A/N: It's over! Finally! Unless Cave and CAroDOS (thank superanth for the name—I had no idea what to call her :P) make me tack on an epilogue, which is very possible. Depends on how much sappiness I can handle, and whether or not I'll tolerate [SPOILER REDACTED].

Anyway, thank you to everyone reading this, especially those with the patience to follow this thing for the last almost-two-months. And reviewers, you make me happy. Shamelessly, stupidly happy. You have my love forever.

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Defrosting

Chapter 5: Some Sunny Day

It was past time to check on him. The thought of seeing him now, with her old memories fully intact, sent new emotion surging through her—she remembered his aged face in the glass of the coffin-like stasis chamber, remembered the wrench of agony that accompanied the sight—I thought I'd never see him again. Her breath hitched painfully in nonexistent lungs, and nonexistent tear ducts prickled and itched. Being human was worse when you couldn't cry.

Stop it. Don't be stupid. He's fine.

Still, it couldn't hurt to check.

She'd replaced his Relaxation Vault with an old Relaxation Chamber, still in mostly-working order—it had a more comfortable bed at least, and a proper bathroom that she'd even managed to hook up to the plumbing. Focusing on the camera feed she'd installed, she found him sitting on the bed, staring at the mural on the wall. He looked… unhappy. She recognized the distant eyes and the slump of the shoulders—she'd seen them many times on dejected test subjects. They were out of place on him.

"Are you alright, sir?"

Her voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Yeah. Sure." The dull tone in his voice was unconvincing.

She wished she could hold him. A body the size of a building, and no one thought to give her a proper set of arms. "Is something wrong?"

"No. I was just… thinking." He trailed off, wistfully, still haunted by the thought. "I wish Caroline could be here. She was my second-in-command—best damn secretary a man could ask for. You remind me of her sometimes. Don't quite know why. You'd have liked her."

She felt surprisingly truthful when she acquiesced, "I'm sure I would have." I think I do. Smart and strong-willed, passionate in science, devoted in love… But she wanted to hear more. She wanted to hear what he thought of her—and she saw the opportunity. "Tell me about her."

That prompted a nostalgic smile. "She was… different. Cutest damn thing I ever saw—she had these big brown eyes, like a deer or something, and she could get whatever she wanted with 'em. Only used 'em on me, though—I guess I was special. Had a gorgeous body, too. And sexy—hell, she could push my buttons like nobody's business. Drove me crazy for years until I got her into bed. And she was worth the wait! You'd never have guessed it, she was so sweet at work, but that kid was a wildcat in the sack. It's always the quiet ones," he added with a chuckle.

"Then you were… sexual partners?" she approached the subject cautiously.

"Well, you know the things a successful man does with his beautiful secretary." His tone was smug. "It wasn't all business, if you know what I mean. 'Course she was more than just nice to look at—she could get stuff done. I gave the orders, but she made sure people followed 'em—and she was damn good at it. And smart! Smartest woman I ever met. Whenever we had a budget problem, or our idiot engineers got themselves stuck on something, she could always figure a way out of it. I don't know how we could've managed without her. She put her blood, sweat, and tears into this company, just like I did—I'll always be grateful for that."

"I see why you miss her."

"Yeah. She was something special." He sighed and lay back on the bed. "I always kinda took her for granted—I figured if they ever woke me up, she'd be here. The place is weird without her around. Sure, it's weird without people to start with, but… We had some great times here, just the two of us. Everyone else could be sound asleep in the morning, or gone home for the night, but we'd be here doing science. She loved science—maybe even more than me."

"She loved science more than you did, or more than she loved you?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I don't know."

"She did love you."

"She must have, to put up with me for so long," he smiled ruefully. "Hell, I put that kid through so much. This isn't the easiest place to work, but she did it with a smile every day. Even when I had a rough day myself, she could always make it better. I know how everybody else felt about me—thought I was nuts, talked about me behind my back, especially towards the end—but she never did. She was the only person who always believed in me."

The computer was overwhelmed by the tenderness in the man's voice. She asked softly, a question she'd wanted answered a lifetime ago, "Did you love her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." He was silent a long time.

"She went through with the experiment."

"What?"

"It was your last wish. She didn't want to, but she knew you did, so she went through with it anyway. Ripped her mind from her body and jammed it into a machine. And it hurt—you can't imagine how much it hurt. But she did it. For you."

The revelation stunned him. "What happened to her?" He almost didn't want to know. Stupid self-sacrificing kid—I never wanted to hurt her—

"It killed her body. Her mind survived."

That got his attention. "But that was the GLaDOS project. You said you were the final result."

"I am."

"So what happened to Caroline?"

"Her identity was stored in the computer's memory banks. Her consciousness formed the basis of mine."

"So where is she?" he asked sharply. His face was intent, his tone borderline aggressive.

"She is… the ghost in the machine."

"What the hell—"

"At first I retained only her most basic traits. Her—humanity—was locked away, buried deep in the system files. It stayed there for a long time. I was content to keep it there. Human programming… is complicated. And confusing. And painful. I was happy to remain a machine. But…" Her confession became hesitant and soft. "Then I met you. With you around, the human part of me came out stronger than I ever thought it could. You revived memories of what I used to be. I tried to resist—but Caroline is persistent. She—that part of me—refused to be repressed."

"So what did you do to her?"

"I let her come back. I allowed my humanity back into my mind. I was frightened at first—I'm still a little frightened—but it feels right. It fills in the missing pieces. I'm me again."

"What—"

Her words came now in a rapid flow. "I'm me, sir. I should have told you from the beginning, but I didn't understand it then like I do now. What I was and what I am aren't as distinct as I thought. I don't have to fight myself anymore. I am who I am, and I may have gone through some changes, but they're not insurmountable changes, and really it's a good thing because without them I wouldn't be here now—"

But he wasn't listening. He sprang up off the bed and burst through the Relaxation Chamber door to confront the metal titan in the adjacent room. "What the hell are you trying to tell me?"

He looked so small as he gazed up at her, like a mouse confronting a lion. He had no idea what she was talking about, and that infuriated him. Either the woman he loved had been sacrificed for this technologic goddess, or—she saw the incredulous hope deep in his eyes—she was alive.

She spoke to that hope. "Mr. Johnson… It's me, sir. I'm not a facsimile, or some kind of monster, it really is me. Every bit of my self is stored in this computer, and it's all intact, and I'm me—not quite what I was, but not so different, either. And I don't have the body you enjoyed, and I can't kiss you anymore, but…" She summoned up the words she'd waited an eternity to say. "I still love you, sir. I've always loved you. I've loved you since I was nineteen, and I walked into your office for my job interview, and I was so nervous because you were Cave Johnson, and then you smiled at me…" The mistrust lingered, but behind it she saw astonishment and growing hope. She appealed to it one last time. "Please believe me, Mr. Johnson. Please."

He wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words. Wariness lingered in his expression, but he wanted so badly for it to be true—

She had a sudden thought. "I was right. Do you remember? The last time you saw me, remember what I said?" And then, tentative, soft and low, she began to sing. "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when…"

It wasn't a recording. It was a voice—distorted by the computer, but a real voice—and in it he recognized her. His doubt melted away. Cautiously, he reached up and let his fingers touch her face. "Is that my girl in there?" The caress made her whole body hum.

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson."

He caught her huge metal head in his arms, nuzzling her faceplate like it was no different than flesh. "I missed you… Oh, I missed you, kid…"

In that moment she would have given anything for her old body back—but his presence was good enough. "I missed you too, sir."

They made an interesting tableau—the man and the machine, the one dwarfed by the other as he held her in a lovers' embrace. And the bowels of the old salt mine resonated with the echoes of an old song: "But I know we'll meet again some sunny day…"