Part 105. The Itch

Synopsis: Carrie has most of the facts and she is DETERMINED to use them.

"What did you want me for, Momma?"

"Caroline," Momma says, a little absently. "Do you know where Orange and Blue are?"

"Uh… why don't you?"

"I turned their GPS off a while ago," she says. "Do you?"

"Yeah," I answer. They're in their clubhouse, goofing around like usual. "Why?"

"Claptrap has been dancing for quite a while by himself and I thought he might like the company."

Now that's a loaded sentence if I ever heard one. "But… you hate dancing."

"Don't worry about it."

"Um… okay. You want me to see if they want to join him?"

"Please."

That's… weird, but if there's ever gonna be anybody that figures my mom out, it's probably not gonna be me. I think my dad's getting close, though.

I pass the message on to them and they are, of course, thrilled that they get to go do the thing my mom hates most. The fact she pretty much asked them to do it doesn't seem to affect their excitement at all. I'm still confused, though, so I don't follow them to wherever they're going. Instead I just stare at Atlas and P-body's storage cube fort, trying to make it make any sense at all. She not only knew he was dancing, but for how long. And then… and then she asked me to send in Atlas & P-body, which will only make him do it more.

Ooh. I'm getting an idea. Because now that I'm thinking about it, she seemed distracted when she was talking to me. And she usually gives me all of her attention. So the only thing all of that can mean is…

She was watching him. On purpose. Because…

No. No, she can't like seeing him dance. That's crazy. Even when Dad does it she only gets like… mildly amused. And then annoyed. Wait. What's the point of dancing, again? In the movies it's usually an excuse to hang out with someone you really like. Or watch them. Because you like looking at them, and - oh, right! It's like that story about the mermaid I read to Momma when I was younger! Everyone thought the mermaid's dancing made her prettier! So maybe… it's the same thing for him. To her.

Actually? That makes sense. She's never been into Dad, but why would she be? All the Cores look the same. If she was into him, she'd kinda be into all of them, and that would be so weird. But Claptrap is like… the opposite of every single robot we have here. Also, he's bright yellow. She probably likes how he looks just because it's so different from literally every other person she's ever seen.

… I gotta tell him about this. It's rare anybody can get one in on her, but this is pretty big. He'll be able to tease her forever about this. And she won't be able to do a thing about it!

I head off to the room he's been hanging out in and I don't even have to interrupt because as soon as he sees me he stops and throws open his arms. "Carrie!" he shouts, happy to see me like always. "C'mere, kiddo."

I give him the usual hug and when he lets go I tell him, quietly but urgently, "I got big news for you, Claptrap."

"Ooh!" he says, clasping his hands together. "Lay it on me, sister!"

"So," I say in a hushed whisper, because of the whole Momma keeping an eye out thing, "y'know how my mom hates dancing?"

"Yep! Pretty familiar with that little snag!"

"Well, she asked me to send the co-op bots in here."

"She did?" He turns around to look at them.

"Mmhm. She's been watching you."

"Oh," says Claptrap. "That's… weird."

"I know," I say, getting excited about this. "And there's only one reason she'd be doing that, right?"

"Well… unless she was hate watching, then -"

"She wasn't," I interrupt. "She was doing it 'cause she wanted to. And you know what that means?"

"Uh…" He glances up at the camera. "I know what I'd like it to mean."

"It means," I say excitedly, "that you have something to tease her about!"

He stares at me for a good few seconds. "Uh… yeah. Yeah, I could do that. But it would be dumb."

"Why?" I ask, confused. "She does it to you all the time!"

Claptrap glances over at Atlas and P-body. I don't think they noticed he moved away from them. Then he signals with one hand for me to follow and we leave the room.

"Where are we going?" I ask. He doesn't answer, just keeps going. Usually that means he's about to get serious, which I don't like very much. Mostly because he's just not a very serious guy. It's kinda sad when he feels the need to do that.

I know where we're headed a few minutes later because I've been there so many times. I don't know if Momma gave it to him or he just kinda claimed it, but Claptrap has his own room just like I do. Except his is a lot cooler. Some of the stuff he has he brought over from Pandora, but the rest of it he just took from places in the facility nobody uses. When I asked him if Momma minded that, he just kinda shrugged and said he wasn't sure she'd noticed. We do have a lot of things sitting there collecting dust just because she likes leaving it where it is.

"Sooo… what're we doing here?" I ask as he sits down on the couch he definitely did bring back from Pandora. I keep meaning to find him a sheet or something to put on top of it. It's pretty beat up. He taps his wheel twice against the bottom of the frame, then says,

"'Cause there's no camera in here."

I look around, a little surprised that I had never noticed that. There isn't one in my room either, but I didn't think Claptrap would mind if my mom was able to watch him all day long. "Oh," I say, not sure what that means.

"I mean, I was real tempted for a minute there to go along with what you said," Claptrap continues. "It would've been really funny to watch her get all flustered over that. But then I remembered this problem I'm having with her and I thought to myself, 'Claptrap, that ain't gonna solve it.'"

"What problem?" I ask, hopefully not too eagerly. Something I really like about Claptrap is he doesn't really care about my age. He doesn't see a problem with telling me stuff or asking for advice like everyone else does. He just does it, while everybody else babies me.

"Do you know what your mom's problem is with interfacing?" he asks. That freezes me up for a second, because that… is a big one.

"Uh… yeah. I'm pretty sure I do."

"Wheatley won't tell me," says Claptrap, crossing his arms. He sounds annoyed, and honestly I don't blame him. "He wants her to tell me herself."

I roll my optic and sit down next to him. "I hope you're okay with waiting two hundred years for the answer."

"Why don't you just tell me?"

"'Cause… it's kinda her business."

"It's kinda my business," Claptrap argues. "Look, I don't know if you know this, but it didn't used to be such a big deal. Now it is! And nobody will tell me why!"

Well, when he puts it like that it doesn't sound very fair. "Okay. I'll make you a deal. You asked her about it already, right?"

"Uh… sorta."

That's the only way to ask her a question sometimes, so I'll count it. "She should tell you herself now that she's had to think about it, but if she doesn't I'll give you the gist. Sound good?"

"What's my wait time looking like? Twenty years?"

I shrug. "I don't know. You might wanna try not sorta asking and instead actually asking."

"I did! I only said sorta 'cause I was kinda being a jerk."

"Why did you do that?"

"Carrie, everyone on Pandora is like that. I do my best to be a decent guy but it's not always gonna work out!"

I guess if everyone I knew sucked, I'd probably suck too. Not that Claptrap sucks, he's just… not very tactful. "You could try again, but be nice this time."

"But why's the onus on me? Why can't she just – "

"Onus?" I interrupt, laughing. Claptrap sighs.

"I do read, you know."

"I thought you only read comic books."

"They're called manga."

"Claptrap, I can't explain to you why she is or isn't doing something," I tell him, because we've already had that argument like seven times. "Half the time she doesn't even know."

"Okay," says Claptrap grumpily. "I'll ask her again."

"Nicely."

"But if she gets mad at me, I'm blaming you."

"Oh, come on," I say, shaking my core at him. "She doesn't get mad at you."

"The threat of her gettin' mad is enough to keep me in line."

"No it isn't."

"No," he agrees, "and that's how we know I'm not very smart!"

I can't tell if he's smart or not. Some of the stuff he does is really, really dumb, but he also manages to get himself out of every single mess he gets into. That's pretty impressive for a guy nobody likes.

"D'you know where Claptrap's gone?"

"Uh…" It's been a few hours. He could be literally anywhere. "Last I knew he was going to see Momma."

"Prob'ly still there, then." He leaves my room, but before he can get too far I follow him.

"She was watching him dance today," I feel the need to say.

"I'm not surprised."

"You're not?"

He gives me that look that means he's deciding how much to tell me about something. "It's um… it's not the first time."

"She's done it before?" How come I never knew about this?

"Does it all the time."

"Really?" Actually, Claptrap didn't seem all that surprised either. More like he was just… trying not to get his hopes up. "Does she think he's handsome?"

He shrugs. "I mean, he is."

"More than you?"

"I don't think so," he says, sounding a little annoyed. "But the way some people think's still one big myst'ry to me."

There's only one reason why he would be upset by that. "Are you jealous of Claptrap?"

My dad nods a little. "Yeah. Yeah, sort of."

"Why? Do you think she'd dump you for him?"

"No," he says, frowning at me. "No, 'course she wouldn't. 's just… I dunno. Sometimes it feels sort of um… sort of like a contest. I know it's not, and, and that if it were I already won, it's just… well, 's not about him at all." He stops and sighs, not looking at me. "I shouldn't say this, I really shouldn't, since he's my best friend and all, but… he's a loser, Carrie. He's nothin'. And sometimes I just… I get jealous because I can't um, can't figure what it is about him. But at the same time, y'know, it's… I don't know what it is either! I can't pin um, can't tell why it is I like him so much! Like I said. A loser. I shouldn't care about him anymore than she should. But… we do. Do I wish she also found me handsome? Yeah, yeah absolutely. But that's not something anybody can um, can help. Or. Or really change in any way."

"She also thinks he's funnier than you."

He grimaces.

"'S true, 's all true, but… she also said she um, she wouldn't give me up for him. So. 'S my own thing to deal with, really. No need to doubt a fact, now, is there?"

"He's good for both of you, anyway."

He smiles a little bit. "Absolutely. Let's see if we can't track him down, then, yeah?"

It's pretty obvious he is with Momma, mostly because of his colour. You can pretty much see him from clear across the facility. We get close enough to see what he's actually doing, which is usually pretty obvious, but this time it's not. Mostly because whatever Momma's doing is really confusing.

"... what in the world…?" Dad whispers, halting in the doorway and squinting into the room, and I gotta say I'm at a loss myself. Momma appears to be singing to Claptrap, but not in any way I've ever seen before. It's… in a different voice than usual, almost, and she's kinda surrounding him while she does it. This is… oh. Oh, wait a minute.

"Are you uh… um… are you seducing me?" Claptrap is asking uncertainly, which is actually the same question I had.

"Maybe," Momma says in a very soft voice, curling around him gently. "Are you upset?"

"What? No! Nonono! No! I'm not - uh - okay. Uh… you might um… might wanna slow it down there, babe, because I'm gonna start leakin' and it is not gonna be hydraulic - oh. Oh, okay. You're just gonna keep doing that." She's started running her core along his chassis, and it's incredibly delicate considering her size. He's holding his arms up in front of them as though he doesn't know what to do with them.

"Oh," my mom says, still in that same voice. "So you want me to stop. You should have told me sooner."

"No!" Claptrap protests quickly. "No, you uh… you keep doing that and I'll uh… I'll just…"

"What is going on here?" Dad whispers, and I look at him sideways. He really doesn't know a thing about this stuff, does he?

"Um… let's just say we should probably go find something else to do," I tell him. I don't know if anything is actually gonna happen, but I do know I don't want to see it.

"What? Why?"

But she suddenly pulls away from Claptrap almost violently, shaking herself as though there's something on her chassis she needs to get off. Claptrap tilts in curiosity and reaches out for her, but she snarls, "Don't touch me!" and he backs off immediately.

"What'd I do?"

"Nothing."

Is she just gonna do this every time?

"Are you sure? 'Cause it seems like -"

"Shut up."

"Ohhhh no," I mutter. "No you don't."

"What? What's going on?"

"Oh, God," Momma's murmuring to herself, sounding almost… upset with herself. It looks like her chassis has become super uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Oh my God, what am I doing."

"Something I really wish you'd do more often! Because it's super hot!" And he goes to touch her again, but she shakes her core and tilts the panel he's on so that he rolls away from her.

"Stop it."

"But – "

"I need –"

"- to just tell him already!" I shout at her, and when she looks up at me the light behind her optic actually shrinks down all the way.

"Babe, you might wanna consider investing in a door," Claptrap says, folding his arms.

"What are you two doing here?" Momma demands.

"Look, if you aren't gonna tell him, I will," I tell her.

"Tell him what?" Dad asks.

"Yeah! Tell me what?"

"Nothing," Momma says to him with a lot of force.

"No," I argue, "no, there's absolutely something."

"What is it?"

"Claptrap!" she snaps.

"What?" he asks, raising his hands defensively. "I'm losin' track of what's goin' on here."

"Nothing's going on. Everyone is going to stop talking."

"Uh… I can try to do that."

"I haven't said anything," Dad says unhelpfully. "Well. 'til now, that is."

"You're doing great, pal!" Claptrap says, giving him a thumbs-up. "Hey, wait. What was it you wanted to tell me, Carrie?"

"She doesn't want to tell you anything," Momma says pointedly, looking straight at me. "We are simply going to proceed from here as though none of this ever happened."

"It seems pretty important," he says, swiveling in her direction.

"It is. And I will tell you myself. Just not now."

Yeah. Sure she will.

"Her Itch isn't a glitch like yours!" I yell, before she can stop me. "She was given it on purpose!"

The room is dead silent except for Momma's hardware heating up out of anger, but I don't care. Claptrap shouldn't have to wait twenty years to get his explanation. She should just be a grown-up and talk about things, but since she won't I will.

"… you're kidding," Claptrap says, but not to her. "That's – that doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody build a horny admin bot? On purpose? That sounds like the opposite of what anyone would want in an operating system!"

"Don't answer that," Momma snaps at me. She's gotten over her shock already and the look she's giving me is a little scary, but I may as well finish this.

"They gave it to her to force her to test."

Claptrap's entire chassis drops, and he turns to look up at her. "But… but I thought you liked testing!"

"Oh, she does," I say. Dad taps me from behind.

"Carrie, I think… I think that's enough," he says quietly. "'S time to go. Alright?"

"No."

"Carrie, this isn't –"

"That's what they did when she tried to defy them," I go on. "But testing only really fixes it once. So she got stuck with this compulsion to test that testing would never stop. And nothing ever did, until she met you."

"Oh my gosh," Claptrap says, pressing his hands together beneath his optic. "Babe, I am so sorry. That is messed. Up. You shoulda told me! I woulda backed off a long –"

"I didn't want you to know!" Momma snaps, looking straight at me. "I wanted to do what you do: call it a glitch and leave it at that! But now I can't! Now it's a big deal again!"

"It doesn't have to -"

"Shut up!"

"Yeah, sure," Claptrap says in a quiet voice, wringing his hands together. "Sorry, babe."

"Caroline, what in the hell did you do that for?" she demands, and I feel myself shrink a little bit. I don't know why, because I did the right thing. Didn't I?

"Well, you weren't going to tell him."

"Of course I was going to tell him!" Momma shouts, and now I'm a little scared. "On my own time!"

"If you were, then… then why'd you tell him to stop touching you?"

"Because it's been ten years since I -" She shakes her core. "I'm not the one who needs to justify my behaviour here. What is the point of dropping all of this on him? What do you expect him to do with this information? Could you not have just let me handle my own business?"

"Well, I mean… if I'd known I'd've been less aggressive," says Claptrap. "Well, maybe. I'd've tried to -"

"I didn't want that!" Momma rounds on him. "I wanted to remember what it was like before! How it felt before I thought I had to be ashamed of it! It isn't a crime to want to feel attractive for ten minutes!"

… my mom doesn't think she's beautiful?

"I did that?" Claptrap is saying, a little hesitantly. "Are you saying I made you feel sexy?"

"Good God you are obtuse."

"Well, half of me is."

Whatever that means, it seems to disarm her so much she almost isn't mad anymore.

"But… why didn't Wheatley ever help you out with that?"

She glances up at him, and he looks away immediately.

"How could he," she says resignedly. "He wouldn't be here if he'd had any other choices. You do. You have an entire universe full of them. But you came here. To me."

"You wouldn't?" I whisper to him, but he only shakes himself and says,

"Can we go? Please? This hasn't… this is between them, Carrie. You've just… you've gone and pushed into something you shouldn't have."

"I fixed it!"

"You haven't fixed anything," Momma snaps. "I was dealing with this just fine on my own."

"Like you do with everything else, you mean?"

Dad winces at the sound of Momma getting angry again, and taps me a second time. "Carrie, I really –"

"You are being a brat, kiddo," Claptrap says. "Seriously. You need to get lost."

"She was never going to tell you!" I protest. "She never tells anyone anything!"

"So you think she was lying," he says flatly. "You're tryin' to say she just lied to me right now." She turns her core to look at him so quick I almost don't even see it.

"I was not –"

"I didn't say you were," Claptrap interrupts. "I said she is trying to convince me you were."

Well… well, what do I say to that? I can't just say that! She'll be furious! If she can even get more angry than she already is! So I have to just sort of stare at him and hope he shuts up because I just realised nobody is on my side right now and that doesn't feel very good.

"Claptrap," my dad says quietly. "D'you want to –"

"Yeah," Claptrap answers. He moves towards the hallway, but before he quite leaves he puts his hand on the wall and says, without turning around, "Babe."

"What."

"I don't want this to be a big deal either. I wanna relive those good times we had as much as you do. But… I just want you to know that I'm ashamed of it too, sometimes. A lot, actually. Pretty much every minute of every day! But it ain't going anywhere so… I don't see any shame in letting myself get something out of it. I mean… we both know it's the only reason I'm here right now."

She doesn't say anything to that, and we follow Claptrap when he goes to leave.

"Carrie, you should not have done that," my dad says to me in a low voice as we move down the hallway.

"That was really not cool," Claptrap agrees.

"I was trying to –"

"Trying to what?" Claptrap interrupts, throwing up his arms. "Cockblock me? Congratulations! It worked!"

"Well, I mean… she probably wasn't going anywhere with it," Dad says thoughtfully. "I've never um, never seen her do anything like that."

"Of course not," Claptrap says scornfully. "You'd've been all, 'What's that you're doing there, luv? Looks sort of like… like you've lost something. Down there. On the ground. I'd help you find it, but um… don't know what it is you're looking for. Totally oblivious. Also, what's the uh, the singing about? Lovely song, really is, but I just… I don't get it. Really don't. Mind giving me the um, the rundown?'"

Dad just stares at him.

"Well, what? That's how you talk!"

"Is it?" Dad says, sounding a little sad. "I don't… I don't really, do I?"

"Yeah, man, you do. People tell me I sound like an idiot, but compared to you I'm practically Morgan Freeman."

"That's… that's a bit harsh, isn't it?" Dad asks the floor tentatively.

"Wheatley, I'm sorry," Claptrap says, pressing his palms flat to the front of his optic. "I am not having the best day. I really, really wanted to know where she was going with that. It was incredibly hot."

"She did look like she was enjoying herself," my dad admits. Claptrap stops and holds out his arms.

"Man, she was! And I didn't even have to ask her, she just started doing that! It was amazing! And then… you blew it!"

"I'm sorry," Dad says, shaking his core. "I… I had no idea what that was. I didn't… it just… it was intr'esting, but… the meaning was lost on me." He seems to suddenly remember I'm there and frowns at me. "Carrie, how did you… you seemed to know what that was about, how –"

"Dad, I know what sex is," I tell him. He looks down at Claptrap, who holds up his hands in surrender.

"I did not tell her anything. She already knew about it before I got here."

"I lived with humans for a year!" I shout at the ceiling. "I would've had to go around with my eye closed not to find out!"

"Well… I s'pose that makes sense," Dad says, sounding uneasy, "but… you've really got to apologise to your mum."

"I didn't do anything!"

"No, you totally did," says Claptrap. "Care, I kinda got your point. She's a little…"

"Reluctant," Dad supplies.

"Yeah. Reluctant about stuff she doesn't wanna talk about. But…"

"We lit'rally just went through this with her."

"That stuff about Caroline, yeah."

"Mmhm," Dad nods. "She's um, she's not ah, open, shall we say –"

"She doesn't make the same mistake twice."

"No. No, not usually. I believe her. She was going to, she would have said something. I dunno when-"

"I didn't even care about when," Claptrap says, waving one hand. "I just wanted to know it wasn't 'cause she suddenly found me repulsive!"

"No. No, 'course she doesn't. You'd definitely've, um, that would've come up. At any time. Lit'rally. Any time at all."

"You can count on her to always let you know exactly how much of you she hates!" Claptrap says fondly. "But he's right, kiddo. You really do owe her an apology. She was doing just fine. Believe me, I would know."

"You did also sort of… accuse her of lying," Dad says, wincing a little. At the memory I guess. Claptrap shrinks back a bit.

"Yeahhhhh. She probably had to psyche herself up for that a lot, too."

"Mmhm," Dad agrees. "Absolutely would've been thinking that over for a while. Before we even brought it up, maybe."

"Ooooh. That musta sucked so bad…"

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" I say angrily, trying to shove away the sneaking feeling they're actually right about this.

"I dunno," Claptrap shrugged. "You coulda trusted your mom, maybe?"

I can't tell if he was that blunt on purpose or it just came out that way. It's getting really hard to convince myself I was right, though.

"Hey, Wheats. You wanna go throw some rocks?"

"At what?" Dad says, frowning.

"I dunno. Humans, maybe? It's pretty fun when they realise they can't come in here to retaliate."

"Claptrap, you know I'm sort of the AI-human ambassador," Dad sighs, following him anyway. "I can't be seen tossing things at humans. How would I… um…"

"Yeah, ambassador isn't a verb, pal."

"Ooh, now you know all about verbs do you? Grammar expert all of a sudden, hm?"

"Don't get all sassy on me. You can't even spell."

"You can't spell either!"

"I don't have to! I have spellcheck!"

"Well… I… that's because…"

"Don't worry! No spelling or grammar required where we're going!"

"I'm not throwing any rocks."

"Okay! I can have all the fun and you can just watch!"

"Well… maybe one. Just to… to say I did."

"Look. Throw as many rocks as you want, but I'll tell everyone it was me. How about that?"

"Soon's anyone asked you you'd just, you'd spill the beans! You're no good at lying."

"Sounds like somethin' a guy who's bad at throwing rocks would say."

I watch them go, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling I'm getting suddenly. All three of them are telling me I'm wrong for what I did. And I don't think I am, but… it seems like I am.

Time to do what I usually do in situations like this: go to the Surveillance footage and look for Caroline.

Author's note

This part addresses a problem I just left unsolved when I brought it up originally. I kept going back and forth throughout the story on whether or not Wheatley could actually help GLaDOS find peace with the Itch situation, because with how things are laid out in Portal it seems he can't understand it and, since he doesn't have it, he'd just forget about its existence and GLaDOS would have to ask him to deal with it for her. Which she would only do rarely. But there wasn't any real way for him to get her to come to terms with it. Claptrap, however, can. He both understands it and can get her to have fun with it, which Wheatley would never realistically have been able to achieve no matter how hard I tried. Claptrap also removes from her the burden of having to bring it up, which is an important factor in her learning not to make such a big deal out of it.

I know I said previously that GLaDOS thought Claptrap was ugly, but then I was thinking about male vs female robots and I realised that the male ones (Bender, Claptrap, Wheatley) are allowed to be depraved and shameless but female ones (SHODAN, GLaDOS, Failsafe) are either ~above that sort of thing~ or are innocent regarding it. And I was like 'well that won't do now will it' (I don't like contributing to archetypes) and decided to change that detail. She's not going to get Claptrap-level, but she's not going to always have pure angelic thoughts either. The fic is staying PG-13, though, so you'll just have to use your imagination there.