Part 100. Wheatley and Claptrap's Pandora Adventure

Synopsis: A trip to retrieve something nice for GLaDOS goes a bit haywire, but a little teamwork between BFFs will take care of THAT.

Pre-note: This chapter is REALLY LONG and I do NOT LIKE going over 5K for a chapter BUT considering this is the hundred-chapter mark and I hope to end before chapter two hundred, I deemed it acceptable to make it extra-long (especially since the fifth/third anniversary chapter was kinda… unexciting). The wordcount is just under 19K.

"Wheaters," Claptrap announced, coming upon him while he was making his weekly attempt to avoid bumping into Meghan in any of the usual places, "I'm going to Pandora."

"Um… goodbye, then?" Wheatley said uncertainly.

"Actually, you're coming with. We just gotta carry out my amazing idea before we get going."

Wheatley spent a moment or two deciding whether he actually wanted to go, until he remembered that Claptrap was quite capable of handling that all on his own. So there had to be some reason he wanted to have Wheatley along. "Sure," he said, following behind before Claptrap got too far ahead.

"Just work with me for a sec, alright? It'll be great, I promise!"

Oh, he absolutely would. Claptrap's ideas were always very amusing at the very least, and since they were about to go on a trip it probably wouldn't even be messy this time.

"Baby!" Claptrap declared when she was within view. GLaDOS glanced over at them.

"What."

"Wheatley and I are going to Pandora! And –"

"Oh, thank God," GLaDOS said.

"I knew you were going to say that," Claptrap said, propping his hands against his chassis with his elbows out. "And after we were sooooo nice to you last night."

GLaDOS suddenly decided she was very busy elsewhere, which she indicated by turning away from them, and Wheatley tried not to but he did laugh a bit. She rarely got upset at anything Claptrap said, anyway, so it was probably fine. That whole thing had been very, very interesting, especially the part where it had been made evident that when GLaDOS had told him Claptrap didn't know any tricks about maintenance, she hadn't been entirely truthful. Or perhaps he really didn't, and it had just seemed as though he did to Wheatley, but either way she seemed to have liked it all well enough.

"And you thought that would change anything why?" GLaDOS said, in a futile attempt to regain the ground she'd lost. Claptrap brought his arms to the front of his chassis, adopting a wounded affect.

"Don't deny me my hopes and dreams! They're all I have to live for! And hopefully you'll be… uh… benevolent enough to grant me this one request before we, your beloved boyfriends, away to parts unknown!"

"If you want to be ground into a paste, you don't need to ask. I'll happily do that without being convinced. Really. It's no trouble."

"Tempting, babe, but no. What I need is a kiss from a fair maiden! And that would be you."

GLaDOS spared him the barest glance with her optic narrowed. "What? Why on earth would you need that?"

"What do you mean, why?" Claptrap asked, throwing up his arms. "Because I'm your boyfriend! And I asked nicely!"

"You need it?"

"Yes! I do!"

"I suppose," GLaDOS relented, moving to his level. "Come here, then."

But instead of quite closing the space between them, Claptrap held his hand out. GLaDOS stared at it.

"You want me to kiss your hand?"

"Yep! Put it right there." He closed and opened it a few times to illustrate.

GLaDOS shook her core and did as he asked, and while she was moving back he closed his hand and held it up in front of him. "See, I don't want it now," he said, ejecting his storage tray and tilting his hand over it. "I want it for later! When I need it. So I'm just gonna hang onto it until then."

GLaDOS went stock still and just stared at him, and when Wheatley realised what was going on he whispered to Claptrap in delight, "I think you broke her."

"Toldja it was an amazing idea," Claptrap whispered from behind his hand.

"Aw," Wheatley said to GLaDOS teasingly, "is someone having feelings again?"

"No," GLaDOS protested unconvincingly.

"She's definitely having one or two," Claptrap stage-whispered, and this spurred her into motion again.

"I am not."

"Babe. Baby. Sugar-bits. Honey-RAM –"

"What," GLaDOS snapped, looking back to them again very sharply, and Claptrap blew her a very dramatic kiss, complete with sound effects and a lot of arm fluttering. When GLaDOS did not quite succeed in sighing in annoyance, Wheatly just had to give Claptrap a high five, which might have been what caused her to say, almost seriously, "You know that I hate you with every ampere of current that runs through my body. Right?"

"Yes, my love!"

"Now get out of here before I enact one of my fantasies of thoroughly demolishing you with one of your beloved doors."

"You'd be mistaken if you thought that was in any way a punishment!"

"Get out of here. Right now."

"I'll miss ya!" Claptrap declared, though he did start backing up and Wheatley with him.

"You can't possibly do that if you don't leave, so you had better get started."

"You should probably miss us too!" Wheatley added, just to get her thinking about it because, honestly, that might lead her to actually doing it, but her only response was an exasperated shake of her core.

"Oh yeah," Claptrap said, whirling around before they'd quite left. "Babe, I got a teeny tiny favour to ask you. For when we come back."

"Do you know what disaster you're going to cause over there already?"

"What? Nooooo. No, I need you to tweak the ad-blocker for me. It's uh… stuff's getting through."

GLaDOS looked at him with the top half of her lens raised. "The clickbait again?"

He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "They just know what I'm gonna click on, honey-RAM! I can't resist! Can you fix it please? It was so nice to be able to avoid all that product placement and I was actually getting through my inbox and – "

"Yes," GLaDOS interrupted. "When you get back. There was a minor change I forgot to make anyway."

He straightened himself by jumping a little. "Thanks, babe! I love ya!"

She didn't say anything to that, which was really one of the better reactions they could have expected after double-teaming her like that. When they'd gotten down the hall a ways, Wheatley said, "You're good at the… the giving her nice feelings. Thing."

Claptrap shrugged. "I watch a lot of TV. You would not believe how many soaps I have to get through every week."

Wheatley didn't know what soap had to do with television, but he'd probably end up finding out eventually. Claptrap was bound to cover every topic under both their sun and his, given the staggering amount of time he spent talking. "Yeah, but… you've got to be able to pull it off. If I tried any of uh, any of those things you do, I'd muck it up before I finished!"

"Probably. But she'd appreciate the effort! Even if she tried to pretend she didn't." He started running one hand along the wall. "Man, that part's what makes all of this hard sometimes, y'know? I get these feelings that make me wanna give her feelings, and then when I do it I get more of them! And it's just so overwhelming sometimes."

"'s the same with her, you know," Wheatley told him, wondering if he'd figured that out himself already. He seemed to have a good handle on why she did things. "Only diff'rence is she's… better at ignoring it. Temptation's not got much of a hold on her."

"That must be the life," Claptrap mused, complete with thoughtful hand under his optic. Then he waved it in dismissal. "Ah, that's okay. She's gotta be like that."

"Hm?"

Claptrap waved a hand in front of him, accidentally smacking it into the teleporter they'd come up on without either of them noticing. "Ow. She's a supercomputer, Wheats. A logic machine! Emotions are bad for her. Get in the way of the logic. And a lotta people's existences rely on that logic. If she starts trading logic for emotion, well… none of this is gonna last too long."

Wheatley wondered just how much he'd been told about the one time GLaDOS's logic had failed her. Should he do it? She wasn't likely ever to. Perhaps he should. But not now. He needed to consider it more first. "D'you wish you didn't have them? Feelings, I mean."

"Ehhhh…" Claptrap shrugged again. "Kinda? But my job's to be friendly and it's really hard to be that if you aren't feeling it."

Wheatley could understand that. It was pretty tough to be nice to the humans out of logic, and even if he hadn't known that himself it had been proven many times over by GLaDOS.

"Alright, buddy," Claptrap said, holding up his arms to accept Wheatley from the ceiling. "Say. Ever been on a boat before?"

"You've got a boat?" Wheatley asked in disbelief, which did a lot to mask the discomfort he felt from falling even now.

"Yep! Least, it's probably still there. Nobody goes out that far. Too cold. I know a guy that lives there, but mostly 'cause it's the only place on Pandora you won't find any threshers."

"What's that?" Wheatley asked, screwing his optic closed against the unpleasantness of the digitisation process. It took a minute for his system to reinitialise, and when it did he was struck with the sensation of a deep and powerful coldness. When he opened his shields again he was greeted with a great swath of white. It was just white, everywhere. The ground, the cliffs, the… well, he wasn't sure what those sort of rocky towers were, but they were white as well. Even the sky was a bit tinged in that way. All of it brought attention to the fact that there was not really anything else to look at. It was just… a desolate, empty bit of land. Just nothing anyplace.

"Threshers?" said Claptrap. "They're uh… they're like worms. Really, really, really big worms. With tentacles. And teeth. And they throw rocks and stuff. And sometimes they're on fire. Or generating black holes. The important thing is, the ground is too hard for them to live here! So we'll never see one."

He sort of wished he hadn't asked. "What's got the ground so hard?"

"That's just what happens when it gets real cold. Hey. It's gonna make this take a little longer, but we're gonna take my boat the rest of the way from here. I miss that old thing! Don't worry, I'll speed it up this time!"

"What?" Wheatley asked, totally confused.

"I uh… used to run the ferry reaaaaally slowly. For the company! Probably why not a lot of people took it. Come to think of it, way more people jumped off the boat than I ever took all the way to the other end. No prizes for guessing why." He held his free hand up above his optic and looked about him. "Hm. I think it's… that way." And off they went.

Another thing about this great white place, Wheatley thought, was the quiet. It was very quiet, and honestly that unnerved him quite a lot. Aperture was, in essence, a great living machine. There was never a moment where he couldn't hear at least a dozen or so things happening around him. Out here all there was was Claptrap's wheel crunching a path into the snow and the sound of his own optic looking about. It got to the point where he started to feel self-conscious about it and moved as little as possible. Thankfully, it was not a terribly long time before he spied what must have been Claptrap's boat off in the distance. "Is that it?" he asked.

"Yep! Still there and still intact! Truly an indicator that something is going to go right today!"

The side of the boat had two sort of large notches cut out of it, so that people could get onto it without climbing over it, Wheatley supposed, and it was led up to by a ramp. It would have been generous to refer to the ramp as 'built'; the short incline was the only part of it where the sheets of metal and wooden boards were actually secured with anything. The longer, level bit that extended over the water had them just sort of flung where convenient and left that way. All of it, including the ship itself, was covered over with about six centimetres of snow.

The boat was actually… a lot nicer than he'd expected. It wasn't the Borealis (which, come to think of it, Wheatley had never actually seen) but it wasn't a patched-up rowboat, either. It was about six metres long, with a cabin set back from the middle that had two levels and was curved in the front. There was some sort of cobbled-together antenna that was half as tall as the boat was long, and it had a couple of crates and barrels stacked about it. "Wait here one sec," Claptrap said, putting him down on the set closest to the bow, and Wheatley looked 'round to see him behind the cabin. Whatever he needed to do in there must have distracted him because he didn't return for another few minutes. Sure enough, upon his return he said, "Sorry. There was, like, a skeleton in there and it really made me think!"

"About what?" Wheatley asked as Claptrap hoisted himself up to sort of sit on the crate next to Wheatley.

"About how much it must suck to have one. Also, that feet are weird. It's those toes…"

"They probably think having a wheel is weird," said Wheatley, who privately thought so himself, and Claptrap waved a hand in dismissal.

"Y'know the two greatest inventions humans always go on and on about?"

"No."

"Sliced bread," Claptrap declared, "and the wheel. I have never heard a human say 'remember that time we invented legs? Wasn't that a great day?' No! It's the wheel that's obviously superior."

"D'you s'pose that's because… because you can't invent something that already exists?" Wheatley asked tentatively. After all these years he still hadn't picked up that much about science, but this one thing he was pretty sure of.

Claptrap scoffed. "Humans loooove doing that! And even if they didn't, even the fanciest legs they came up with have nothin' on the real deal. They got peg legs, running legs, roller skatin' legs, robots with legs. And they all suck! A wheel's a wheel. Easy come, easy go, and then easy come again. You know the easiest way to stop a human is to shoot him in the knee?"

"I did not know that," Wheatley answered, filing that away for later. Just in case.

"Yep! Replacement knees are crap, buddy. Takes like a year for their leg to almost go back to normal. And then the replacement needs replacing after ten years! It's dumb! But they think they're so great with their disco pants and platform shoes…"

"Y'know what I always found strange?" Wheatley mused. "That they've got two of ev'rything. And what they haven't got two of, it's sort of… in the middle. So it can be um, so that it's sort of split into two anyways. Ever noticed that?"

"I'll tell ya why," Claptrap said, placing one hand on the crate next to him and turning to face Wheatley a little. "It's 'cause they break down a lot."

"Really?" Wheatley asked.

"Oh, yeah," Claptrap answered. "See, when humans bust something it takes like six months for it to fix itself. And it'll fix itself aaaaaaall wrong if you let it. Like if they break their foot and they don't cover it all up in plaster and junk the bones'll glue themselves back together just how they were left and then they're just left all mangled like that! And then someone usually cuts their foot off and gives 'em a fake one. Humans've only got two really good parts, and even then only until they hit about forty."

"Which parts are those?"

"The liver," Claptrap said, "and fingers." He looked at the hand he wasn't leaning on. "The one thing I really wish I had was fingers. But no. 'You won't be firing a gun' they said. 'Only robots that get fingers have them to shoot stuff' they said." He shook his folded-up hand at the sky. "Don't you know how hard it is to do data entry with a spatula!?"

"Yeah," agreed Wheatley. "They do seem to be rather useful, but I don't think I'd be able to um, to coordinate them. How many've they got again? Six?"

"Well, they're supposed to come with ten, but – "

"Ten?" Wheatley interrupted, gobsmacked. "What – wouldn't three do?"

"I'm confused," Claptrap said. "Are we talking per hand or in total?"

"Per hand!"

"Oh. No, it's five each. Well, actually it's four and then a thumb. They use those to indicate approval. I don't think they're good for much else. At least, that's pretty much all I use mine for."

"But that's still so many!"

"I don't know what they're all for. Maybe something to do with whatever it is that's up their noses."

Wheatley frowned. "They've got something up their noses?"

Claptrap shrugged. "Whatever it is, it must be something good! They're not supposed to take it out, though. Kids always get yelled at for trying."

"And…" What was that other thing he said was important? "The liver? What about that? What's so great about it?"

"You can cut off most of it and it'll grow back! Good as new!" Claptrap waved his free hand through the air in front of him. "It's mostly used to filter all the chemicals humans cram into themselves, but if they do that for too long it just gives up and they die."

"That sounds reasonable," Wheatley said. "'s the point of it doing all that work if they just, if they don't learn better?"

"Beats me," said Claptrap. "Humans take every excuse not to learn stuff. And then when their meaty parts start to crap out they cry and ask what they did wrong! I'm pretty sure that stabbing pain in your chest was supposed to be your first clue, but what do I know?"

That reminded Wheatley of something he'd been meaning to ask, and while he was struggling to think of it Claptrap hopped back onto his wheel and rolled up to the bow, putting his arms along the edge of it. Damn. What had it been? Something to do with today… and GLaDOS… and…

"Claptrap," Wheatley said, "I've been wondering about something."

"About what?"

"About why you… well, she said she… had fantasies about smashing you with a door."

"She's not the first nor will she be the last!"

"And you don't mind when she says things like that?"

"Should I?"

"Why don't you?"

Claptrap spun around and put his elbows against the bow. "Wheats, there's nothing she can say that's worse than what I've already heard. Plus I know she's not actually gonna do it. A lotta other people already did the stuff they threatened to do."

Wheatley was so taken aback he was unable to think for a moment. "And… and what exactly was that?"

"Oh, tons of stuff," Claptrap said, very nonchalantly in fact. "A little of everything! Had my memory erased a few times. Whenever someone wanted to mess with my programming I kinda had to let them. Once I even belonged to a guy who set me on fire for fun! She can threaten to toss me in the incinerator aaaaall she wants. Even if she's really mad she'll probably still be nicer than he was."

It seemed there were much, much worse things than being ignored. Like having lots of attention paid to you. "Your um… don't want to be offensive, here, don't want to do that, but uh… well, quite frankly, your life sucks, mate."

"I know," Claptrap said. "I try not to think about it. Also, she's super hot. It's really hard to care about being insulted when the person doing it looks like that."

"She's so pretty you don't mind when she's cruel with you?" Wheatley asked, confused. She was certainly very beautiful, but never once had it occurred to him for it to change his mind or make him feel better about anything she did that he disliked.

"No, she's so sexy I don't mind. They're a little different."

"I don't think I'll ever understand any of that business," Wheatley confessed. He'd thought he had some idea of it, but considering last night there seemed to be a lot of things he was totally, completely missing. Claptrap shrugged.

"You're probably better off. It kinda sucks to be horny all the time. It's not the same when you try to fix it yourself."

Wheatley was going to have to guess what that meant, but he was pretty sure it related to Claptrap's glitch. "Gladys said it was alright if you got another girlfriend. Fair's fair. Remember?"

"Yeah," Claptrap said, now positioning his arms so that they were out over the water. "And trust me. I thought I was gonna be aaaaall over that. But… I dunno. I haven't even tried. I'm not sure what's going on. I'll figure it out sometime."

He probably knew the best way to manage his own affairs by now, but just in case Wheatley said anyway, "You know if… if you need to talk about… things… I'm good for it, yeah? Even the… the bad stuff."

"But then I'd just be sad," Claptrap said, shrugging. "I don't wanna be sad. I'd rather do better stuff and then think about that instead!"

"But that doesn't work!" Wheatley protested, leaning forward as much as he dared. The boat was pretty steady, for something that was bobbing along in a great pool of water, but he still didn't want to end up rolling about the deck. "You can't just pretend –"

"Wheatley," Claptrap interrupted, straightening himself, "you're a good friend and I appreciate you a lot. But shut up."

"Claptrap – "

"Tell me something," Claptrap cut in again. "How many people do you know? Like, really know. Not just… know about."

"Um…" He looked down at the crate to give himself a minute to think. "Just… Carrie and Gladys and you, I think."

"Pretty sure you don't actually know one of those people."

He felt sort of… hurt by that. "You think I don't know you?"

"I know you don't."

"How can I be your best friend then?" Wheatley nearly shouted, more upset by this than he wanted to be.

"Just 'cause you don't doesn't mean you don't want to." He moved up in front of Wheatley again, putting one of his hands on top of a crate.

"And why don't I? Because you tell her ev'rything and, and keep it from me?" he said, without meaning to. Claptrap looked at him silently for a minute.

"She understands stuff that you never will," he said, quietly enough that Wheatley felt bad. "Look. I'm sorry. I didn't know it bothered you. I wasn't trying to be a jerk."

"You weren't," Wheatley said heavily. "This… it happens a lot. I've got to get over it."

"It's not a good thing to go through all the stuff we did. You should be happy you don't know about it."

"I just don't like to be left out of things," mumbled Wheatley.

"I'll get around to telling you eventually, and at that time you'll wish you could go back to not knowing! And you might, 'cause you seem like you forget stuff." He looked out the front of the boat again.

"'s not my fault my files haven't got any indexing," Wheatley said resentfully.

"Or is it?" Claptrap announced, leaning towards him with one hand positioned accusingly. "Never asked to have 'em indexed, didja?"

"Well… no," Wheatley admitted. "I thought if Gladys wanted them, if she wanted that she'd just've done it."

"Why would she care what you do with your files?"

That was a good question that Wheatley did not have an answer for, but he was safe from trying to come up with one because Claptrap hopped around to face forward, shouted, "Land ho!" extremely loudly, and then headed back in the direction of the cabin, calling out, "Okay! I can take her up just about right where we're going, but we'll have to be careful. There's bullymongs afoot here!"

"Which are…"

"Kinda like… Donkey Kong, but they throw rocks insteada barrels."

That didn't really clarify anything, but Wheatley was definitely hoping to avoid having anything thrown at him today. It didn't really matter to him the size.

"The Vault Hunters cleaned out the bandits a while back so we should be good there. If not, I'll just uh… move really fast, I guess."

While Claptrap was off… steering, Wheatley looked over to see where it was, exactly, they were. It was just more snow, with some little wooden buildings sticking out of it in some places. Beyond those there was a massive cliff. Part of it was led up to by a moderate incline, and both sides were marked with walls made out of great bricks of snow. He sort of didn't want to head out there. It didn't look any nicer than the place they'd just come from.

"Alright," said Claptrap, scooping Wheatley under one arm. "Welcome to Liar's Berg! I sorta used to live here. Sorta not really. But I used to visit a lot!"

"There's nothing out here," Wheatley said, confused.

"Nope."

"Then why were you sort of living here?"

"'cause I couldn't get to Sanctuary," Claptrap explained, crossing the great expanse of ice in a minute or so and heading up the little hill. "Not without my boat. It was way too far."

"Where was the boat, again?" Wheatley asked as Claptrap passed underneath a gate that marked a gap between one of the walls and the cliff. Beyond it was another little collection of houses, all of them buried in snow and quite obviously abandoned.

"Someone stole it. My stuff gets stolen a lot." He paused in front of one of the buildings with his folded hand raised. "Okay. So, this guy may or may not be happy to see me. But he's a gentleman! So he'll at least hear me out!"

"What're we here to do, exactly?" Wheatley asked. "You haven't told me yet."

"You'll find out in a sec," Claptrap answered, and he raised his free hand and knocked on the door three times. "Gosh. I sure hope he's home."

It seemed that he was, because the door opened a few moments later and behind it stood a man dressed in clothes that fit him quite more than did the ones the humans had back on Earth. He had on a hat with a curved brim and most of his face was hidden, some behind a great deal of moustache and one eye behind a round piece of glass. The most striking thing about him was that he had some robot bits attached to him! His entire right arm and his right leg below the knee. Now here was a fellow who must know a fair bit about constructs, Wheatley thought, seeing as he was partially one himself. He had some large blue pouches strung on either side of his legs, and all of his clothes were brown. When he looked down and spotted Claptrap and Wheatley he took a step backward.

"Claptrap?" he asked with a very posh accent that Wheatley was immediately jealous of. "The rumour was you'd found some other locale on which to demonstrate your special brand of disaster."

"Oh, I did!" Claptrap answered. "But I'm still gonna come back sometimes. I still love you guys! Hammerlock, this is my best friend Wheatley! Wheatley, this is Sir Hammerlock! He's the wildlife studying guy around here. Or anywhere."

"How do you do," Hammerlock said, nodding to Wheatley, who couldn't do much other than nod back, say "'allo!", and hope this bloke didn't notice how humdrum his own accent was.

"So, I was hoping you could help me out," Claptrap said, holding his free hand palm out and to the right. "I wanna bring something back for my girlfriend, since she really likes science-y stuff, and – "

"What?" Hammerlock interrupted. "Girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Claptrap said, and if he weren't mistaken the arm around Wheatley seemed to tighten suddenly. Ohhhh. Oh, now he knew what he was there for. "I…"

"He has got one," Wheatley said, looking up at Hammerlock as seriously as he could in his position. "She's not 'maginary."

"She must lack ears that work with even the most remote efficacy, then."

Wheatley squinted at the ground in the hopes it would help him work out what 'efficacy' was, but Claptrap said, in a tone that did worry him a bit,

"No. No, she can hear, and she listens when I talk. And she likes it! But I'm not here to talk about her."

That, Wheatley thought, was terribly sad.

"I just wanna bring her a cryovine. I know she'll love it. She gets a kick outta stuff like that. But I can't just pull one outta the ground and bring it back. I know you had, like, a whole buncha scientist boyfriends. Was one of 'em a botanist that's got a sample of one lying around I can have?"

Hammerlock studied him for a minute.

"I will transmit the location to your ECHO," he answered finally. "But there had better actually be a lady friend this time."

"There is," Claptrap said, moving back about a metre. "She's not a power box and she's not a refrigerator."

"Very well," Hammerlock said. "Safe travels!"

Wheatley frowned as Claptrap turned and cast about, probably deciding what route was best to take. "That's a bit of an odd thing to say."

"Huh?"

"Why would he tell you to travel safe? Does he think something's going to happen?"

"It's not exactly unheard of." He rolled back down the hill they'd come up and paused to shade his optic with his free hand. "I think it's just over there. This'll only take like ten minutes at this rate!"

Wheatley didn't really mind if it took all day, as long as nothing overly dangerous happened. He did want to get home in one piece. The place Claptrap was headed toward was a little cluster of wooden buildings, connected by some shoddy wooden platforms, ramps, and stairs. Littered about were the usual storage boxes, barrels, and strange circular containers, along with a smattering of boats trapped in ice and snow. It was entirely unremarkable and Wheatley couldn't imagine anybody actually living there. For one thing, it all looked about to fall to pieces. For another, there didn't seem to be any electricity around and humans couldn't live for long without any of that. Nor could Wheatley, obviously, but he'd do a lot less complaining about it if he happened not to have any for a while.

"Ohhhhh no," Claptrap said, stopping suddenly at the top of the ramp leading up to wherever they were going. "Uh… we're gonna have to cut this trip short. To like, right now."

"Why?" Wheatley asked. He didn't see anything dangerous. There was just more snow and a house upon a little hill, led up to by a bit of a rickety set of stairs in an L-shape.

"Because… um… just trust me on this, alright?"

"You're going to go back without the… the thing?"

"It's not that important. I mean, she doesn't even know I'm getting it for her! She'll never miss something she didn't know about."

"Oh," said Wheatley, a little sadly. "That's a shame, mate. Whatever that vine thing was, she really would have loved it."

Claptrap paused. "Really?" he asked, voice subdued.

"Oh yeah," Wheatley nodded. "I give her a dandelion ev'ry year and she just, she knows it's coming but she loves it anyway. Keeps all of 'em in this little room she's got. Ev'ry single thing somebody gives her. She keeps it in there. Hangs onto it. She really appreciates all of them."

"Oh… dammit," Claptrap said, chassis sagging in frustration. "Look. The reason we gotta leave is… is I can't go and get it."

"Why not?" asked Wheatley. "'s just in that little house, there, isn't it?"

"It's… it's not the house that's the problem."

"There's probably not anyone living in it. You won't have to explain to a stranger that you really have got a girlfriend."

"It's not that either! It's something else."

"Well, what is it?"

Claptrap sighed and put him down upon a barrel sitting at the top of the ramp. "It's… it's the stairs."

Wheatley squinted at them. "Are they… is there something the matter with them?"

"No. Not with them. Wheatley, it's… I'm afraid of stairs."

"Um," Wheatley said, not sure where to go with that one. "Afraid of stairs, mate?"

"Yeah. There's a lotta reasons I can't climb stairs – I don't have the right protocols, the right wheel, or wheel brakes – but the biggest reason is that I'm scared of them."

"Have you ever tried to go up a set?"

"Yeah," Claptrap answered. "I wasn't always afraid of stairs. One time I tried to climb some and I almost did! But like I said. Wrong wheel and no brakes. I got within three stairs of the top and then… I missed one. And I fell back down them all. I thought I was never gonna stop falling." He sighed and folded his arms against his chassis. "And when I finally picked myself up and looked back at the stairs… they just seemed so high! I knew they weren't, not really, but I was just looking up them and they went on forever! Not only was I never gonna get to the top, but if I tried I'd have even farther to fall! And… I never tried to climb stairs again. And I can't climb 'em now. That's why we gotta go."

Here was something Wheatley could do that was loads more useful than convincing people that Claptrap actually did have a girlfriend! Just… how to go about it… hm. It really would have been useful to know Claptrap a bit better so he'd know which angle to come at him with. He would have to… to attempt to bolster his self-confidence. That should do it.

"Claptrap," said Wheatley, praying for his powers of persuasion to work once again, "I'm not… I'm not gonna tell you not to be scared, or, or think less of you if you decide you've got to walk away from this. You're the one who's got to do it, in the end. And that's… and that's the thing, mate. You've only got to do it once. Then you've done it. Then you know you can do it. And you won't need to be frightened anymore, because… well, because you did it. 's done. Maybe the, the old you couldn't do it, but the new Claptrap, well, who knows what he can do? Hasn't really tried to test himself out yet!"

Claptrap was gripping the edge of the barrel quite hard, but he was looking at the stairs now and the little shack he needed to get up to. "But what if I fall?" he asked quietly, almost to himself.

"If you think you're going to, then you will," Wheatley said. "'s how it works. You've got to believe you can do it."

"But how?" Claptrap exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "My wheel doesn't have an outdoor tread on it! I'm an office robot! I'm not even supposed to be outside!"

"Okay," said Wheatley. He wasn't able to do this now, then. He'd have to work out the things he needed to say some other time. This sort of endeavour did take some practise, and he hadn't really had any yet. "We can go, then. Maybe you can ask someone to do it for you later."

Claptrap turned suddenly to look at him, and after a few moments of staring he said, "Are you trying to make me feel bad? 'cause it's working."

"No," he answered, entirely honest. "There's been loads of things you've uh, you've mentioned you can't do. And ev'rytime you just, you go and ask someone else to do it for you. So… you can have someone else fetch your vine, I s'pose."

"No I can't," Claptrap said vehemently, pushing himself off the container. "I mean, for the other thing? Yeah. There's no way I can get that by myself. But this? This is just… stairs! Everybody can use stairs. And it's… it's not even straight all the way up. There's like… it's got a landing. And the first part's got a railing. That's not so bad. Right?"

"No," Wheatley, who knew absolutely nothing about stairs whatsoever, answered. "No, not at all."

"I can't just ask somebody to help me every time I wanna get something nice for my girlfriend! That's ridiculous! What kinda boyfriend would I be then? Can't even get up a flight of stairs to grab her some small token of my appreciation. That's really sad, Wheats."

Now he was going a little too far with it. "Claptrap – "

"Hold up!" Claptrap interrupted, holding out his hand. "That ol' familiar self-hatred is just what I need to get me up those stairs."

"Well, you could –"

"Buddy, if there's one thing I know, it's how I get myself to do stuff I don't wanna do. And the only road that I can count on to get me there is paved with shame." He rolled up to the stairs so that his wheel was touching the lowest one. "Just… don't laugh if I fall. Okay?"

"Of course not," Wheatley said gently. "We're a team."

"Okay," Claptrap said. "I'm gonna do this." He put his hand on the railing and stared at the lowest step for a minute. "Actually, maybe I'm not."

"It can't be that hard," Wheatley said, wondering how on earth he was supposed to talk a robot into climbing a set of stairs when Wheatley didn't even know how to do it himself, let alone what he'd meant when he'd said all that stuff about brakes and protocols. "'s not like you've got to hop or anything."

"That's true," said Claptrap. "Maybe if I just kinda use the railing to pull myself up I won't be in danger of falling! Well, I still will be 'cause if I pull too hard I'm just gonna spin around and crash into the railing and then I'll probably –"

"Let's not get into what-ifs!" Wheatley said quickly. "Let's just… do that thing you said. Before. While forgetting about the other thing."

"What was it I said?"

"You were going to um, to use the railing to sort of pull yourself up."

"Oh yeah!" And he proceeded to do just that… for exactly one of the stairs.

"You alright?" Wheatley asked after he didn't move for a good minute or so.

"Yeah, I was just… thinkin' about how there's no goin' back now. And also about how high these stairs are. Do they actually go where we think they go, or do they go somewhere else? We'll never know!"

"I can see the top of them, Claptrap."

"Oh my gosh! Really? What's up there?"

He almost answered with 'more stairs', but then he caught himself in time and said, "Nothin'. Just a nice um, a nice little place you can stand and look at the stairs you just climbed."

"How kind of the people who built this place! Other than the fact that they coulda just built a ramp! It woulda been wayyyy more wheelchair friendly! Also more wheel friendly in general."

"Mmhm," said Wheatley, who was busy imagining how easy this would all be if he had some management rails at his disposal.

Claptrap got up three more of the stairs without incident, other than the need to discuss it every single time that was, and then he stopped for so long that Wheatley only noticed because he stopped talking. He understood Claptrap was having a bit of a crisis over there, but he didn't really need Wheatley's input whatsoever. It would've been a bit different if Wheatley had been going up the stairs with him, but since he wasn't it was a lot more interesting (not to mention distracting) to look over at the little village in the distance across the way and think about what sort of robots lived there. All he'd really decided was that they definitely had legs.

"Claptrap?" he asked, still not really paying attention.

"I don't know if I can do the rest of 'em."

He turned to see that Claptrap was now halfway up the stairs, which did nothing to make him any less confused. "Why not? You've already done half of them."

"I know, but… that means I got all that way to fall."

"You're not going to fall."

"How do you know?" Claptrap said, sounding more than a little panicked. "I fall down all the time! Even when I'm standing still on totally flat ground!"

Oh, God. He was going to have to come up with something ridiculous to get this finished. For some reason Claptrap was far more inclined to believe totally made-up things than he was reasons that actually made sense. It was something to do with his intense loyalty, which made Wheatley feel a bit bad for even considering lying to him, but getting him back down the stairs was going to be just as much work as getting him up them, so might as well try to get him to do the latter. "Uh… I know because…" Ohhhh he'd just thought of something, but it was so untrue… "Because you have got stair-climbing protocols!"

"I do?"

"Yeah!" Wheatley said, nodding enthusiastically even though if Claptrap turned around he really was going to fall. "I'm surprised you don't know about them! I s'pose Gladys just uh, just forgot to tell you!"

"She gave me stair-climbing protocols? Really?"

"Mmhm!"

"That seems like a weird thing for her not to mention."

"Oh, you know how she is," Wheatley said, praying to both robot gods that he would just take it at face value already. "Always fond of her surprises."

"Okay," said Claptrap. "But uh… if I have the protocols, why aren't they kicking in?"

Oh, bollocks. He should've known better than to get into a conversation about programs and activating them. "Perhaps they um… they… aren't connected properly. System hasn't recognised you're on the stairs yet! So just uh, just keep at it and they'll um, it'll get there. Eventually."

"Wheatley, that really doesn't sound – "

"Just try it!" Wheatley shouted in a panic, wanting to avoid telling Claptrap he was lying for quite a while yet. "C'mon! You know what your system is like, 's not a failing if she didn't manage to patch the whole thing!"

"Okay," Claptrap said. "None of this really sounds like her, but I'll take your word for it. After all! Why would you lie?"

"Uh… no reason," Wheatley answered nervously. "I wouldn't! 'course not! Just keep on, there, yeah?"

"Sure thing! Also, I hope those protocols come in soon. They'd make all of this wayyyy easier." And he got up another stair, at which time Wheatley was able to relax his chassis.

It took him another ten minutes or so, which were very nerve-wracking for Wheatley considering he had to keep a microphone out for Claptrap asking about the nonexistent protocols, but Claptrap finally made it onto the landing. As soon as he did he moved over into the corner, as far away from them as possible, and looked over the edge of the railing.

"Man. I can't remember the last time I did something that was this much work!"

"It's worth it, though, isn't it?" Wheatley asked anxiously, really hoping he wasn't going to give up now and head back down again.

"Probably. Everything is kinda being overshadowed by an intense amount of fear right now."

"You're nearly there!" Wheatley told him gently, and Claptrap waved one of his hands palm up in his direction.

"I know. That isn't really helping, though. The rest of the stairs don't have a railing."

"But there's only four of them!"

"There might as well be four hundred." He turned around and looked at them. "Wheatley, I… I don't wanna do this anymore."

"But you're so close! Why would you give up now?"

"Because I'm scared!" Claptrap yelled back down at him, throwing up his arms. "And also I know you lied about the protocols! I don't have 'em! So how am I supposed to do this without even a railing!"

"I'm sorry!" Wheatley shouted back. "I just wanted you to keep trying! I know it's hard but you can't just give up all the time!"

"Why not? It's worked well for me so far!"

"Fine then!" Wheatley turned away from him. "Give up! Just keep on being what you were made to be!"

"What… what's that mean?"

He shrugged as best he could without tipping himself over. "You know. Exactly what they wanted. There's not a real reason to give a robot fear other than to, other than to keep him in line. And there's nobody doing that but you right now, and you're not doing it for anybody, so, so I s'pose you liked it that way."

"I don't like it that way," Claptrap said quietly. "But I don't think you really understand what it is to be afraid of something. Every time you say you are you just do it anyway. This isn't like that. This is more like… just the thought of doing this is so scary I'd almost rather die. And I hate dying."

"But you've already done most of it!"

Claptrap didn't say anything to that. He just decided to lay down on the landing instead, so that all Wheatley could see of him was the bottom of his wheel, and he looked up at the sky in powerlessness. Not only did he have no idea how to convince Claptrap to continue, but it was possible he no longer trusted Wheatley at all. After a few minutes of silence he said, tentatively,

"What would it take to get you up the rest?"

"I don't know," Claptrap said, subdued but still reasonably audible. "I've never done anything like this before. I told you. I always give up instead."

Oh. Oh, that… he had an idea. "So you've never… never really accomplished anything before."

"No."

"So d'you know what comes with accomplishing something? 'specially something that, that's really hard and that you don't want to do and that you're afraid of?"

"Uh… no. I don't think so."

"Pride," Wheatley said, leaning forward to emphasise out of habit. "You'll've done something you can be proud of."

Claptrap immediately got up and looked down at him.

"Really?" he asked, hushed. "If I go up those stairs you think I'll be proud of myself?"

"Mmhm," answered Wheatley, nodding. "I'm sure of it."

"Oh," Claptrap said anxiously, looking over at the rest of them. "Oh, I really wanna know what that's like…"

"You will," Wheatley assured him. "Go on. You can do it."

"Okay." He wheeled back to the bottom of the stairs. "I'm gonna do it."

Wheatley could only see the bottom two steps, but now that Claptrap didn't have use of a railing he could sort of appreciate just how immensely difficult this task actually was, even without intense fear being involved. Claptrap's wheel was much bigger than the human feet these stairs had been designed for, so he couldn't even get the entire thing up onto one. They were at a height low enough he could sort of roll up them, but he had to lean forward in order to do that while attempting to keep himself from tipping over. If his wheel tread failed to catch the stair properly, he was going to slip all the way back down, and the same would happen if he leant too far forward. Now that Wheatley was really thinking about it, it was a miracle Claptrap had ever attempted to climb stairs in the first place!

"All right," Claptrap said once he'd got to the top, sounding quite tired honestly, "I made a good effort, huh pal? It's okay if I didn't make it. I really, really, really tried this time. It's not really failing if you try really hard, is it?"

Wheatley frowned in confusion, wondering what all of this was about. "What d'you mean?"

"I… I can't do it! And I tried so hard, I really did, but I'm just – "

"Claptrap," Wheatley interrupted, "look at where you are. Right now."

Claptrap swiveled about a little. "Well, I'm… huh. That's weird. It kinda seems like I got up all the stairs."

"Kind of?" Wheatley asked, trying not to laugh.

"Well, yeah, I mean… I'm…" He looked about again. "Oh my gosh. Wait a minute."

Wheatley was quite happy he was around to see this. "What is it?"

"I… think I got up the stairs. I'm not sure 'cause it doesn't make any sense, but… I mean… all the stairs seem to be down there and I don't see any more…"

Now Wheatley did laugh. "That can only mean one thing, mate."

"Wheatley!" shouted Claptrap suddenly, jumping up and down and waving his arms about. "Did you see that? I did it! I got up the stairs! Me! No fancy wheel, no brakes, and no software tellin' me how to do it! I did it myself! Nobody even showed me how! I just figured it out! By myself!"

"I told you!" shouted Wheatley excitedly. "You only had to do it once! Now you've done it! 's done! Now you're a, you're a stair-climbing champion, you are!"

"Hell yeah I am," Claptrap called down to him. "Take that, me. You said I couldn't do it and I did."

"You should probably um… move back from the edge, there," Wheatley suggested.

"Oh! Right! Oh man, Wheats, this pride stuff is a hell of a drug. Oh boy. I feel like I could climb a hundred stairs right now! I probably shouldn't! 'cause that'll jinx it! But I feel like it's totally possible!"

"We'll save that for another day, I think."

"Yeah. Seventeen stairs in one day is already a bit much. Wait. Why did I come up here again?"

"The vine thingy! For Gladys!"

"Oh my gosh! Yes! Okay. Okay, one sec. I'll go find it." He disappeared, then popped back out again from behind from what Wheatley's best guess put as a generator of some sort. "It's up there!" he shouted, jumping up and down and pointing above him. Wheatley looked to see a little shack perched on the edge of the cliff, connected to the buildings below by way of a very simple lift.

"Alright!" he called back. "Go on, then!" He sort of wished he could tag along, but climbing one set of stairs didn't mean Claptrap was totally good about it. He would've liked to see the little collection Hammerlock's friend had up there, though. Pandora was quite frightening and he had no doubt every single one of the plants was as well, but if there was a little greenhouse, sort of, to look at them all, that would be quite nice.

What had Claptrap gone off to fetch again? Hm… a cryovine, he'd said. So it was probably a vine of some sort, and cryo… oh, he knew that one. Aperture had cryo… things. Something to do with… refrigerators? Iceboxes, maybe? Oh – it had to do with freezing! A vine that froze things? Or a vine that was just always frozen? It was equally likely to be either, really.

So… so if there was that, then were there other sorts of strange plants lying 'round up there? One that… hm… electrocuted people, maybe? Or disintegrated them? Wheatley knew there were plants like that back home, sort of, but these ones seemed a touch more exciting. A leaf that gave you a rash was a little less striking than was a cactus that gave you a bit of a shock. But how would it even work? He knew static could spark up things a bit, perhaps the cactus could –

"We gotta go!" Claptrap shouted from the lift, which had descended back to Wheatley's level against his notice, and he only hesitated a moment at the first bit of the stairs before jumping over them entirely. "Like, right now."

"What? Why?"

"No reason!" Claptrap said, hopping down the rest of the stairs three at a time. "I just uh… I've been on Pandora long enough for today!"

That was when there was the unmistakeable sound of an explosion, and Wheatley jumped and looked about for the source. Which was… the place Claptrap had just left. And was now heading away from. Without him.

Wheatley didn't know whether to be scared or offended.

"Claptrap!"

"What?"

"Haven't you forgotten something?" He clenched his chassis and attempted to duck as another booming sounded from above him, throwing little bits of metal and wood flying around him.

"Uh… no, I don't think soooo… ohhhhh. Yeah. Whoops." He had only gotten as far as the foot of the ramp, and since his retrieval of Wheatley was met with a plank of wood connecting against the top of his chassis with a not-unsatisfying thud, Wheatley decided the universe had made up for it without him needing to make a big deal out of it.

"Ouch," said Claptrap, rubbing the spot with his empty hand. "All right. Let's get going."

"Wait," Wheatley protested.

"What? What did I forget now?"

"You're just gonna… just gonna blow that place up and then leave?"

"Well… yeah," Claptrap said, though he did stop. "That's kinda what I do."

"D'you want to… I dunno… think about why that might make people um, might make them not want to hang around you?"

Claptrap looked down at him. "What are you getting at?"

"Well…" Goodness, how did he word it… "Hammerlock, he sort of, you know, trusted you back there. He knows you pretty well, yeah?"

"Well… yeah."

"So he knew you were gonna screw it up, and he, he helped you anyway. Right?"

"Yeah…"

"So shouldn't you… I dunno… apologise? 'cause now he's got to, to explain to his friend that he let you up there even knowing something bad was prob'ly going to happen, and now it has, and you're not even sorry about it –"

"Of course I'm sorry about it!" Claptrap protested. "But if I go up there and tell him he's just gonna yell at me! That's what always happens!"

"Well, nobody likes to be yelled at," Wheatley told him. "You've still got to take responsibility anyways."

"But it sucks!"

"It also sucks to um, to let someone go to fetch something even though you know he's going to make a mess of it, and then have him prove you right."

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

"He thought you were doing better, too," Wheatley went on, attempting to chase the glimmer of an idea he'd just had. "He'll just have to settle for being disappointed, I s'pose. Prob'ly expected to be but, you know. Always hope for the best, and all that."

"Will you be disappointed if I don't do it?"

Wheatley hesitated.

"Yeah," he said softly, because he really, really didn't want to. "Yeah, I um… I will be."

Claptrap sighed.

"Okay," he said resignedly. "Okay, I'll do it. Seeing that look on your face'd be wayyyy worse than getting yelled at."

Wheatley couldn't deny that it was… it was kind of nice, to know Claptrap valued his opinion that much. Good to be appreciated, and all that. "What if it was uh, what if it was Gladys doing the yelling? What then?"

"Sorry, buddy," Claptrap said, putting a hand up to the bottom of the gate as they passed beneath it, "but she doesn't even gotta go that far. Just knowing about it would be enough to ruin the entire rest of my life!"

Come to think of it… she never had been disappointed in Wheatley, had she. She'd start with being upset, which would scale up to anger, that he hopefully managed to head off before she became furious… but he had never made it all the way up to disappointment. "Had she ever been angry with you?" he asked, though he was mostly thinking out loud.

"Not while I was there," Claptrap answered, going up 'round the hill to Hammerlock's place. "She was always disappointed at the end there, though." His voice had taken on a decidedly sombre tone. "I can't even tell you how it feels to disappoint the girl you love every single day and have no way of fixing it 'cause the cause of it all is just that you suck so bad."

"If it makes you feel any better," Wheatley said, "she's been angry with me loads of times."

"Did it scare ya?"

"'course it did."

"Then yes! Hearing that you screwed up makes me feel a lot better! Only until I talk to him, though."

'Until' seemed to be approximately within the next five seconds, because Hammerlock was sitting outside, a long gun 'cross his lap and a worn rag in one hand. Next to him sat a grungy container of what Wheatley only knew was oil because of the stains on the side. The label was so torn and faded it was impossible to read.

"You've returned," Hammerlock remarked in his stupid posh accent, not looking up from running the cloth down the thinner end of the gun.

"Uh… yeah. Look, I uh… kinda blew up your friend's collection."

"It would have been remiss of me to have neglected noticing the sun-blotting fireball one usually finds in your wake," Hammerlock said, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

"I didn't mean it!" Claptrap protested. "It's just the vine was up really high and I had to lean on the shelf to get it down! And then it kinda fell over and before I knew it stuff was digitising all over the place! And there was this firemelon and even if I'd wanted to stop it from settin' everything on fire I couldn't have, because it was too big and everything around it just went whoosh!" He emphasised the last bit with a skyward flinging of his free hand. "And I know I messed up again but I'm really sorry about it! I'm trying to do better, I swear! I really – "

"Claptrap," Hammerlock interrupted, "for the love of God. Must you insist upon living up to your name at every opportunity which presents itself?"

Claptrap's chassis, which had risen in an attempt to emphasise his words, now lowered. Hammerlock removed the gun from his knees and leant it against the wall, the widest side down.

"Do you really think I wasn't well aware of the fact that the collection was already fated for destruction the moment the forces of the universe decided you needed to extract something from it?"

"Then why'd you send me there?" Claptrap asked, spreading his free hand. "If you knew I was gonna – "

"Because he's dead," Hammerlock interrupted. "Not everyone studying the flora and fauna of this most vicious of locales is as robust or as dogged as I am."

"Oh," said Claptrap.

"Nevertheless," the human continued, "I thank you for at least taking responsibility this time. I expected you to blow the whole berg to kingdom come and insist it was really a giant lava-spewing meteor that magically appeared in the lower reaches of the atmosphere at the exact time you happened to place your hand upon that door handle."

"That's uh… that's a wild story, alright," Claptrap said uneasily. "Sure would hate to be the guy that thought it'd fly!"

"I'm nearly convinced that a girlfriend actually exists," Hammerlock remarked. "I doubt there to be any other force which would inspire such an extraordinary change in your usual order of operations." And he turned to walk away, but before he had gone Claptrap said, very quietly,

"I didn't do it 'cause of her."

Hammerlock looked over his shoulder.

"What else could possibly have done it?"

"I got a best friend, too," Claptrap answered, not looking at Wheatley. "And what he thinks of me is just as important."

Wheatley wasn't quite sure how to describe how he felt just then. It was sort of like all of the empty bits in his chassis had been filled up with something that was there and yet wasn't there at the same time. He wasn't happy, exactly, nor proud of himself, nor touched, but he was also all three all at once. It was very, very strange and all it really told him was that he was on the right track as a friend.

"I think well of you," he told Claptrap in a low voice, in case he didn't want Hammerlock to hear. "Always have. And you're just getting better all the time."

"But you almost didn't," Claptrap said, turning himself and heading back towards the boat.

"It doesn't matter! You did the right thing. 's all I need to know."

"If you weren't here I wouldn't have."

"It's not important – "

"Yes it is!" Claptrap nearly shouted. "I have to do it all the time! Not just when you're around! This whole day is even going well at all 'cause you're here to keep correcting me!"

"Because that's part of my job as your friend," Wheatley insisted. "You already knew what to do! You just needed someone to give you a little push, that was all. 's just how it goes, sometimes. No need to beat yourself up over it."

"Oh, no," Claptrap actually whispered, turning around suddenly and seeming to go into a higher gear than Wheatley had seen him use yet. Wheatley was beginning to get really frustrated with this whole 'not having a management rail' thing. He was also confused as to why they'd headed back up the hill, which was away from the boat, until he realised that Claptrap was taking them to the little circle made up of ice blocks. It was something bad, alright. Something that required hiding. Someone seemed to have built the wall for exactly this purpose, because inside of the circle was a little house complete with ladder to the roof and chimney, though much like everything else 'round here it looked to have been completely abandoned. "What?" Wheatley demanded. "What is it?"

"Bandits."

"You said there wasn't anybody out here!"

"I'm wrong a lot, okay!" Claptrap shouted, putting Wheatley down in the snow next to him and looking over the barrier. "Gimme a break. I haven't been here in a while! I'm not exactly an expert on the current economy!"

"Alright, alright," Wheatley said, quickly realising that he had to keep Claptrap calm if they were going to get out of here. "How um… how does one usually get bandits to uh, to take their leave?"

"You gotta kill 'em," Claptrap answered. "Bandits ain't bandits 'cause they enjoy dignified conversation. I'm gonna… gonna have to kill those guys."

"With… with what?" Claptrap seemed to have a lot of storage space, what with the whole 'digitisation' thing, but he also didn't seem the sort to be lugging weapons around.

"Well, with a gun. Duh. I'll be right back."

When he'd left the little barricade, Wheatley turned himself about to face the wall and frowned at the blocks in front of him. It was impossible for him to be of very much help in this situation, but he was able to be of almost none, considering he couldn't see what was happening. The ice seemed much too solid for him to try to push any of the blocks out with his upper handle, though he did give that a go just to make sure. He looked about him, mostly out of frustration, but he was in luck! because a little ways to his right there was a little block removed from the wall, and some sort of miniature telescope positioned in front of it. Well, he had no need of that; his zoom function worked perfectly well, thanks very much. It was a bit tricky at first, but the snow beneath him was solid enough that he was able to dig his lower handle into it and sort of pull himself over to look out of the hole. There was Claptrap's boat, right where they'd left it, and hanging about it were six or so rough-looking fellows wearing jackets, pants, and masks over their entire heads. All of them had guns. A couple of those were very small and fit almost entirely in one hand, but one of them was quite thick and as long again as the leg of the man who was carrying it! He frowned down at them. Some legs and arms would probably have been quite useful about then.

"Okay," Claptrap said, and Wheatley flipped his optic to the other side of his chassis to see that he had returned with a gun almost longer than Claptrap was tall. "You wanna stay over here? This one's too low for me to aim out of."

"There's another?" Wheatley asked, looking up at him, and Claptrap scooped him up with his free hand and brought him over to the left end of the wall. And there was another block missing there, about Wheatley's size up off the ground. "But Claptrap, I can't –"

"I gotcha," Claptrap said, ejecting his storage tray and putting Wheatley on top of it. "Okay. Now it's time to… do this."

"D'you even know how to use that?" Wheatley asked as Claptrap pointed the end of it out of the hole.

"Yeah," Claptrap answered. "I remember. It's not hard. You just aim it at somebody's head and pull the thingy. A baby could do it. Babies can do it. I've seen 'em."

He had to admit that sounded pretty straightforward. Or perhaps it wasn't, because Claptrap was just sitting there with most of his hand on the trigger and not pulling it. "Um… is something the matter?"

"No!" Claptrap protested a little too strongly. "Everything is just dandy!"

"So… why haven't you started?"

"Because uh… because…" It was then that Wheatley noticed he was shaking a little bit, but he was puzzled as to why. There was nothing to be afraid of behind this wall, was there?

"Claptrap?"

"Oh no," Claptrap whispered to himself. "Oh no oh no oh no…"

"Claptrap!" Wheatley said insistently. "What is going on?"

"I uh… I don't think I can shoot those guys."

"So you're going to try to talk to them?"

"Oh, yeah," Claptrap said sarcastically, removing the hand steadying the gun in order to wave it in emphasis. "That's a totally great idea. I'll just go down there and be like 'Hey guys! Guess what? That's my boat you're trying to steal! Mind if you give it back now?' and they'll be like 'Sure Claptrap! Hey, wait! Look! It's Claptrap! That guy we all hate and love setting on fire and stuff! We should totally just do that right now and then we'll have him and his boat! Everybody wins!' and then I'll be like, 'But I don't win,' and then they'll be like, 'You're a robot! What do you need a boat for anyways? Especially if you're dead?' and I'll be like – "

"Alright," Wheatley interrupted. "I got it."

"Are you sure? 'cause I know exactly where it's gonna go after that!"

"Yeah. I'm sure." He squinted down at the humans rummaging about in one of the barrels they'd managed to open. "So that means we're back to the shooting bit."

"I… I don't know if that's gonna happen."

"Are you frightened of killing people?"

"No," Claptrap said, as if that were ridiculous. "What's scary about that? No, it's… I literally can't pull this trigger. I absolutely cannot bring myself to kill those guys. I can do it by accident and I can ask somebody else to do it, but I am not gonna be able to do it myself."

"Why not?" Wheatley asked. "Even I could do that! If I had hands, anyway."

Claptrap was quiet for a moment.

"It's gonna sound lame," he said, "but I'm remembering some stuff. And it's making me feel bad. Bad enough that I know I can't do it. This isn't something you can talk me into, either. I'm not scared, I'm…" He shrugged. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's not gonna let me do this."

"Then how are we going to get home?"

"We can get home," Claptrap said quietly, "I'm just… gonna lose the boat, that's all. It's… it's not a big deal, really. I don't use it that much anyway."

It absolutely was a big deal, and Wheatley set himself to thinking of a solution. There had to be a way to fix this. There was always a way. They just hadn't thought of it yet. Or rather, he hadn't, since Claptrap seemed to be in no state for the type of thinking this was going to require.

They both jumped when they heard the gunshot, but it wasn't coming from the group of humans down by the shoreline. No, it seemed to have been aimed at them, judging by the man facedown in the snow with a pool of blood slowly seeping out of him. Claptrap brought Wheatley into the corner of one arm and pressed the top of his chassis against the square missing in the wall.

"Oh, shhhhh… iitake mushrooms," he said with a concerning desperation. "This is just getting worse and worse!"

"What's happening now?" Wheatley asked as another bandit hit the snow with what was possibly a deadly wound.

"There's bandits behind us. Which means we can't go home." He tightened his arm around Wheatley's chassis. "I'm sorry, buddy. This wouldn't be happening if I could just – "

"Wait," Wheatley said, frowning. "Are you quite sure there're bandits back there? Because… well, only one person seems to be shooting."

Claptrap straightened up, using the gun as a sort of balancer. "Oh," he said. "You're right. I guess this overwhelming panic I'm feeling totally blinded me to that fact! Oh! Oh, maybe it's a Vault Hunter! If it is we are totally in the clear here." He shoved the gun underneath his arm and jumped around to clamber up the ladder attached to the side of the little house. He moved himself behind the chimney, even though it only hid him from the view of the mystery shooter, and peered out across the expanse in front of him. At least, that was what Wheatley thought he was doing. All he could see was the chimney.

"Oh my God!" Claptrap whispered. "It's Hammerlock!" He put Wheatley on top of the chimney so that he could see as well, and he couldn't pick out very much of his face from this far away, but there was indeed a fellow with a hat aiming a gun similar to Claptrap's over the wall facing the boat. Claptrap tossed the rifle off the roof and waved his now-free arm in the air with wild abandon. After another couple of cracks of sniper fire Hammerlock took notice of him and saluted.

"I can't believe it!" Claptrap exclaimed, spinning 'round to face the boat. "We're actually getting out of this one, Wheats!"

"Hey," shouted one of the bandits, his voice carrying across the empty ice as he looked up at them from the wreckage of the little building Claptrap had blown up, "isn't that Claptrap?"

"What?" Claptrap shouted, clutching Wheatley to his left with both hands and quite a lot of force. "Noooooo. I just look like him! He's uh… he left! On vacation! Wait! I meant he died! He's dead! Been gone for years! I am an entirely unrelated robot! In fact, I'm not even really a CL4P – agh!" He jumped behind the chimney just as a bullet pinged off the ice where he'd been, and in a panic Wheatley looked for Hammerlock. He was going to take care of the lot of them, right? Especially now they were shooting?

"Come down from there, Clappy! We just wanna talk!"

"No thanks!" Claptrap called back. "I'm good! No talking necessary! I can't imagine we have anything to discuss, kind stranger!" He peered around the chimney, only to press the back of his chassis to it upon being met with more gunfire. Only one of the guns seemed to have bullets that made it all the way up to them, but no point in making it easy. "Suggestions?"

Wheatley squinted down at the human positioned behind the wall for a minute before he realised something had made him stop firing. He looked over at the bandits to see that they had all ducked behind the ferry sign, and it took him a few back-and-forth looks before he figured out why Hammerlock had stopped. "He can't get to the rest," Wheatley realised. "We've got to draw them out, somehow. They're quite far away as well. 's amazin' he can even see them!"

"I'm gonna need you to do the planning here, buddy, because it's really hard for me not to just do what I usually do in these situations!"

"What's that?"

"Run around screaming with my arms in the air."

Hm. A bit unhelpful, that. "Have you… are there any other weapons about? Other than guns?"

"Grenades, but… I can't kill them, Wheatley! Even if I had one, I – "

"No need," Wheatley said, spying a glowy green bit of ice behind them. "Turn 'round and, and take up that skull, there. We're gonna pretend that's a grenade."

"It's gonna be pretty obvious it's not when it lands," Claptrap protested, though he did pick it up.

"You're not throwing it. You're going down there and, and threatening to throw it."

"Down there? You want me to make myself a target on purpose?"

"You asked for a plan and that's all I've got," Wheatley said, staying calm even though that made him a bit cross. He wasn't even from here, why was Claptrap asking him what they should do? "And we've got to do it before more of them, um, they bring more friends."

"Oh, ffffffff… fiddlesticks," said Claptrap. "Okay. You're right." And he rolled towards the edge of the roof, but then he stopped. "Wait. I got a better idea. Maybe. You'll need to be on board."

"Go on," Wheatley said.

"They're probably not gonna believe this skull is a grenade. But they probably will believe that you're a bomb!"

"Ooh," said Wheatley. That sounded a bit exciting. Also a bit more workable than his idea, to be honest. "What's the plan, then?"

"Well, I go down there and threaten to blow us all up. They're not gonna believe me. Until I toss you onto the boat, that is. When I do that, they're gonna hit the dirt to get away from you, and then Hammerlock'll have aaaaall clear shots!"

"I'm… I'm not a fan of that throwing bit," Wheatley admitted. Behind them, the sniper rifle went off only for the bullet to bury itself in the side of the boat.

"I know. You don't like falling. I feel ya there. But these guys have seen skulls before, Wheats. I'm not sure that one's gonna work. They probably eat their breakfast outta those things. I know I would."

"Fine," Wheatley said. "I'll do it. Just… don't miss, alright? I'm not waterproof."

"I promise I won't miss," Claptrap assured him. "Also, I'm gonna have to jump off the wall. I gotta get close enough that they'll be in your fictional detonation… uh… circle. They'll think I'm gonna go around, so we'll be full of holes loooong before I get there."

He definitely didn't like that part, either, but it sounded like their best bet. "Let's do it."

Claptrap went 'round to the front of the roof again, on the left side, and he hopped over the gap to the space the wall was lowest, windmilling his free arm when he got there. Wheatley wasn't sure why, since surely his gyros took care of it without input from his arms, but he was less concerned about that than he was with the fact they now had to jump off this wall and onto the ground below.

"It'll only take a second," Claptrap said, and without warning he just went for it. Wheatley screwed his optic shut so he wouldn't have to look at the ground rushing up to meet them, and though Claptrap's wheel hit the snow with a very solid thud it seemed it had all gone rather well. When he remained motionless, Wheatley opened his shields to see why, and what he saw was… nothing. The bandits were taking aim again, and in a panic Wheatley smacked Claptrap with his upper handle. "Claptrap!" he demanded.

"I'm okay," Claptrap said. "Not sure my suspension is, though."

"Handle it later!" Wheatley hissed, and abruptly Claptrap hoisted him above his chassis with both hands and shouted as he moved forward, since they were still too far away,

"Hold up! You shoot me, you'll blow us aaaall to hell!"

"What?" one of the bandits called from behind his double-barrelled gun.

"See this thing? This thing I got right here? It's a bomb! Gimme my boat back or we're all gonna bite it today!"

Another of the humans snorted. "As if anyone would ever give you something like that."

"Nobody gave it to me," Claptrap called back. "Jack used to dump all sorts of stuff out here! I got a whooole stockpile of stuff like this. Old Hyperion trash."

"Just like you, then," one of the men sniggered, and the two standing nearest him engaged him in a pair of high-fives.

"Oh, wooooooow," Claptrap said, managing to sound sarcastically offended even though his hands were firmly clamped around Wheatley's chassis to keep his arms from shaking. "You sure got me there! Now get the hell away from my boat before I sink it."

"You're not gonna sink it."

"If I can't have it, I don't want you to have it."

"C'mon, Clappy. Can't we talk this out like reasonable fellows?"

"Nope. All or nothin'."

One of the bandits stepped forward and raised his gun. "Then we'll take it all."

"All right! You asked for it! Just like your mom did last night!"

"What!?" the bandit farthest behind the sign exclaimed, standing up straight. "What did you do with my mom?"

"I never kiss and tell!" Claptrap proclaimed, and Wheatley was having a very hard time keeping a straight face. He didn't even totally understand what they were talking about and it was still hilarious. "Now beat it! Like I know you do in the middle of the night while you're cryin' 'cause you can't find a girlfriend who'll do it for ya!"

"You are about to be permanently discontinued!" the bandit screamed, and that was when Claptrap decided to hurl Wheatley across the space between them. He only managed to keep his optic open for about half of it, but he was relieved to see in that couple of seconds all three of the bandits diving away from him, one of them yelling, "Hit the dirt!"

Wheatley, thankfully, did crash into the deck of the boat, but he'd already clenched his chassis in anticipation of it and so it didn't hurt that much. He ended up with his back up against the cabin, and with a little bit of strategic pushing against the wooden boards with his handles he managed to right himself just in time to see Claptrap literally throw himself over the side of the boat and slide across the deck on his face until he crashed into the pile of crates, which toppled overtop of him. He just sighed and rolled himself away from the bow, hopping back onto his wheel again. The sniper rifle went off thrice more and then there was just the gentle bumping of the boat against the ice. "Wheatley!" Claptrap exclaimed, looking down at him. "You good, buddy?"

"Yeah," Wheatley answered, "but pick me up, please."

"Sure thing." And he put Wheatley back upon the crates, afterward heading into the cabin. When he came back, he regarded the four dead humans lying about the deck with his arms set in thought, then pushed the one stuck on the side into the water. The others he spent a few minutes collecting the various articles they'd been carrying, afterwards shoving them up and over the side as well.

"What're you doing?" Wheatley called when Claptrap held a shining purple stone up to the sun.

"Looting dead guys," he answered. "One 'a them had a blue-rarity shotgun! I can slap that in a vending machine for a wad of cash."

"What d'you need money for?"

He shrugged as the three guns he'd collected digitised themselves for storage. "To hire people to do stuff for me, mostly. Sometimes I buy hats."

"Hats?"

"I love hats. I know I'm a robot and I don't need to wear them, but I love 'em anyway." He picked up the little paper bills and the purple stone and came over to sit next to Wheatley. "This one's eridium. You buy black market stuff with it. It's hard for a regular guy to find, though, so I don't have very much."

"What would you trade it for if you did?"

Claptrap looked over at the horizon for a minute.

"There's some old robot stuff on there," he answered finally. "It costs way more than I'll ever have, even if I never spent any money. I'll probably never have enough eridium, either, but it's easier to find fifty shards than fifty thousand dollars. It's not illegal to have that stuff, but some people treat eridium like… like precious metals where you come from. Where gold is worth more'n regular money."

"Like…" He didn't want to upset Claptrap by mentioning it, but now he really wanted to know more about this. "Parts for your model?"

"Nah," he said. "I got lotsa those back at my place. Jack dumped all the CL4P-TPs in the same spot, so if I ever need something I just go there for it. It's all worthless now since I'm the only one that needs any of it."

"You're not worthless," Wheatley said softly.

Claptrap seemed to focus very intently on the eridium he was rubbing with one of his thumbs. Then he said, almost desperately, "I'm sorry, Wheats. I really messed up back there."

"What was it that happened? I thought you knew how to do all that sort of thing. From when you were a Vault Hunter, yeah?"

"Do you know what a Vault Hunter does, Wheatley?"

"No," he said, once he realised it probably wasn't a good idea to try to shake himself negatively. The boat seemed good and steady, but you never knew. "Never got that explanation."

"A Vault Hunter is a merc. Oh – a mercenary. A dude who kills other people for a stack of cash." He tapped his hands together in front of him. "Well. Sometimes you get a lady too. Or someone who won't tell you what they are so everyone just calls them a dude. I met a guy like that. But what sets 'em apart from everyone else on Pandora is that they're looking for the Vaults. And you know what's in the Vaults?"

"… stuff?" Wheatley guessed.

"Exactly!" Claptrap said. "A whole lotta stuff. Guarded by a Vault Monster. Only the most epically badass can kill those things. Only the most epically badass even live that long. Once people hear you think you're a Vault Hunter, everyone wants to set you straight by emptying a shotgun where the sun don't shine. If you really are one, they've got nothin' on you. There's one guy who just punches everybody to death. With his bare hands! Not too many people in the world who can kill a Vault Monster with the force of a really extreme knuckle sandwich."

"Alright," said Wheatley slowly, now that he thought he'd got it straight. "So… but you were a Vault Hunter."

"Yeah. But not because I wanted to be. Because my boss needed another Vault Hunter and I told him I could be reprogrammed to kill low-level Hyperion employees."

"Why would you tell him that?"

Claptrap threw up his hands. "Wheats. This was a loooong time ago. I was the door opening guy, okay? One who just got back from being reprogrammed to kill Vault Hunters and who had instead decided to stage a robolution! 'But Claptrap,' you may be wondering. 'If you just tried to kill all the humans on Pandora, why would they put you back at HQ? Weren't they concerned you were just gonna turn on them again?'"

He might have been wondering that.

"Because I was the only one left who could be reprogrammed," Claptrap went on. "All the other ones had too many failsafes and not enough memory. It was an anti-tampering thing. So other manufacturers couldn't steal Hyperion code, not that any CL4P-dash-TP had any of that worth lifting. But because I was an older model Jack was able to install a program he called . And with that, I was again removed from my own existence."

Wheatley was having a little trouble following all of this. "So… when you were a Vault Hunter, you weren't… weren't you, exactly? That what you mean?"

"Yep! I was reborn as a merciless killing machine! A master of weaponry, combat, and all things badass! Kinda. I was still there so it was all pretty glitchy. Didn't always work as intended and my system kinda classified as malware after the whole robolution mess. Which was good, because it meant I didn't get deleted like Jack wanted. And that was his own fault, right? He should've written the program wayyy better if he didn't want me to stick around! But what does this have to do with what happened back there, you might ask? The answer: I didn't wanna be a ninja. I didn't wanna be a Vault Hunter. I'm a steward bot. I was made to open doors, provide guidance, and generally just be a friendly guy to have around. I like people. I don't wanna kill them! I mean, if I gotta help someone kill someone else, that's cool. Because I'm still helping somebody, y'know? But shooting people? In the head? So that they die? I can't do that! That's where they live! All their hopes and dreams and existential dread! Who am I to be the hand that takes it from them! I'm just here to show them the way to get where they're going!"

It was a harsh contrast to GLaDOS's genuine enjoyment of killing humans, Wheatley thought. He'd have to remember to mention that to her.

"I remember how to shoot," Claptrap continued. "I even remember how to aim! But all of that stuff's attached to a whole lot more that I definitely never want to remember again."

"The people you killed as a Vault Hunter," Wheatley realised.

"And there was a lot of 'em, Wheats," Claptrap said quietly. "They weren't all bad. Some people I had to snuff out just because the person I was working for didn't like 'em. That's not a reason to kill somebody! And if it is, they should just go and do it themselves! Not ask me to do it, especially after I said I wasn't acting of my own free will! A lot of the stuff I did… I feel so bad about it, man. I wouldn't've done it if I'd had the choice. I know I almost got us killed back there. And I am really sorry about it. But I… I couldn't do it again. Not with all that running through my head."

"He helped you because you took responsibility," Wheatley told him sombrely. "You know that. If you hadn't, if you'd just buggered off and left that mess without saying anything about it, he'd've just left you. You'd've forced yourself to do it or, or end up dead. And me with you."

Claptrap looked away from him, over the edge of the boat. "He's helped me before. Only reason I'm even here right now."

"From what I've seen of this place, that doesn't really mean anything."

"You're right. It doesn't." He sighed and leaned back, bracing himself with his arms bent behind him. "What I used to do was just erase it all. Invent something new and happy to replace it with and then overwrite the bad memory. It's not fair that I can't forget, right?"

Wheatley didn't understand that, but he knew GLaDOS did. She'd done her fair share of intentional corruptions.

"And then… Gladys repaired them. All of them. Every gosh darn diddly one. And it really, really, really sucks. Boy would I love to destroy 'em all over again so I never again have to think about all the stuff that was my fault!"

"So do it," Wheatley said. "No point in torturing yourself."

"That's not taking responsibility, though, is it?"

Ah! Oh, he had Wheatley there! He should've caught that one himself. "But… you've just been saying so much of it really didn't, it was nothing to do with you. You were made to do those things."

"Yeah," Claptrap said. "But that's just life as a robot, man. Least, it used to be. Gladys is shaking all of that up down at Aperture. No robot out there ever has to worry about being reprogrammed again."

"I'm happy you get to be there," said Wheatley softly. "Even if… even if it's a bit too late."

"If it was too late, I wouldn't be there at all."

Wheatley looked over at him bemusedly. "You really are rather clever, when you give it a go."

"I am, aren't I?" Claptrap mused, propping one hand on the other arm to hold it beneath his optic. "I should like… try to think more often."

Wheatley smiled at him, under the impression they'd sorted it all out, but then Claptrap said, sounding subdued, "But it was totally not responsible of me to bring you here without someone to protect you. I won't do it again."

"Claptrap," Wheatley said calmly, "first of all, that's my decision, not yours. Secondly… you've got that ECHO thing built-in, haven't you?"

"Well, yeah. What about it?"

"If there had really, honestly been a problem we couldn't solve, you could've just popped off a message to Gladys and she'd've, she'd've sent someone for us. Even if we'd died. She already knows to bring me back if I um, if anything happens other than all my parts wearing out. Dunno what we'd do about your chassis, but that's not the point. The point is, we had a problem and we solved it! You've nothing to feel bad about."

"I'm still gonna for a while," Claptrap said. "Not much I can do about it until then."

Wheatley had no idea what to say. He tried to come up with something, for several minutes in fact, but he felt sort of as though he needed to leave Claptrap alone. He couldn't do that, obviously, so all he could really do was not say anything at all.

Probably because neither of them were talking, Claptrap started humming to himself, but so quietly it took Wheatley longer than it should have to identify the song. "Do they have that one here as well?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"The song. Have they got it here?"

"Uh… maybe. I was kinda confined to dubstep for a while there. Nah, Carrie showed it to me. She was pretty insistent on it, actually! She never mentioned why and I forgot to ask."

"It's her favourite," Wheatley said quietly.

"Aww," Claptrap said. "That's cute. Sometimes I wonder if she is a kid, and not just a tiny version of her mom, but then – "

"Not Carrie. Gladys."

"Ohhhhhh." He rubbed one of his hands along the bow. "That makes more sense. I will definitely do my best to remember that."

"'s not terribly important," Wheatley said. "It's honestly never come up at all. I only even know because… well. 's a bit of a long story, really."

"She used to sing it when you were her core."

Wheatley could've sworn he stopped responding for a minute there. "I… yes. Yes, she – how did you know?"

"She told me everything."

"… ev'rything?" Wheatley whispered.

"Mmhm. Top to bottom."

"So… so you know about Caroline."

"Yep."

He felt a little betrayed. "I don't even know about Caroline."

"She said you never asked."

"Well… well no, I didn't, but even if I had, she –"

"It's not that deep, dude. You didn't ask. I did. That's it."

"Well, don't hold your breath waiting for her to ask," Wheatley muttered.

"Um… she already did."

What? They had both already asked each other? And… and Wheatley hadn't asked either of them? Ohhhh… that made it look a lot like he didn't care. And he did! Of course he did!

But not enough to ask, apparently. And that… was bad.

"Claptrap, be honest," Wheatley said, even though he didn't actually want him to be. "Am I… am I a bad friend?"

"What? No!" Claptrap turned away from the bow, coming over to hop back up next to Wheatley. "No, of course not. Look, all it is is that she gets stuff. 'cause she's been there too. If I tried to tell you, you wouldn't even understand half of it. I mean, it'd mean a lot that you asked. But it wouldn't… it'd just make us both sad. When I told her, she didn't get sad at all! And it was so easy for me that way. She just listened and that was it! And I really needed that. It doesn't make you a bad friend. You just weren't… the right friend for that, I guess."

"Makes sense, when you put it like that," Wheatley said, though he still felt sort of upset about it. But if he was being honest, he was the same way. There were always going to be things he needed from GLaDOS that Claptrap just couldn't do for him. And Claptrap wasn't going to make a big deal of it, either, or get jealous, or any of that. He was just going to accept it. That was what he did. And what Wheatley needed to do a bit more of.

"You're a great friend," Claptrap said, putting one hand on top of his chassis. "But you can't think of everything. That's why people have more than one friend!"

Wheatley had certainly learned a lot since Claptrap had shown up, that was for sure.

"Hey, Gladys," Claptrap called out once they'd gotten about three centimetres into her chamber about twenty minutes later, "can I get a tiny favour?"

GLaDOS looked up from the sheet of paper she was writing on. "Before I answer that, I'm going to need to know if we have the same definition for 'tiny'. If this is about the ad-blocker, it's already done. You just have to download it."

"Look. I need a hug real bad, okay? Can you just give me one now and be all snarky and stuff after?"

"No need. That is tiny after all."

It really wasn't, which Wheatley could tell by the pensive way she was looking at the floor while she was doing it, and they must've stayed right there for a good two minutes before Claptrap was ready to wrap it up. "Did something happen?" she asked, optic narrowed towards him, but Claptrap only waved a hand.

"It's fine. I'm over it."

"No you're not," GLaDOS protested. "You just spent two minutes – "

"Anyway," Claptrap interrupted, "it is time to reveal the impetus behind – "

"Impetus?" GLaDOS said incredulously. "Where in the world did you learn that?"

"I know words. I got dictionaries and thesaurus…uses..."

"Your reluctance to actually do anything with whatever intelligence you've got buried down in that bottomless void you call your mind baffles me. What was the impetus behind going off to Pandora this time?"

"This!" Claptrap declared, opening his storage tray and removing a little blue capsule, which he deposited on the floor in front of her as it fully materialised. "It's for you."

"What is it?"

Instead of answering, Claptrap pressed a little button on the front of the thing, which made the capsule disappear. In its place stood what seemed to be a little blue mushroom plant covered in ice. Wheatley frowned. Oh, wait, wait. He'd said it was a cryovine, so… but how could it live if it were frozen? So much about Pandora made no sense at all…

"I'm afraid I still don't know what it is," GLaDOS said.

"The name doesn't matter," said Claptrap. "Also, if I tell ya it'll ruin the surprise. You gotta poke it first."

So GLaDOS retrieved a multitasking arm and, bending as low as she could to the floor, extended one of the prongs into the plant. As soon as she did, a fine mist emanated from it that was so cold Wheatley could feel it from more than a metre away. GLaDOS jumped back a little in surprise and looked at the maintenance arm, which now had a thin layer of ice encasing it from the tip to about Claptrap's length again down the wire. The plant had shrivelled upon her touch, but as they watched it returned to its original size. The floor surrounding it was quickly developing a sheen of ice crystals, but GLaDOS seemed not to care very much. She poked the cryovine a second time with more enthusiasm, but if she'd been considering a third go of it that was made impossible when the ice froze the entirety of the claw mechanism solid. It really was quite amazing. Wheatley didn't know of any plants that would survive being frozen, much less any that were supposed to be that way or that attempted to freeze everything that touched them.

"Oh, look at that," GLaDOS said with an adorable tenderness, regarding her ruined machinery with something approaching fondness. "It's trying to kill me."

Claptrap laughed.

"It's tryin', but it doesn't have enough juice to do that. You're way too big."

She inspected it for another few moments more, then said, "This won't survive long in an above-zero environment, right?"

"Probably not," said Claptrap. "I'll put that away for ya." And because GLaDOS was in the way Wheatley did not quite catch it, but whatever he did got the cryovine back into the capsule which he then offered up to her. She took it with an undamaged maintenance arm and whisked it off to what was probably that room of hers. "So uh… did you like it?"

"Oh yes," GLaDOS answered. "I'll have to think of something fun to do with it." She leaned over to kiss him, which he seemed strangely uncomfortable about. "Thank you."

"Well, you can't let me take Wheatley back there again," he said abruptly, backing away from her. "He almost died and it was my fault."

"Oh," Wheatley said helplessly, since GLaDOS's optic seemed very hot on him all of a sudden, "you're... he's exaggerating. It wasn't like that."

"I left you sitting on a barrel while somebody's house exploded behind you!"

"Well… you did, but you'd've noticed before you got too far away – "

"I'm not sure I want to hear any more," GLaDOS said.

"And then we got shot at, remember?"

"From really far away! And they, oh c'mon, they barely knew how to aim!"

"I really don't want to hear any more."

"And then I threw you over a whole lotta ice and a whole lotta ice water – "

"What a fascinating story," said GLaDOS. "I'd like for you to stop telling it."

"I'm not made of glass," Wheatley protested. "I'm fine! Not even dented! It was better than my plan, which would've got us full of holes for certain –"

"Mine coulda equally –"

"Both of you!" GLaDOS nearly shouted. "You need to shut up."

They fell silent, trading a look of apprehension.

"Claptrap," GLaDOS said, all business, "Wheatley is an idiot but he's not stupid. Whatever it was that happened – which I definitely do not want to hear about right now – he trusted you were capable of handling it. The amount of trouble you had doing that isn't important. You're both here and in one piece. Stop telling him what he thinks doesn't matter."

"Got it," Claptrap said, subdued.

"Wheatley," GLaDOS went on, "Claptrap is also an idiot but he's also not stupid. Despite that, you need to always remember he has limits. You push him too far past them and you are both going to wind up dead. He only has a certain capacity and beyond that he's useless. If he's telling you he's approaching that capacity, you need to listen. You're not always going to get lucky."

Wheatley was so impressed he wasn't even bothered about being lectured. Though, granted, all of that was good stuff for him to know. It would've taken him a while to get to it himself. "Wow," Wheatley said, impressed. "I didn't know you knew how to do that!"

GLaDOS looked at him slowly, optic narrowed in confusion. "Do… what?"

"Mediate," he answered. "I'm actually quite impressed."

"Yeah," Claptrap added. "That was pretty good."

"But were you listening?" GLaDOS asked, and after considering it he decided it was reasonable for her to sound frustrated.

"Mmhm," he said. "I've got to um, to make sure I'm paying attention to whether things've got to be too much for Claptrap or not."

"And I gotta remember that Wheatley can make his own decisions just fine! We can handle anything as long as we're on the same page!"

"Oh," GLaDOS said, seeming faintly surprised. "You were paying attention."

"Babe, I may be an idiot –"

"- but I'm not stupid," Wheatley finished, and of course after he did Claptrap had to give him a high five. GLaDOS sighed.

"Both of you combined are the bane of my existence."

"I think you mean the best thing that ever happened to you!" Claptrap corrected, and Wheatley nodded in agreement.

"Definitely the second one, there, luv."

"Those things aren't mutually exclusive," GLaDOS said. "Now, if the two of you are finished clowning around – "

"We're not!" Claptrap interrupted gleefully.

"We've only just started!" Wheatley added.

"Well, do it in front of someone else. I'm not finished what I was working on."

"Alright," said Wheatley, not without reluctance. "We'll go."

"After you answer one question," Claptrap said.

"Very well. One question."

"Did you miss us? Even though you wanted us to get lost and were glad you didn't have to put up with us for a while?"

Ooooooh. Wheatley had to give him kudos for that one. That was quite a question to ask her all bare-faced like that. If anyone could get an answer out of her that way, though, Claptrap was certainly the construct for the job.

"I was happy that you were gone," GLaDOS said, a little quietly, "but I'm even happier that you've come back."

Oh wow.

"Now go away."

"Thank you, baby! I love you!"

"Thank you, luv," added Wheatley with a lot more gravity, and she looked at him a moment before nodding and turning away. "C'mon," Wheatley said to Claptrap, gesturing with his lower handle. "We really have got to let her be. And I've got to show you something, anyways."

"Sure," said Claptrap, following along behind him.

It took him a minute to realise Claptrap wasn't saying anything at all, which was quite unusual, and when he glanced back he saw that he wasn't doing any of the arm-swinging he usually did as he moved. He was just holding them out in front of him. Hm. Perhaps Claptrap was a little closer to the limit still than Wheatley had thought.

"Hey," Wheatley said as kindly as he could, looking at Claptrap but while also moving forward, "you alright there mate?"

"Hm?" said Claptrap, looking up at him. "Oh. Yeah. I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He swung his arms back and forth, but without gusto. "I guess I just forgot what life's like back home."

"Well, now you've got another home! Things like that don't happen here." And if they did, well, GLaDOS would stamp it all out before it became a problem.

"I know." He looked away again. "I guess it's just one a those things where you don't realise how bad something is until you've been away from it awhile."

Before too much longer they arrived at their destination, which of course was GLaDOS's room, and Claptrap didn't even go farther than the doorway until Wheatley gave him a little nudge with his lower handle. "What is this?" Claptrap whispered, spreading his hands apart.

"Like I told you," Wheatley said, looking down at him. "She keeps it. All of it."

Two shelves for the things from when she was younger, one for Caroline, one for Wheatley, and now… one for Claptrap as well. Claptrap stared at the little capsule, settled patiently at the top of the shelf all by itself, for a long time.

"I've got a lot of catching up to do."

"No! No, that's not… it's not why I brought you here." Dammit. He should've explained it first! "The stuff, it isn't, it's not the point!"

"I wasn't talking about that," Claptrap said. "I meant… what all of this means. It's all got a story behind it, y'know? You've got ten years of this stuff on me."

"It's not important," Wheatley insisted. "She doesn't need you to be what she needed me to be. You've just got to be you." God, how did he put this without making things worse… "Look, Claptrap, I won't… I won't lie. Sometimes I get jealous of you. There's things she'll do for you that she won't do for me, even after all this time. And it can be really, really hard not to get upset, sometimes, thinking about how I spent ten years helping her and then you show up and ev'rything… ev'rything is just… set for you. And sometimes I just, I just can't keep from thinking about how unfair that is. How I had to go through all that and you don't. And then I remind myself of something."

"Of what?"

"That you tried," Wheatley told him. "You wanted to do it. But you couldn't. She wasn't ready. There was nothing in the world you could've done to fix what went wrong. She wouldn't let you. I couldn't've done it either! The only thing you could've done was to, to walk away before it got worse. And you did. You accepted it for what it was, you, you took her for who she was! And that was ev'ry bit as important as all the things I did.

"And when I've got through all that, thought through those things, that's when I remember the most important thing. You know what that is?"

"What?"

"That I don't want you to have to do what I did," Wheatley said forcefully. "It sucked. A lot. It was a tremendous amount of work and if I'd known that at the start of it all, honestly? I wouldn't've bothered. 's only when you get to the end of ev'rything that you're able to understand it was worth it. And I'm glad you don't have to. I just…" He wasn't sure if he was getting too deep into feelings, here, and if Claptrap got uncomfortable enough to sort of shut him down he had to admit he would be a bit hurt. He was going to say it anyway, though, because it needed to be said. Not just for Claptrap, but for himself as well. He really, really needed to work on the whole jealousy thing and it would be a lot easier if Claptrap were able to stop him when he started to get silly about it. "Well, I just… would like it if you'd just enjoy it with me. Instead of worrying about whether you've got to measure up or not. You haven't! Mostly I'm just… it's better to share it with somebody else, rather than have it to myself. Before you came here, I'd never even thought about having a best friend! Not even once. And I wasn't perfect, either, when all of this got started. I was a horrible friend. She put as much work into me as I put into her! But you haven't got to make up for any of it, for either of us. It's just… something we could only've done for each other."

"Y'know what?" Claptrap asked, turning to face him. "That makes a lotta sense. 'cause I was thinking maybe the reason Gladys and me didn't work out the first time wasn't really about us at all."

"What d'you mean?"

"If we had, then I never woulda met you. And that means I'd just've been a loser forever. All that stuff I did today? If it'd just been me and her, never woulda happened. I needed you around to make me a better person!"

Wheatley had to say that thought made him sort of warm and fuzzy on the inside. It was sort of like… sort of like the flowchart GLaDOS had mentioned once. About how all the things that happened did so exactly as they needed to, even if they didn't make any sense at the time or if they made everyone really, really sad. All of it came together in the end. They just had to be patient about it.

All of a sudden Claptrap was hugging him, and while he was trying to catch up to that Claptrap said, "I love you, buddy," much more quietly than he would have expected.

"I love you too," he said, and Claptrap almost jumped back from him, that's how fast he reacted.

"Really?" he asked. "My friends usually get all weird when I say that to 'em."

That's because they're not your friends, Wheatley almost said, but decided just before he did that it could wait. The limit thing, he had to keep that in mind. "Doesn't bother me," he elected to say instead.

"Good to know!" Claptrap said. "Hey, I'll be back later. I need a drink real bad."

"I'm sorry?" Wheatley asked, frowning in confusion. "You need to what?"

"I gotta go to Moxxi's," he explained. "Just for one. Today was a little much for me to brush under the rug. I know you're supposed to, like, talk about stuff after it happens, but I just do not have it in me right now. I don't wanna think about it."

Wheatley was still not entirely certain what he meant – how could a robot drink anything? – but he decided that wasn't important. "Alright," he said instead of asking further. "But if you take too long I'll um, I'll have Gladys yell at you."

"Yeah, and then I'll start crying, and then she'll stop. What's your plan for that?"

"I'll have to um, to stare at you disapprovingly, I s'pose."

"That isn't gonna stop me crying," Claptrap said. "I'll give ya a hint: nothing will stop me."

Wheatley laughed. "Okay, okay, you win."

"When you tell Gladys about what happened today, make it sound like I was a little more heroic than I really was. 'kay?"

"I'm not telling her anything," Wheatley said, shaking himself in refusal. "You are much better at the, the storytelling. Thing. You can tell her later. She'll probably also be less horrified if you tell it."

"That's what happens when you talk like you've always got a megaphone in your hand!" said Claptrap. "Catch you later, buddy. And… thanks. You never stop reminding me of what a real friend is."

And that was when Wheatley decided, once and for all, that he didn't care if GLaDOS had been right and it took five or ten or twenty years to help Claptrap like he'd helped her. He didn't care if it took the rest of his life. He was going to do it, and happily, because he already knew it was worth it.

Author's note

If you really want to read an author's note after all that, you are an absolute saint. But I don't have one.