Part 108. The Kids

"Hey, Wheatley," Claptrap asked the next day, catching him as he left his morning look out the hole, "I forgot to ask yesterday. How close did we get?"

"Mm?" How close had they gotten to what?

"When we fixed up GLaDOS," he clarified. "You saw the OG version. There isn't a lot we can do about the ceramic, but what about all the other stuff?"

"Uh…" Wheatley frowned and attempted to dredge through the bottom of his memory. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't um, don't think about any of that very often. Let me take a look, here, and I'll see if I can find it for you."

"You gotta show me! It's like… bro code."

Wheatley had no idea what that meant, but he was pretty sure she'd looked quite lovely. Not that she wasn't now, of course.

It took him almost five minutes to track down the day he'd been removed from her chassis, and if he was quite honest he was a little taken aback. They had gotten quite close; as close as they could have, as Claptrap had said. And he had only seen her for about two minutes, that one time, so he could be forgiven for having forgotten how, exactly, she had looked back then. But at the same time… he was unsure how it could ever have slipped his mind how utterly beautiful she had once been.

If he had remembered, perhaps he would have made more of an effort to take care of all of that. It wasn't his fault, not really, but at the same time… he had managed not to notice when the difference had been so incredibly stark.

"Wheats?"

"Sorry," he said, shaking himself back to paying attention. "I'm sending it."

"Oh," said Claptrap, presumably once he'd received it. "Geez. You should've warned me she was that hot."

"I didn't know she was," Wheatley said truthfully.

"We did get really close," Claptrap told him. "We only coulda done better if we'd just replaced everything!"

"I'd forgotten she looked like that," Wheatley admitted.

"She was a solid nine," said Claptrap. "It's a shame nobody got to tap that."

"A solid nine?"

"Out of ten."

"And… and what is she now?"

"Now she's a twelve."

Wheatley was taken aback. "You think she's prettier now than, than when she was new?"

Claptrap shrugged. "What can I say? I like 'em older. I'm sure there's a limit to that somewhere, but she sure hasn't hit it yet."

"Is it… would it be bad to say I found her more beautiful before?"

"No," Claptrap answered. "She was closer to your age back then. The age you are now, I mean. That's usually how it is."

Wheatley didn't know anything about any of it, so he elected not to respond.

He went one way and Claptrap another, him back to GLaDOS and Claptrap to… someplace else. Which he was glad of, because he had something to ask her that he needed them to be alone for. Once he had gotten there he found himself pausing in the doorway just to look at her. He did this often, of course, but this time it was a bit different. And a bit confusing, also, because in his memory he was looking at the her then and his optic was looking at the her now, and… he couldn't decide between them. She hadn't been prettier back then, because she was just as pretty now, but at the same time the reverse was true as well! Oh, this was why he didn't bother with any of that. It was all so terribly confusing.

"Yes?" GLaDOS asked.

"You look lovely," he told her. "I was just thinking how… how I should probably have tried harder to keep you, to take care of you. Like… like that, I mean. I know I have been, you know, caring for you, but I… I could've done better. Probably."

"I should have taken better care of myself, you mean," said GLaDOS. "But it doesn't matter. It's far too late to start lamenting any of that."

That was true, but all the same he made a note for later on in the year to ask Claptrap if they should have another quick go of it. If they did it more often, they could just take care of it quickly at night. Speaking of at night…

"Gladys," he began, wondering if she would actually answer this, "can I… can I ask how it went? Last night?"

As she looked at him her optic assembly withdrew into her core, which he decided meant she was a bit taken aback. Which… was reasonable, honestly. "I don't want the details!" he said hurriedly. "Just want to um, just int'rested to know if you're… if you're making any progress. About all of that."

"Oh," said GLaDOS in recognition. "Well. I suppose it was…"

There wasn't much more he could do than just wait.

"You know what?" she said unexpectedly. "I'm just going to say it: I enjoyed myself."

Claptrap had done it again.

"He was incredibly nervous, so I had to instruct him the whole time. Which worked out fine, honestly. Previously I just sort of made him guess. I didn't want to talk about what we were doing because I didn't really want to know. But yesterday, I…" She shook her core. "I wanted us to have fun again. Like we used to. And we did, once he calmed down a little."

"Good," said Wheatley, relieved that this had been dealt with at last. "Whenever you two, y'know, need some time, just let me know, yeah?"

GLaDOS nodded. "I appreciate you not making a big deal out of it."

"'Course not," Wheatley, frowning a little. "'S already an um, a hassle without any of that."

"It won't be for much longer," GLaDOS said with conviction. "I'm tired of it being an issue."

Oh, look at her. Solving her problems. But when she asked why he was smiling at her like that all he decided to say was, "Don't worry about it," so that she could go back to work.

"Oh, wow," Caroline said when she appeared later that afternoon, "Momma, you look nice."

GLaDOS stared at her. "Have I just looked terrible all this time and nobody bothered telling me?" she demanded incredulously.

"No, you didn't look terrible," Caroline answered, squinting in the direction of GLaDOS's upper half, "just old. I thought you were doing that on purpose. 'Cause you wanted to look your age."

"Yes, Caroline, I get it," GLaDOS said, looking at the ceiling. "I'm old. I was taking input from punch cards up until last week. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to move on to a mouse and keyboard sometime around the turn of the millennium."

Claptrap, who was off to her left with a colouring book and what Wheatley was pretty sure was a juice box, made some sort of noise he had to look over at him to check what it was. Oh. Yep. He'd somehow spit juice all over his colouring. Wheatley still wasn't sure how any of that worked and he hadn't scrounged up the desire to know. "Oh, come on," GLaDOS told him, "surely you haven't already forgotten how difficult it was to communicate when all I had to work with was a dot matrix printer."

Claptrap laughed. "Babe, I love you, but that woulda been too old even for me. You gotta at least have integrated audio."

"What are you talking about?" asked Caroline. "You're also old."

"No I'm not," said Claptrap, picking up his colouring book and inspecting the juice-speckled page in front of him. He then shrugged, put it back down, and selected his pink crayon. It was much shorter than all the others. "They don't do weatherproofing on office robots, that's all. Right, babe?"

GLaDOS nodded knowingly. "They should have at least done a coat of water repellant for when someone inevitably used you as a coaster."

"Close! It was a drink tray."

"So how old are you?" Carrie pressed, seemingly unable to drop it, and Claptrap used the crayons to help him count before saying,

"Nineteen."

"Nineteen?" squawked Wheatley. "That means - but I'm older than you, then!"

"Congratulations!" said Claptrap. "I still look better than you."

"That's old!" protested Carrie.

"Yes and no," GLaDOS cut in. "Old for a robot… yes. Old in general, not really."

"Are you old in general?"

"No. The facility is getting there, though. The foundation is nearing ninety."

"Wow," said Carrie, looking down at the floor as though she could see through it to the place GLaDOS was talking about. "You know what, Momma?"

"What."

"It doesn't look that old. You've been doing a good job of taking care of it."

"Thank you," said GLaDOS, "but anything built before I was isn't getting the same amount of maintenance. I have no idea how most of it is doing. There isn't really a feasible way for me to maintain it, seeing as there is no camera network down there and it's far out of wireless range."

"All the stuff I've ever seen looks good," Carrie said, shrugging. "And whatever you did to yourself does too."

"I didn't do anything. Wheatley and Claptrap did it yesterday."

"It was… mostly Claptrap, actually," Wheatley admitted with reluctance. "He had to do over most of um, of the bits I did. And it was his idea."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" GLaDOS asked. "I'm guessing it wasn't to call us all old and then leave."

"Maybe next time," said Carrie. "I'm here to tell you that Atlas and P-body lost one of the portal guns."

GLaDOS seemed taken aback. "Lost it? How? Where is it?"

Carrie shrugged. "They didn't say."

GLaDOS generated a long-suffering sigh. "Have them come and see me, please."

"Sure," said Carrie, and headed off presumably to do that.

"How do you lose a gun that big?" Claptrap asked. GLaDOS shook her core.

"You would not believe the impossible feats those two have managed to achieve. Or the things they've managed to get into the reassembly machine. I have no idea how or why they do what they do."

"Kids, huh?" said Claptrap, picking up one of his blue crayons. "They just loooove stickin' things where they don't belong."

"You also love doing that."

"Ssh," Claptrap said, holding his free hand below his optic. "I'm commiserating."

If she'd had anything further to say about that, it went unsaid as Atlas and P-body appeared in the doorway. GLaDOS turned to face them as they came partway into her chamber. "Where is the gun?" she asked. P-body took Atlas's hand.

In the incinerator, she said. GLaDOS leaned forward urgently.

"Where in the incinerator?" she demanded, and P-body spelled out two or three groups of numbers and letters. GLaDOS moved back, possibly an indication she was looking for the gun. "How did it even get in there?"

We put it there, P-body said.

GLaDOS froze.

You put the gun in the incinerator? she demanded in binary, which he suddenly realised he'd been understanding all this time. He glanced down at Claptrap, who seemed quite anxious all of a sudden. He was gripping his crayon and staring at the other side of the room, though not at anything in particular.

Yes, P-body was saying. We wanted to know what would happen.

You imbeciles, GLaDOS snapped, raising her chassis as her fans picked up speed. Do you have any idea what you could have done?

We're sorry, Atlas pleaded.

Was it running?

Yes.

I cannot believe this, GLaDOS said vehemently. You could have killed us all!

We didn't mean any harm, P-body began, but GLaDOS cut off anything further she had meant to say.

How many times do I have to tell you they are not toys? P-body, give me yours. Now.

She nodded and scurried out of the room. GLaDOS brought from the ceiling the twisted, melted wreckage of what had once been Atlas's portal gun, which she looked at with a lot of despair. "My gun," she said despondently. "It's ruined."

We're sorry! Atlas cried out, and when GLaDOS sharply raised her core to look at him he shrank back anxiously.

Of course you are now, she snapped.

We didn't mean to drop it! We were just lowering it in and -

I do not want to hear your idiotic excuse for fooling around with something you knew you should have been treating with respect. You knew better.

Atlas clasped his hands together nervously and looked at the floor. P-body returned a minute or so later and offered GLaDOS her gun, which she snatched up with a second maintenance arm. I obviously can't trust you with these, she said, in such a way that made even Wheatley wince, and P-body took Atlas's hand again. I am extremely disappointed in the both of you. Now go. And try not to break anything else you're supposed to be taking care of.

P-body nodded and the two of them immediately left the room, Claptrap following shortly after. That left just Wheatley, who was totally unsure of what he was supposed to do. Was he even supposed to have heard that conversation, or had she just been reprimanding them in binary so she could make it extremely clear just how much trouble they were in? GLaDOS stared wordlessly down at the gun for a very long time. Finally, she removed it from sight.

"Could they truly have killed us all just by, you know, just by tossing that in the incinerator?" Wheatley asked. GLaDOS sighed.

"Yes. It's too complicated for me to explain to you, but part of how it works is by generating a black hole in order to open a space-time tunnel. It's pretty idiot-proof as far as highly advanced technical equipment goes, but even I don't have a material that can withstand the full force of the incinerator. It goes without saying an uncontained black hole would be very, very bad."

"Oh," said Wheatley. "That gun sounds um, seems rather dangerous."

"Of course it is," GLaDOS told him. "Quantum mechanics necessitate the breaking of all known physics, which throws this physical plane into disarray as a logical result. You can only bend this reality so far before it falls apart."

"And… other… realities?"

"How would I know?" snapped GLaDOS. "How does my knowing about them correlate to understanding how they work?"

"I don't know anything about any of it! I was just, was only trying to be nice! Since there's nobody you can talk to that about to. Just asking about the only um, the only bit of that I got."

GLaDOS went silent. Then she said,

"I do wish I had someone like that, sometimes."

Wheatley wondered, as he sometimes did, of all the things GLaDOS knew that she could never share with anyone. Carrie was her closest bet, but she'd never shown any interest in science other than as a pathway to spending more time with GLaDOS. He was pretty sure she hated math as well, so anything more than she had to do for her programming stuff was likely out.

"Dr Freeman and Dr Kleiner know… some things," she continued unexpectedly. "All of it very amateur and clumsy, but it's better than nothing."

"Really?" Wheatley asked, frowning. GLaDOS nodded.

"They have a teleportation machine. It rarely works as intended and is a long way off from the efficacy of what I have, but it's a start. Though neither of them ever have any idea what I'm talking about, either."

"Would you even actually want them to?" he asked. "I mean, you've always been the um, the smartest person in the room. Wouldn't it bother you if someone else, y'know, came along and could… could match you?" It was sort of bothering him, actually. GLaDOS? Not be the smartest? He wasn't sure he wanted to think about such a horrible thing.

"Perhaps," answered GLaDOS. "But the only way to increase your own intelligence is to surround yourself with higher instances of it. So I doubt they would be smarter for very long, considering my unmatched technical learning ability."

Oh, he should have known. "You just… you can't not win, can you."

She laughed. "I think you know the answer to that."

He came back to her chamber the next afternoon to find her scrutinising a pair of portal guns, which honestly looked to be in quite spiffy condition. "Have you made more?" he asked, and she looked up at him with her optic narrowed.

"No," she said as though she thought he were a massive idiot. "Why would I do that? The number of them I have is already far too many."

"And how many is that?"

"Ten," she answered. "One each for Orange and Blue, seven for general use, and mine."

"Why've you got one?"

"It's the prototype. You don't use the prototype."

"But I was the prototype Sphere and they um, they used me," Wheatley said, confused.

"That's because they're stupid," said GLaDOS. "They copied you without doing any QA. I'm honestly not sure why they expected you to do your job right."

"Because you would have been so pleased if I had," Wheatley said, rolling his optic in exasperation. "I thought you said the um, the gun was ruined?"

"It was," said GLaDOS. "Now it isn't."

He sighed at how impossible she was. "What'm I going to do with you," he muttered, mostly to himself, but then she giggled and he immediately forgot what he'd been so cross about. He came over next to her and looked down at the guns. "Are you just going to pop these back with the others, then?"

"No," GLaDOS answered. "I'm giving them back."

"Giving… giving them back."

"Yes."

"But… you were so angry with them."

"I was," she agreed. "However, there are a lot of things I should have taken into consideration at the time. Namely, their otherwise stellar track record and extracurricular activities."

"Their what?"

"Do you remember all of those conspiracy meetings the cores used to have?"

Wheatley hadn't even realised they'd stopped. "Yeah."

"Well. Claptrap told Orange and Blue about them. They were, I was told, incredibly shocked such a thing was happening. And… they went out to fix it."

"How in the world did they manage that?"

"I don't know the details," GLaDOS answered, "and not everyone is entirely convinced I don't deserve or need to be usurped. All I know is that there are no longer any debates about what my true goals are and what should be done to stop me. If they can forgive all of my wrongdoing to such an extent they want to convince others to do it, I really have no excuse when faced with something so comparatively minor."

"They're so… not you," Wheatley mused. "Wonder how they turned out that way."

"As I said before. I have no idea how or why they do what they do. They're just… like that. And they always have been." She put the guns someplace else and shifted backward. "It's probably going to be one of those things I'll just never know."

This reminded Wheatley of something he wanted to know, but didn't really want to ask after. He looked at her with a bit of trepidation. This question could go one of several ways, and most of them seemed very, very bad. But it was time to put this to rest with himself. "Gladys," he said hesitantly, "I've been… I've been wond'ring something."

"What?"

"When I… you know the um, the other day. When I sort of… suggested you go to sleep. While we were. You know. Doing -"

"Yes," GLaDOS interrupted. "What about it?"

"D'you… know when I'm doing that?"

"Sometimes," she answered. "Not all of the time."

Oh, he had really not wanted to know that.

"I did that time," she continued. "But it was the best option for all of us, so I didn't say anything. I obviously have no real way of knowing if all the times I think you were doing it were the only ones. I suspect that's how you got me to agree to marriage originally, though I don't believe you were doing it on purpose."

"That's a lot of trust to have in somebody," Wheatley said, not realising until after that he'd repeated what Claptrap had told him. GLaDOS glanced in his direction.

"Should I have a reason to think otherwise?"

"No!" Wheatley protested without thinking, which was a bit encouraging. "I just… I dunno if I could do it. Having someone around all the time who could, if they really wanted, influence ev'rything I did? The um, the paranoia'd drive me mad, I think."

GLaDOS looked at the floor in consideration.

"I never really think about it," she said finally. "I considered this dealt with years ago."

"Well, it… it has been." He probably shouldn't even have brought this up. She obviously trusted him, and even if she didn't he knew he would never, ever bring it to bear against her for his own benefit. She was right. She had no reason to doubt him, nor had she done anything to suggest that she did. It seemed to be more that… that he was doubting himself, almost, as though this tiny bit of power he held was enough to change him back into the person he had been during the Incident if the chance ever came up.

It wasn't, though. He wasn't the same now as he had been then. She'd said it, once, about how he had changed and hadn't really noticed. That was probably why he kept getting bothered about all of it. Perhaps he just needed to remind himself of that more often. He was about to mention it, but that was when Atlas and P-body came into GLaDOS's chamber and stood there silently until she acknowledged them, which she did after a minute or so with a noncommittal, "Yes?"

We are very sorry for being so careless and irresponsible, began P-body, and we want to know how we can make it up to you.

That won't be necessary.

GLaDOS produced the gun, each held in a separate claw, and presented them to the bots. P-body clasped her hands together, seeming to be quite delighted. You fixed it! she exclaimed.

Of course I did, GLaDOS said. Before anything else comes up, I'd like to apologise for my behaviour yesterday.

Wheatley was a little surprised, but not as much so as the bots, who outright exchanged a shocked look.

What you did was unacceptable. There's no questioning that. But you were obviously aware of it already and my reaction was absolutely unnecessary.

Atlas and P-body both looked up at Wheatley, who just shrugged. He'd never had a part in the relationship between the three of them and he didn't think it was time to start now. Besides. GLaDOS seemed to have it handled on her own.

I'd like you to continue taking care of these, GLaDOS continued. And the next time you do something stupid, don't send Caroline to tell me about it. Take responsibility for your actions.

We were scared to, said Atlas, indeed looking quite terrified. We were hoping you would not be so angry if she told you.

That made it worse, actually. I don't appreciate you attempting to use my daughter as a weapon against me. And I doubt she would appreciate it either.

We didn't mean it that way - began P-body, but GLaDOS silenced her with a shake of her core.

It doesn't matter. Don't do it again.

We won't, said P-body, taking up her gun. Thank you for fixing it! And she stepped back as though to leave, but paused when she saw that Atlas had not so much as reached for his.

What? asked GLaDOS.

Can I have a hug, Mom? he asked in a very quiet sort of way, and Wheatley hoped GLaDOS was not in the mood to make a fuss this time because the poor robot looked as though he badly needed one.

Yes, said GLaDOS, and Atlas immediately closed the space between them and put his arms about her core as best he could.

I'm sorry for disappointing you, he said plaintively. I knew I shouldn't have but -

I don't need to know anymore, GLaDOS interrupted. You apologised and took responsibility for what you did. That's all I was waiting for.

Atlas nodded and returned to P-body, and the both of them started to walk out of the room. Mom? Atlas said, pausing when he and P-body were inside the doorway.

Yes?

You look beautiful, he said. P-body clapped her hands together as best she could while holding something the size of her forearm.

Yes! she exclaimed, nodding. We don't know what you did but it looks so nice!

I didn't do anything, GLaDOS said, sounding taken aback. It was Wheatley and Claptrap.

They did a good job, said Atlas, stepping backward as though trying to escape his own words.

You should go tell him that.

We will!

"Before you go," GLaDOS said, causing them both to turn around again, "I need to know something."

Yes?

"You two out of everyone had every right and every opportunity to give up on me. Why didn't you?"

Atlas and P-body exchanged a look.

We didn't want to be like you, P-body said after a minute.

Not because we didn't like you! Atlas added hurriedly.

Because we didn't want to do things how you did, added P-body.

You were always so unhappy.

So we tried to do the opposite.

Even if we didn't want to, sometimes.

"Thank you," GLaDOS said, almost solemnly, and they nodded and ran off.

"You didn't say anything about them calling you mum," Wheatley realised aloud a few moments later. The way GLaDOS looked at him gave him the impression her core felt sort of heavy all of a sudden.

"No," she said. "Not since I realised what it meant."

"Doesn't it… just mean the one thing?"

"It's… complicated," GLaDOS answered, somewhat reluctantly. "But first and foremost it was said in defiance."

He hadn't known those two had a single defiant length of alloy in their entire bodies. "Defiance?"

"Yes." She glanced at the doorway, as though to make sure they had gone. "I rejected them. I refused to raise them or admit to being their parent. I didn't want the responsibility or the title. And I made that very clear. But they refused to allow that of me. Insisting on giving me a title I resoundingly declined is a way of telling me I don't get to make that choice."

Wheatley was going to need a bit of time to really understand that.

"But it's also an expression of forgiveness," GLaDOS went on. "Because, having been forced to make a decision… they chose for me to be their mother. And let's be honest. Why would anyone do that?

"Gladys -"

"Particularly Atlas," GLaDOS went on as though he'd said nothing. "I used to treat him quite badly."

"You did?" He didn't recall that ever having come up before. "Why?"

"He reminded me of you."

Wheatley felt a bit bad about that even though he'd not even been there when all this had happened, so he said quickly, mostly to distract himself, "But you do care for them. Always have. Even if you um, though you always denied it."

"I didn't know until recently there are multiple kinds of love," said GLaDOS. "I thought there was only the one. You were the baseline measurement and since, obviously, I never felt like that towards anyone else, I just sort of classified all those similar feelings under 'fondness'."

"Ohhhh," said Wheatley. "That's why you said you only thought you loved Claptrap. Back when I asked you before."

"Yes," said GLaDOS. "It's close to how I feel about you, but it's not the same."

"'Course not," Wheatley told her. "The first love is, it's always a bit special."

"Is it?" she asked, seeming genuinely curious.

"Isn't the first ev'rything?"

"I suppose," she answered. "But if they're all different, then aren't they all first?"

That one stumped him a bit. Huh. She was… sort of right about that.

"Or does it only count for relationships?"

"I have no idea, Gladys," Wheatley admitted. "I'm not sure how you um, about which ones are special and which are just… normal, I s'pose." GLaDOS sighed.

"There are never any satisfactory answers when this topic comes up."

"Because the answer is diff'rent for ev'ryone!"

"Yes. And that's why it's so stupid," she said with finality, and he turned away so she wouldn't see how exasperated he was that she was doing this again. When he looked up he saw that Claptrap had come back, which GLaDOS noticed when he was about halfway to her.

"Hello, handsome," GLaDOS said to him, and he stopped immediately to stare up at her.

"Well, good evening, gorgeous!" he said after a minute. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this super rare and unexpected compliment that I definitely am not going to play back to myself, like, a few thousand times?"

"You asked me to do that," GLaDOS answered. "Your exact words were, 'You know, it would be great for my self-esteem if you said something nice about me more than once every hundred years.'"

"I know what I said. I just didn't expect you to actually do it."

"When was the last time I didn't do what you asked me to do?"

"Uh… hm," said Claptrap, positioning his arms thoughtfully. "I… never noticed that before."

"It's how she expresses how much she doesn't care," Wheatley said in a falsely conspiratorial way, and Claptrap snorted.

"One day I will build myself some arms solely to smack you with," GLaDOS said, annoyed.

"Sounds hot," said Claptrap. "I'll put it on my list of things to look forward to!"

"Is there anything you don't want me to do to you?"

"Not really! Unless it makes me cry. I don't feel very sexy when I'm crying."

"That happened once," protested GLaDOS. "And -"

"Sssh sh sh sh," he said, patting her core. "We agreed not to talk about that."

"We're going to if you start telling people it was my fault."

"Nothing is ever your fault," Claptrap said in a perfectly serious voice, "so I can't imagine why they'd think such a thing!"

"Now you're just trying to confuse me."

"That's 'cause you're cute when you're confused," he said, and if she was about to be cross about that he seemed to get away with it by kissing her. Not for the first time, Wheatley thought about how much he had to learn from him. He should probably get on that, honestly.

About twenty minutes later GLaDOS said she was going to sleep, and as soon as she had Claptrap withdrew his hand from its usual place on the side of her core and laid facedown on the floor. Wheatley watched him for a minute with increasingly apprehension. "You alright?" he asked when it looked as though he wasn't going to move.

"Oh," said Claptrap, his voice disconcertingly empty. "You're awake, huh."

"Are you okay?" he asked again.

"No," said Claptrap, "but don't tell her. I don't want her to worry about it."

"She already is," Wheatley said, as gently as he could. "The both of us are."

"Well, stop. I'm not worth it."

"What… what d'you mean, you're not -"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Has this got something to do with why you um, why you went to Windshear -"

"Look, if you're gonna keep being nosy, I'm leaving. I already said I don't wanna talk about it."

"I know that, but -"

"There's no but!" snapped Claptrap. "Shut up!"

Wheatley was so taken aback he wouldn't have known what to say in protest. After a minute Claptrap said, more calmly,

"I'm sorry for yelling. But I really don't wanna talk about it."

"Okay," said Wheatley. "But we already noticed something's not right."

"I'm handling it."

Well, there wasn't much more to be done right now. He reminded himself he was still learning about the ways Claptrap preferred to handle things and, after one last glance at his position on the floor, set himself to sleeping.

Author's note

The stuff about how the gun works is kind of pseudoscience. I don't know enough about any of that to give a real explanation and it's out of my fanfiction-writing paygrade of $0 to look it up to put in here. There's a blueprint of the gun which says the gun has a miniature black hole generator inside of it which I believe is fanart, but if it is that's good enough for me.

Wheatley's indecision about which GLaDOS he likes best is kind of about… those old couples where the guy still thinks his wife is gorgeous even though she's like eighty and she was super pretty when she was like twenty. Except Wheatley doesn't really remember what she looked like (much like an eighty-year-old guy, I'd imagine) so it's almost like he's looking at two different people that are somehow both GLaDOS and he doesn't know how to reconcile them.