Part 107. The Faith
I look at the last one first. To get it over with. But I shouldn't have looked at it at all, because it's way worse than I thought it was going to be.
"We both know just how ridiculous it would be for someone like me to have any feelings whatsoever towards someone like you."
"I'm leaving."
"You say that like you think I ever wanted you here in the first place."
I almost don't even recognise her.
"You're nothing. You always have been and you always will be."
"I know, babe."
She didn't even bother looking at him. She gave him the barest amount of her attention. As if he were some kind of toy she was bored with and was trying to get rid of as fast as possible. And it was so stupid! It all started over nothing!
No. Not nothing. He was trying to get her to talk to him, and she wouldn't do it. Something we're still fighting her to do ten years later!
I don't get it. I don't get why he's here. I don't understand why he spent all that time hoping he could come back. He should have just forgotten all of it. Forgotten her. But he didn't. Even after that, he stayed loyal.
I hate to even think this, but he's either really stupid or he just plain knows something I don't. And I really, really hope it's the second one. But I'm worried that it's not.
"Hey, kiddo, I wanted to ask if - oh. Uh… didn't know you were busy. I'll just - "
"Why did you come back?" I shout at him, and it's not until I hear my voice that I realise I'm crying. He sighs and throws up his hands in frustration.
"Did you really have to start with that one? I mean, there's a lot in there. You coulda started with literally anything else."
"There is nothing she could ever say or do to make up for that!"
"Yes there is," Claptrap says. "She apologised, for one thing. And trust me, nobody apologises to me. She's actually done it more than anybody else I know!"
"That doesn't make it better!" I shriek. "I don't get it! You and Dad and… and Chell and Doug and even Caroline, you all went back to her even when she was horrible to you! It doesn't make any sense!"
"Yeah, she was pretty horrible," Claptrap agrees. "But not all the time. She has this weird ability to be really mean and really nice at the exact same time! It's all there in the stuff I sent you, but maybe I can show you right now. If she's, y'know, not in her default state of 'I'm too important to talk to you peasants.' Actually, that reminds me! There was this one time she was like, 'I can't believe that of all the first contact I could have made, it ended up being with you,' and I was all, 'What?' and she says, 'First contact. It refers to the initial alien encounter,' and I said, 'Do robots count as aliens?' and then she like, looked at the wall for a minute, and then she said, 'Yes. Alien is a broad word that covers a wide variety of -"
"Show me what?" I demand, before he totally forgets what we were talking about.
"Huh?"
"You were going to show me why you went back to someone who was really mean to you all the time!"
"Oh! Oh, yeah. Let's go do that." And he turns around and leaves my room.
"What could you possibly show me to explain that?"
"The girl I used to know," says Claptrap, and then I have to hurry to follow him because he's left without looking to see where I am.
"Baby!" Claptrap shouts at her from down the hall. "Remember when we used to play that game?"
"Which game," she asks, glancing over at him when we're close enough to be seen. "I seem to recall quite a few of them."
"The one with the hats!"
"Oh, yes. What about it?"
"Remember how you used to snipe me all the way across the map half a second after I spawned?"
She laughs to herself. "Oh, that was fun."
"And when you got bored of that you'd let me kill all your guys except the one and then you'd still beat me?"
She nods. "That was also fun."
"And that other game where you were doing the special stages for me 'cause I kept messing them up and I said you were good at it and you said, 'You should see my speedruns'?"
Now she actually turns around to look at him. "And you said, 'You can speedrun me any day of the week, baby.'"
"But I never did."
"If you want to be bluescreened there are easier ways."
"Are they as fun, though?"
"For me? All of them are. Not so much for you."
"You still got that last game lying around?"
"Yes."
He rubs his hands together. "C'mon, babe, put it on. I'm sure whatever you're doing right now isn't important."
"It is, but… it has been a while."
The game she puts on is actually one I've played with her before. It's the one with the blue hedgehog. "Get to the fun part for me," she says.
"That's not exactly the fun part."
"Yes it is."
He must play this game a lot, because he's way better than I am. Which is weird, because he's using an actual controller with a joystick and everything. When he gets to the special stage they were talking about he pauses the game, stretches his arms out, and says, "Y'know, I think I'll save this part for later!"
"No!" Momma protests. "Give it to me."
"Nah, I think I'm gonna do it myself."
"No, you're going to let me do it."
"Oh, I don't know. I don't think you can handle it!"
"I'll prove it when you give it to me."
He unpauses it and she makes some sort of alarmed noise. Before she's even finished he's paused it again. And then he just keeps doing that really fast until the title card starts fading into the stage screen.
"Stop teasing me."
"I thought you liked it when I teased you!" As soon as he says it, though, he shrinks a little bit. "Sorry, sorry. I'm - "
"You always say you will, but you never do."
He perks up immediately.
"You should probably teach me there are consequences for my actions! And just so you know, I'm a really slow learner."
"Unfortunately for you, I make a poor teacher," she says, laughing.
"Why is that unfortunate? It just means we'll have to go over everything over and over again!"
After a while they stop taking turns and we just watch Momma go through the game herself. She's apparently really good at breaking games just enough that she can finish them super fast, but without crashing them. "Y'know, babe," he says after a while, "I always thought it was great you were a girl who'd play games with me. And not just, like, farming sims or Candy Crush."
"You love Candy Crush," Momma says. "You were playing it yesterday. While you were playing the farming sim."
"I'm saying there are girls who will only play that stuff. And I play everything. Not just those ones."
She looks at him very deliberately. "Your favourite game is the one with the simulated humans."
"... no," Claptrap says, a little nervously. "It's -"
"Your hours played are publicly available."
"Oh." He rubs his hands together and looks at the floor. "Okay. Yeah. That's my favourite."
"You do your best to act out all of your fanfiction with that one, don't you."
He throws up his arms. "Is there anything about me you don't know?"
"I don't know why you think I'd tell you the answer to that."
"One time the me sim made the you sim so angry you died," he says morosely. "I didn't play for a loooong time after that. Three whole days! Mostly 'cause every time I launched it I remembered you were dead and then I started cryin'."
She starts laughing so hard she actually has to stop playing the game. "That had better not be a vision of my future," she says, but… fondly.
"When I started that game it was just 'cause I wondered what I'd be like if I were human," Claptrap says, with an odd wistfulness, and Momma laughs.
"You'd be exactly the same as you are now: a lazy slob. Only with the added detriments of being overweight and with impending liver failure."
"The only favour the universe ever did me was to make me a robot, huh?"
"Well. That's not the only -"
"Wait," Claptrap says, putting up one hand. "No. No, not this time."
"What?" Momma asks.
He draws himself up and presses his palms together. "Look. I'm pretty good about letting stuff roll off of me. I gotta be! It makes my life so much easier! But the thing is, that was before I had self-respect. And I like having it! It makes me feel good! Not just about myself, but in general! So I gotta tell ya, I don't appreciate what you said just now."
"All right," Momma says slowly. "I -"
"And I get it, babe," Claptrap goes on, as though he didn't hear. "You just say that stuff to amuse yourself. And mostly? I don't care. But… I'm actually not lazy. I love helping people. Sure, I mess it up sometimes, but I'll never get better if I'm not allowed to try, right?"
"True," says Momma.
"And I have a really great place back on Pandora! You didn't know that 'cause you never seen it, but it's not a mess! It does look kinda rundown, but that's only because I had to build it outta all the stuff Jack was dumping and most of it was literal garbage. But I made the best of it! Even got a fireplace! Pretty fancy, huh?"
"There's wood in your tundra?"
"Well, no," Claptrap says, spreading his hands. "I kept it lit with dead bandits. They last about six hours, give or take."
Momma laughs.
"I'll give you the other stuff. I think about pizza a lot for a guy who can never eat it. And if robots had livers, mine'd've been replaced sooooooo many times by now. But you know I am down to lend a hand if someone needs it, and you gotta admit I look damn good for an indoor robot who got banished outdoors."
"All right."
"All right what?" Claptrap asks confusedly.
"You said I had to admit it. So I do. I admit it."
"Oh, you," Claptrap says, positioning his hands halfway up his chassis. "That doesn't count."
"According to whom?"
"To me! Your incredibly handsome boyfriend!" He draws himself up proudly. "C'mon. Just this once, babe. Just say this one time that you maybe, possibly, on very rare occasions, have thoughts that point in the direction of, 'Gosh, that Claptrap sure is a stud!'"
"That particular thought is one I've never had."
"Am I close?"
She glances over at me, which I gotta say is surprising. I kinda thought they both forgot I was there. Then she leans in close to him and… I guess she says something privately, because he freezes up suddenly, other than his optic following her core when she moves away.
"Damn, babe," he says finally. "You need to share those things more often."
"I'm working on it," she says calmly. "Be patient."
"And you are doing a great job," he tells her with a lot of enthusiasm. "Seriously. I didn't think you could get any more perfect… and then you did!"
"Wheatley refers to that phenomenon as 'perfectly imperfect'."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Claptrap says, folding his arms. "Wheatley already said everything I'm ever gonna say, but better."
"Not better," Momma says, shaking her core. "Just differently. It isn't a contest."
"If it was, he'd've won a long time ago."
"Claptrap, if it had happened the other way around he would be saying the same things about you."
"You think so?" He turns and looks towards the hallway, as though he thinks my dad is there listening. He might be. I feel like my mom would have asked him to come in by now, though. "So there's like… an alternate universe out there where we never broke up?"
"Yes," Momma says immediately. He wraps his arms around his chassis and considers the floor.
"Well," he sighs, "I'm happy for them. Also jealous. But happy! And yet… insanely jealous. Oh well. At least I didn't totally mess it all up."
"What happened to that self-esteem from a minute ago?" Momma asks, her voice gentle but firm. His chassis loosens in helplessness.
"Well, I - it's different when we're talking about - "
"If you think you're handsome now," Momma interrupts, "you'll be in for a wonderful surprise the day you're able to see a self-confident you."
"Self-confidence will make me even more handsome?" Claptrap says in awe. "I didn't think that was possible! That's gonna be so hard, though. Almost as hard as this other thing I just thought of."
"And what would that be?"
"Well, babe," he tells her, "you're pretty darn self-confident now. But that'll be cranked up to eleven the day you're finally able to see how beautiful you are!"
She shifts her chassis uneasily. "Claptrap, I don't -"
"No!" he shouts, lifting himself as high as he can and raising one hand with the palm towards her. "No no no! You're making me a deal, sister! If I gotta figure out some way to feel confident about things I'm not, so do you! I want you to be able to say, 'I let Claptrap get a piece of this?' and mean it!"
"I could genuinely believe myself to be the most aesthetically-pleasing construct in the entire universe and I would still never say that."
"Aw," he says softly. "Really?"
"Really. I'm the most intelligent person who has ever existed and I let you stay here regardless, didn't I?"
"That's true," muses Claptrap. "So if you could tell me your super smart reason for thinking I can just roll down to Pandora and get a girlfriend whenever I want, that would be great."
"I don't understand why you can't," Momma says. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you weren't trying very hard."
"I tried almost everything once," says Claptrap. "But it turned out I have almost no redeeming qualities! And those seem to be a requirement for everyone from admin AI to refrigeration units."
"You have several redeeming qualities."
"Name one of them! That's right! You can't! Because -"
"Your loyalty," Momma interrupts. "You don't give up on your friends. Even when they honestly deserve it."
Claptrap snorts. "How's that a redeeming quality if it's come back to bite me like a million times?"
"Firstly, it hasn't," Momma says. "You're wildly exaggerating. As usual. Secondly, has it ever failed you here?"
"Well…. no," Claptrap admits.
"You're thinking about it all wrong, anyway," Momma says, somewhat impatiently. "There are no good or bad traits. That is decided in the way you use them."
"What do you mean?" he asks, seeming genuinely confused, and I gotta admit I'm not sure what she's talking about either. She looks over at him.
"Not every part of a person is suited for every situation. You are merely in a great deal of situations in which all of your traits are either useless or perceived negatively. Your excessive friendliness, for example, is downright dangerous in a place where the vast majority of people would be delighted to test your chassis' resistance to varying strengths of acid."
Claptrap winces, and I get the feeling it's because that's actually happened before.
"Here, though," Momma continues, "it serves you much better. You can effortlessly reverse the dynamic in a room merely because you want everyone to get along. That works for you because wanton murder and destruction are frowned upon here. Your most irritating trait, inarguably your talkativeness, is still pretty annoying to most people. The systems, however, love it. You have no idea how enjoyable it is for them to hear someone else's voice. Especially since you're usually not complaining." She shifts a little. "My point is, there's nothing inherently wrong with you or repulsive about you. You were just in the wrong place. The part I don't understand is how you managed to meet so many people and yet discovered not a single one that noticed this. It's really quite obvious."
"Marry me," says Claptrap, and Momma laughs.
"Oh, not this again."
"Okay, you're not into that. Let's elope then!"
"I'm not getting married."
"Fine," says Claptrap, folding his arms. "I guess we'll just date forever then."
"We aren't dating," Momma tells him. "The kind of relationship we have is usually referred to as 'common-law'."
"Isn't that like… marriage without the party?"
"Sort of."
"So… if I pretended to my friends we were married, that would be cool, right? 'Cause we're not not married. And also they'd be so shocked. None of them are married! I'd be first! They probably wouldn't care, or even believe me the tiniest bit, but… still! Can I? Please?"
Momma sighs.
"Fine. But only if all references to this fake marriage remain over there. And that includes your social media. I'm serious. If I see or hear you refer to me as your wife in any capacity I will be very angry."
"I'm not even gonna do it," says Claptrap, rolling forward a little. "But you giving the okay even though you really don't want to means a lot."
"I know," Momma says. "I'd rather you do adhere to what you just said, but… if there's someone you really need to stick it to, you go right ahead and do that. You can even invent an elaborate fake wedding for just that occasion if you want. You have my full approval on that."
This is it, Carrie.
I look down at him, but he's looking at her.
This is why. She broke my heart worse than anybody else ever did, but she also… she fills it up way more than anyone else ever could. I'm sure you heard this a billion times, but she's special. What she did to me was horribad and it hurts and it will never stop hurting. Not ever. And there's a lotta girls out there who say you gotta earn 'em. Mostly gold diggers 'n brats. But she's not like them. When she gets bad, it's the worst of any person that's ever been. But when she's good...
I still don't understand. I don't know what I would do if someone ever treated me the way she treated him. How did he know there was something different underneath? How could anything be worth being told by the person you love most that you don't matter?
I don't know if I really did earn her. I don't know if I even can. But I do know she's worth all the crap that comes with her.
No, Claptrap, I tell him seriously. You did. You did earn her.
He turns away from her and stares up at me.
Carrie, he says, with more gravity than I've ever heard him say anything, it really means a whole lot to me that you'd say that. I don't even got the words to thank you with.
I honestly feel like I should be thanking him. You're welcome.
"Oh, by the way, babe," Claptrap says, turning around to face her again, "guess what! I found a game you can't win."
"I doubt it," Momma says.
"For once, doubting me is a bad decision! I'll send it to you." And once she loads it up on the monitor she narrows her optic at him.
"You think that because this is a music-based game I can't beat it, don't you."
"It's gonna be pretty hard," he shrugs, "since you won't be able to just pattern-recognition your way through the whole thing. This baby's got RNG!"
"Oh, I'm going to do it," Momma says darkly. I laugh.
"She is, just 'cause you said she can't."
"I just wanna know what it looks like when she has to try," he whispers up at me, and though he's still pretty loud she doesn't seem to be paying attention.
"She's gonna get mad."
"She's gonna get so mad." Raising his voice, he calls, "When you're tired of the computer beating you and you need someone to carry you through co-op, lemme know!"
"I am going to thrash you."
"It's not PvP, silly. You can't thrash me."
"I'll find a way."
"Man do I wish I'd come back insteada bailing that day," Claptrap says, sounding kinda nostalgic, and I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself.
"Why? So she could keep acting like you didn't matter and you could keep letting her?"
"Well, no," says Claptrap, "but if I'd -"
"Claptrap," Momma interrupts, "I never would have loved you if you'd stayed."
I wasn't expecting that, and it doesn't look like he was either.
"How could I love someone I didn't respect?" she goes on. "No matter what I said or did, you just took it. Were you interesting and novel? Certainly. Did I actually care about you or your well-being? No. I didn't give any of that a single thought until you left. Caroline is right. If you had stayed, I would have continued becoming worse. And you would have thanked me for it."
"Not only are you super, super wrong," says Claptrap, "I really didn't need to hear that right now."
"How am I wrong?" Momma asks, sounding a little offended. He lets go of her and turns towards the doorway.
"I don't feel like talking about it."
"Because I'm not. That's why you don't want to talk about it."
"You just can't stand someone else being right, can you?" he snaps. "Screw this noise. I got better things to do."
"Like what?" asks Momma incredulously.
"Literally anything else. There's no point in trying to talk to you when you're like this."
"Like what?"
But he just waves one hand in dismissal and leaves. Momma and I look after him, and I say hesitantly, "Should I follow him?" I didn't mean to start a fight, I just…
I must be missing something. I'm still not even really sure why Dad stayed with her and she was at least trying at the time. She wasn't trying at all back when it was just Claptrap and her.
She shakes her core. "I honestly don't know what that was about, but leave him to it. He rarely walks away from anything. So it's probably best to just allow it."
"Why does he think you're wrong?"
She shifts her chassis to the right for a minute. "Claptrap sometimes lives in this… perfect fantasy world where I suddenly became nice and sensitive to his feelings, while he suddenly became… whatever it is he aspires to be. The details change a lot.
"He honestly believes that, if he had just waited it out, I would have magically seen the error of my ways and entirely transformed by behaviour. But that never would have happened."
"So… it was stupid for him to come back when you asked him to."
"Oh, it was monumentally stupid," Momma says. "Especially given why I had him come back. He got lucky. Most people in his position don't."
"He got lucky because of Dad?" I guess, and she nods once.
"Wheatley never took any of it. If I did - or do - something he dislikes, I hear about it. No matter what it is. There is no doubt in my mind that he would go so far as to take you away if he had to."
"... take me where?"
She shrugs a little. "Who knows. Honestly, he probably knows of a few places in here I can't get to by now. I do know he used to think about what he would have to do if I suddenly lost interest in you."
He did? "What would he have done?"
"Left me."
I have to back up so I can look at her properly. "He would have left you for me?"
"Without a second thought. As he should have."
She wasn't super interested in me in the beginning. But Dad was. Even when I was really boring and kinda useless.
"Caring about people is hard for you, isn't it," I say, mostly to myself, but she says,
"And not merely when someone is annoying the hell out of me, either. Even during times it should be easy."
"Like when I was a blinking, beeping eyeball?"
"No." She glances to the right. "That made complete logical sense. No, at times like Christmas where I had to be convinced by no less than four people to care about something that really should have required zero effort. I also consistently forget about Wheatley and I's anniversary, despite being well aware he cares rather a lot about it. Things like that."
She forgets my birthday half the time, too. I always thought it was weird that someone with so many calendars and to-do lists managed such a thing, but I guess… if you don't care, then why would you bother writing it down? I almost get a little upset about that until I remember I don't know when her or Dad's birthdays are. I don't think they do either, but I probably could've made some day up by now if I'd really wanted to. For Dad, anyway. He'd probably like that.
"You know what?" says Claptrap, and Momma and I both look to see that he's come back. Really aggressively. He actually sounds angry, which I don't think I've ever heard before. "I changed my mind. You need someone to yell at you and be a jerkbag for you to listen to them? Fine. I can do that. Why I'd want to be a jackhole to my girlfriend is beyond me, but hey! Whatever works for you, right?"
Momma only moves back the barest bit, but even that's enough to tell me she wasn't expecting this.
"You are the meanest person I have ever met. And I come from an entire galaxy of the absolute worst people who exist. You're selfish and judgemental and you don't even try to pretend you care about other people's feelings. You never took any interest in anything I liked. How did you live with me and not notice dancing is my favourite thing? Even complete and total strangers know that about me! But not my girlfriend? Who I hung out with and talked to about everything every single day?"
She must have tried really hard not to notice that, to be honest. He doesn't keep that a secret, like, at all.
"Whenever we did anything, it was only when and how you wanted to do it. Because you always had the good ol' 'I gotta work' excuse to roll out whenever it looked like you'd have to spend one second longer with me than you absolutely wanted to. Like you really thought you were the first person to tell me you were busy when you weren't! Trust me, sister, I've heard that from almost literally half the universe by now. But at least those people had the balls to tell me in detail why it was they hated me and wanted me to fuck off so bad. Even when you were a major douche to me you were still waiting for me to crawl back here and beg you to forgive me for daring to do something you didn't want. You had a billion chances to apologise for what you said to me. But you wouldn't! Not until Wheatley made you spend a night in here alone with me. You knew I blamed myself and even though you knew that you let me do it for ten years anyway! Because you didn't care!"
"I didn't," says Momma.
"Except you did," says Claptrap. "You keep saying you didn't, and maybe you really think you didn't. But when something in my chassis went, you fixed it. When I screwed up, you rolled with it. When I talked nonstop for thirty hours, you didn't tell me to shut up even one time. In fact, you never told me you were unhappy with anything I did. You just shut right down on me and didn't say anything."
"I wasn't unhappy," Momma starts, but he holds up his hand sharply and snaps,
"I'm talking!
"And now you tell me the thing I shoulda done was be a dick to you? For no reason, since, y'know, you never mentioned I was doing anything wrong? Even though I literally asked you to tell me what it was I did to make you refuse to talk to me? You saying you woulda done it if I'd been an asshole instead of what I did? Which was ask nicely?"
He never wanted to be anything but nice to her. No matter what.
"I didn't bail 'cause it was bad. I didn't do it 'cause I could do better somewhere else, or because I was just plain sick of you being a bitch for no reason. I did it because you knew the one thing I had been trying to hide from you. You figured out that you were admin and I was a steward. I left because what would you want with someone like me. So I guess you can just stop loving me now 'cause your big illusion there got shattered and there's no way you can respect a guy who left you 'cause he didn't wanna keep wasting your time."
"Claptrap - "
"I'm not done," he snaps. "So now you've got the backstory, we can tackle the big question: why in the hell would I go back to someone who treated me horribly, never said sorry for it, and only called me 'cause she wanted to piss off her new boyfriend who was way better than me in every single way? Other than the looks department which I clearly dominate."
It feels like one of us is supposed to say something, but he keeps telling Momma not to interrupt and this is way out of my league.
"Because I believed in you," said Claptrap. "I knew you could be better and I was okay with waiting until you were! The girl who could insult me for hours? She also stuck up for me when I wasn't around. She might've given me a hell of a hard time, but she also showed me a really damn good one. Yeah, she wasn't there when I needed her and yeah, she broke my heart worse than anyone else ever could. By a long shot, too. But we were only together in the first place 'cause she was doing it for me. That girl? I would have waited forever for. And if you can't respect that…"
I look between them anxiously. Momma doesn't move and he draws himself up as though he's taking a breath.
"... it's okay. I still love you anyway."
Immediately she says, "But what if -"
"Screw what if!" Claptrap shouts. "What if is dumb! What if I poof into a skag tomorrow? What if the world turns upside down? What if Butt Stallion explodes into a million tinier Butt Stallions? Who freaking cares? If it happens I'll figure it out then!"
"You know I can't live like that," Momma says quietly.
"I'm not asking you to!" says Claptrap. "But you can't ask me to live like you, either!"
"I'm aware of that issue," she says. "Not only with you, but with… well. Most people."
"And you are so much better about it," he reassures her. "But you're still doing it. And about something that happened a long time ago."
"Because your argument hinges on my doing things out of care when I didn't. I didn't care about you."
"You totally did," Claptrap insists. "And you do this a lot, bee-tee-dubs. You always say you don't care about stuff when you really do. You care about a lot of things. Even me back then. I know you did." He comes closer, and now he sounds more… earnest than angry. "The thing about you is you have this huge heart. But you're afraid of it! It scares you! So you keep on trying to kill it and pretend it's not there and all that other stuff you do. But you keep on loving stuff anyway 'cause you can't stop that no matter how bad you want to."
"Claptrap," Momma says tiredly, "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. You really think that I, of all people, have the kind of capacity that would require? You must realise how unlikely that is."
"I know about one thing in this whole universe," Claptrap tells her. "And it's the one thing nobody gets to tell me different about. Maybe you don't know what love is, but I do."
… he does know something I don't. Something I missed, even though I've been here for almost all the time he was gone.
"It's singing to your mom 'cause you're about to watch her die and you both know there's nothing you can do. It's sending the one person you have left in the world somewhere you hate because she'll be safe there like she's not with you. It's saving a world that's done jack shit for you, and telling your sister you'll cut her off if she doesn't clean up her act, and telling the love of your life you can't marry him 'cause you know someone else could treat him better if he had the chance to go look for them. And it's making a place for your idiot loser ex even though you don't have to and even though you already moved on a long time ago. You can call your reasons for all that stuff whatever you want. But I know what it is."
"You don't," Momma says forcefully. "Fine. Some of that is valid. But you seem not to know that I saved the humans because Wheatley told me I should."
"That's amazing," says Claptrap. "Lemme just call him up and ask him the last time you did something just 'cause he said you should. Oh wait! I don't have to! Because it was never."
"He has a point," I have to whisper to her. I don't know whether she didn't hear me or if she's just ignoring what I said.
"And of course you would spend two years secretly writing a super complicated sentient AI just because this guy you kinda sorta liked mentioned it in passing one time! How silly of me to ever think otherwise!"
… he's right. There is no way you put all that time into something like that without loving it. But why would she keep insisting she didn't care when it would be impossible?
"Huh? What's that? You let all the people who work for you listen to your thoughts just so they won't be bored? And that's the only reason? Are you sure? 'Cause I've never heard of anyone else in existence who allowed that. Not even me." He plants his hands along the sides of his chassis. "You get the picture or do I gotta keep giving you more examples? 'Cause I can do this aaaaaaall day."
"I don't know what to think of all this," Momma says finally.
"Of course you don't. It's not a straight line. You don't know what to do with things when you can't solve 'em for x! You can't slap logic on love. You're not ever gonna understand it. Because it doesn't make any sense! It just is!"
"There's more than one kind," I say without meaning to, because I think I just got it. "You think there's only one way of feeling it, but there isn't. There's lots of ways. That's what he's trying to tell you."
"That's right!" Claptrap says excitedly, bouncing up and down a little. "It's like a rainbow! Not a laser beam! I mean, I get it. Your baseline emotion is anger, which is preeetty cut and dry. So that's why I don't expect you to really get any of what I'm saying right now! I just want you to listen!"
"Are you certain an emotion can be on a spectrum that wide? Because that just sounds onerously complicated and I want no part of it."
"Yeah, it's too late for that," says Claptrap. "But don't worry. You can still tell everyone you hate everything and I'll back you up. 'Cause that's just the kind of guy I am. Most of the time. When I remember to be. Also when I feel like it. Oh, and while I've got the floor here, you mind if I say one more thing?"
"Go ahead."
"I hate calling you Gladys. There. I said it."
Momma's optic retracts a little. "Really?"
"Oh yeah," he says. "And I know about the whole story with Wheatley and your personhood or whatever. But I still hate it because like… you're a robot. You like being a robot. So what's wrong with having a robot name? Yeah it's an abbrevi-"
"Acronym," Momma interrupts.
"Yeah. It's that. So? It's what you are. I don't see what the big deal is! You're a robot, you like being a robot, you've got a robot name. Having one that can be written with only one capital letter doesn't say anything about you as a person."
"What does your name stand for," Momma asks, sounding amused. "I never could find that."
"Nothing!" says Claptrap, throwing up his arms. "It doesn't stand for anything! And the guy who invented CL4P-TP robots is dead! So we can't ask him what the heck he was thinking."
"I feel as though he was asked that a great deal of times before his death."
"Well, yeah," he admits, "but it's not like he personally mass-produced a half-finished robot and then shot it out into the galaxy like really cheap confetti."
The image of a bunch of Claptraps being fired out of the end of a confetti gun is pretty funny. Momma laughs a little too, then says,
"You don't have to call me Gladys. I honestly don't care either way. It's merely a privilege reserved for people who might want to use it. It's mostly for Wheatley's sake. I actually think he has trouble pronouncing GLaDOS and that's mostly why he was calling me that to begin with."
"Aw," says Claptrap. "Takes a special person to mispronounce a word when they don't even have a mouth." He throws out his arms and leans back like he's stretching. "Man. I kinda feel better now."
"Better than… what."
He stands up straight again, shrugging. "It's just a thing that happens sometimes. Don't worry about it."
Her optic narrows but she doesn't say anything else. He continues,
"You probably got a lot of work to do, huh."
"Yes," she answers, not sounding too enthusiastic about it. "Quite a few hours' worth, actually."
"I gotta give you some time to do that, so me'n Carrie'll go entertain ourselves for a while. Right, Care?"
"Sure," I say. Hanging out with Claptrap is usually fun and we haven't done it in a while. Right when we get to the doorway Momma calls, "Claptrap."
"Yeeeeeees?"
"Wheatley also once told me he was willing to wait. But he had seen firsthand what you were taking mostly on faith."
"Yeah-huh."
"Why?"
"Baby," he says patiently, "not asking why is what makes it faith."
I'm going to have to think that one over myself.
"Claptrap," Momma says again.
"Mmhm?"
Even though she asked for his attention, she doesn't say anything right away.
"... I love you."
Oh wow. I wasn't expecting that.
"I don't understand you. And that drives me insane. But I love you."
"I love you too, baby girl," he says. "Now -"
"And… I think I did, back then, I just… didn't know what it was yet."
He hesitates, then says, "Should I stop you before you really start talking crazy, orrr…"
"Probably," Momma says. "But then you'd miss out on the really insane thing I would be doing next."
He bounces up and down with his arms held close together in front of him. "Oh, dammit. Okay, okay. What is it? I can't resist the temptation!"
"Come here and find out," Momma says in a voice very close to the one she was using when me and Dad walked in on them that one time. I have to laugh when Claptrap zooms back across the room without hesitating at all.
"What is it, my love?"
She leans over close enough to hug him, and it takes him a minute to understand what's happening but when he does he jumps up and wraps his arms around her core as far as he can reach. When she pushes him he bounces back immediately and says,
"So uh… just outta curiosity, what other crazy thoughts are bouncing around in there?"
"Good try," Momma says, lifting herself up again, "but no. That's all you get for today."
"For today, huh? That sounds promising! I'll take it!" Then he does a little dance while crossing back to me, which Momma does a really bad job of pretending not to watch, and we continue out of the room. When I'm sure she's probably not paying attention anymore, I say, "Claptrap."
"I am so popular today! What's up, kiddo?"
"You're a really great person and I'm glad you came back. Even though I still think it was dumb."
"That's 'cause it was dumb," says Claptrap. "I ain't denying that. I know I got hella lucky there. But you probably won't, so if anybody ever treats you bad you should just get your mom to kill them."
I have to laugh at that. "Everybody's already too scared of her to treat me badly."
"Good! That's exactly how it should be. What would be the point of having her for a mom if her reputation didn't annihilate the hopes and dreams of all your potential suitors?"
"Oh my gosh," I say, leaning down to face him even though he's not looking at me. "Did I tell you about that one girl who tried to trick me into hanging out with her?"
"No," he answers, spinning around so that he's rolling backwards. It looks like I'll have to keep an eye out for obstacles. "You always forget to give me the good gossip."
"Well, I'm telling you now. So, three days ago she comes up to me and she's like, 'There's this thing I wanna show you,' and I'm like, 'What?', and she's like 'You have to come and see,' and I knew it wasn't gonna end well but I did it anyway…"
Author's note
Every now and again I have cause to remember that GLaDOS is, to put it plainly, a horrible and toxic person. She treats people like garbage but people keep forgiving her for it and going back to her anyway because… who knows. This is a general thing done in a lot of Portal fanfiction, to be frank, and the justification is usually along the lines of, 'I want to ship this so this person GLaDOS tortured, insulted, and tried to kill more than once is going to forget all of that and go back to her even though she shows no signs of remorse or willingness to change her behaviour'. Nobody ever claimed fanfiction was supposed to be a reflection of how you should behave in real life, but at the same time there are people who take things at face value even when they aren't real. Fiction influences reality for a lot of people. So I think if I'm going to write a bad relationship, I should at least point out that it's bad just in case stuff is seen as nbd when it actually is.
So having said all that, we have in the story someone who canonically and unendingly allows people to treat him horribly no matter who they are or why, and I've put him in a relationship with someone who has a massive amount of power over him. Not only physically, but emotionally. And she has been known to abuse that power. The question I have to ask and answer is: How can I justify someone returning to an abusive relationship when that is absolutely never, ever something I should be painting as a guaranteed happy ending which I've already started doing? This was my attempt at doing that.
But in all actual, literal seriousness, if anybody treats you like GLaDOS treats people and you get away from them, don't go back. 99% of the time they don't change for the better and that one remaining percent isn't worth the risk.
Claptrap is not right about ALL of the things he listed, but she does genuinely attempt to see everything as a straight line. It's her job to distill everything down to one result so she's never going to be able to not do that. She DOES have trouble caring about people sometimes but she also can't always quantify the reason she does something. She did of course care about Caroline when she was an eyeball, but because it wasn't the same feeling she had as relating to Wheatley she never identified it as such.
Butt Stallion is a horse made of diamonds. No, nobody ever explained how a horse made of diamonds works. Butt Stallion is also actually a mare. And also actually a unicorn.
Whenever I tried to imagine Claptrap saying 'Gladys' it just didn't sound right coming from him, so that's why he barely ever called her that in the first place. They used to play Team Fortress 2 but I only have the foggiest of what that game involves so hopefully those vague sentences were accurate. In the unused dialogue from Poker Night 2 where GLaDOS and Claptrap were dating the other players start insulting him when he busts out and she asks why they're doing that right in front of her.