a mission involving two claptrap units, one called CL4P-9000 (after HAL-9000) and one called DAN-TP (after SHODAN from System Shock).

The song is an actual song from the Claptastic Voyage DLC for Borderlands TPS, called MainFrame, and it is hilarious. In the DLC there's a mission where that song is an earworm, which you have to defeat so you can delete the file so he never has to hear that song again, but you instead accidentally delete 99.9% of his super awesome music collection where he's got stuff from across the universe and all you end up saving is dubstep (which he seems to have been collecting but not listening to). But because enemies in Borderlands are farmable, you don't actually delete Teh Earworm. She respawns. Soooo as a non-meta way of explaining that, we can pretend that his collection wasn't ACTUALLY deleted, it just went off somewhere he couldn't find it. Which is not implausible, considering.

Claptrap says in Borderlands 2 that he can't cry (like we do) and also if he could it would be dumb BUT during some idle dialogue in Borderlands TPS he mentions that he IS crying (like we do) and since the two games were made in different countries this was probably just a case of one developer not knowing what the other one already stated (Claptrap also tells you to kill anybody you hear calling him Clappy in Borderlands 2 but in the Claptastic Voyage there's a song he sorta made up where people are calling him that), but for the sake of attempting to find an in-universe reason for that I'm going to go with 'he actually does cry (like we do) but he likes to pretend he can't to make himself feel better'. It's also mentioned in Borderlands TPS that anyone who attempts to tamper with Hyperion robots will trigger some sort of adverse effect; some of them apparently melt down on the inside or self-destruct but Claptrap just started dancing when Jack did it. GLaDOS obviously can do it without triggering anything (even if it is just dancing).

The next paragraph explains who Felicity is, for people who are unsure of her relevance, but it is a massive story spoiler for Borderlands TPS so if you care about that, skip it.

So Felicity is an AI you rescue from her programmer because Jack needs a military AI to control his robot army. But the thing is, Jack wants to put her into a robot called a Constructor, which is basically a robot that can shoot missiles and digistruct (kinda like 3D printing) other robots. Felicity is pure AI and helps you build the first Constructor, but it has arms and legs which she absolutely hates. She also doesn't like having to kill people. She asks Jack to wait a few days so she can copy herself and he's like no, we need you in there right now. So the scientist who created the Constructor forces her into the robot, with the help of the Vault Hunters, and then you have to subdue her. Pretty much all that's left of her at the end is hatred. Claptrap mentions he's having an existential crisis over what they did to her, which nobody cares about of course, but then you get into the Claptastic Voyage DLC where you receive a mission from Claptrap's superego. He tells you you're going to rescue a damsel in distress from a supervillain, which you do, and the damsel turns out to be, of course, Felicity. But she's like 'no, you don't get to rescue me after what you did' and his superego is all 'oh so I'm the villain huh' and then you have to defeat HIM and after that he says 'I don't understand what I did wrong. I only wanted to save her' and Felicity says something like 'I think the people who did this deserve to be punished, don't you think?' and the whole thing is actually really tragic because she's in his brain haunting him but ONLY because she doesn't know HE was being forced against his will to do things too. So that's why she holds so much significance for him.