GLaDOS and Me: Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

 

GLaDOS was decidedly quiet and morose for the next several days, barely at all responsive and only doing so when she absolutely needed to.  He did his best to help her, being as positive and cheerful as he could, and it seemed to improve her mood if only a little.  Every day he made her come next to him so he could hold her, and though she always argued that it wasn’t Friday she always acquiesced.  He stayed with her every night until she’d slept a little, with him holding her like that, and after a few days he decided to ask her why she was so tired.  She was a supercomputer; how did she manage that?

“If I’m caught up in thought about something, fewer of my personal thought processes go into suspension,” she explained.  “When I go into sleep mode, my maintenance programs come online to clean up the bad outputs or other random code generations that would slow me down or negatively affect me.  They don’t work properly when I’m thinking too hard in my sleep.  The system assumes I’m online in some way, such as safe mode, and only runs certain cleanups.  It’s a combination of buildup and the fact that I feel as though I’m not getting a break that makes me feel tired.”

Wheatley had been listening carefully as she’d spoken, and took a minute to absorb the information.  “So it’s sort of like a… an emotional tiredness?”

“Sometimes.  Other times it has to do with my brain merely needing a rest.  I’m made of a lot of moving parts, which the engineers placed sensors in so I can warn them if a part seems close to failure.  It’s easier than running a diagnostic, you see, and far more accurate.  However, they designed the feedback so that it would register in my brain as pain.  I’m not sure why that is, but they did it for every part I have.  What all of that means is, if I’m not in a resting state for a certain amount of time, the sensors erroneously assume something’s about to fail and sends me the feedback.  So if feels to me as I would imagine an ache feels to you.”

“Your brain hurts when you don’t get enough sleep?” he asked softly, stroking her in what he hoped was a reassuring sort of way.

“That’s right.”

“Why don’t you tell them the sensors don’t work properly?”

Her voice was quiet and resigned.  “Would they care?”

He knew they wouldn’t and decided not to answer.  After a few seconds she remarked offhand, “I get a little bit of relief lately so it’s not too bad.  I was having more trouble before.”

“Before what?”

She shifted suddenly, core escaping his stretched fingertips for a moment, and in irritation he tapped her with his other hand.  Instantly she moved back within range, and Wheatley realised somewhat guiltily that he’d trained her to do that and it must’ve really stuck.  “It’s nothing,” she hedged.

“C’mon, luv.”

“Well… before you… started sitting with me.”

Wheatley’s heart melted then and there, and he wrapped his free arm around the front of her core and held her tight.  He let go after a few seconds and murmured, “I c’n stay the whole night, if you like.”

“No,” she answered, starting a bit, “it’s already a risk – “

“I don’t like that you’re not getting enough rest!  If I c’n help even a little – “

“You do,” she interrupted softly.  “I can handle things with the amount of time you stay.”

He laid the side of his face against her, closing his eyes and enjoying the subtle whirring and the comforting warmth.  “Well… if you ever change your mind.”

“I know.”

He wasn’t sure why, but her mood picked up considerably over the next few days; after a week or so she insulted him for the first time in too long, and he responded with an uncontrollable grin and a prolonged hug.

Her laugh was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

GLaDOS and Wheatley returned to their marathon email sessions, to Wheatley’s great delight, and though she didn’t agree to let him cuddle her as often as before, she was more affectionate.  All in all, a good tradeoff.  He loved her little nudges and nuzzles; they sent a wonderful pleasant tingling down his body, and sometimes it was so strong he had to get her to come back so he could hold her.  Wrapping his arms around her made that less unpleasant tingling melt out of him, to be replaced by an amazing warmth.  Maybe she didn’t love him (and to be fair, he didn’t actually know), but oftentimes he felt as though she did.

He brought board games in a bit more often, and somehow she managed to win every single one.  Scrabble, Monopoly, Pictionary… somehow she even managed to win at Trivial Pursuit, even though she wasn’t programmed with pop culture knowledge.  She shrugged this off and said something about taking in as much knowledge as possible, but he’d been far too in awe of her to really listen.

She liked hearing about his life in Bristol, for some reason, so he talked about his old home often.  Sometimes he told her about the various places he’d been ‘round America, which she also listened to with voracious attention.  Sometimes he thought she just wanted someone to listen to, as opposed to have someone to listen, and he tried his best to be both.  It was hard; sometimes he would walk into the doorway of her chamber at night and have to stop, because somehow he could feel the raw loneliness and pain she carried.  As though, when her supervisor left, she could finally let a little bit of her real self show.  Never enough, but a little.  On those days he would try to hug her, but she wouldn’t allow it, and she would barely speak.  When he had to leave she would come down for her hug and settle her optic assembly into his ribs.  Those hugs lasted a long time.

Even when she wasn’t in the greatest of moods, Wheatley still found himself wanting to spend all of his time with her.  He thought about her almost all of the time, other than when he got very engrossed in his work, but sometimes he’d be snapped out of his self-induced trance because he was stuck and wanted to ask her for help.  It scared him a little, sometimes, that she was always on his mind; surely that was a little bit weird?  But he couldn’t help it, for some reason.  It didn’t help matters that he couldn’t tell anyone.  He might’ve been able to tell Henry, but Henry was working extremely long hours in his robotics lab and he didn’t have time for Wheatley anymore.  Other than a bit of a warning now and then as to how the higher-ups were planning to get rid of him.  Before, that would’ve bothered him tremendously, but now?

Now he wanted to spend all of his time with GLaDOS anyway.

 

 

When he went in that night, her mood was much better than that of the last several days.  She got him talking about his family again, for some reason, and then out of the blue she asked:

“When did you last talk to your sister?”

Wheatley shrugged, looking away.  “Dunno.  Few months back, I guess.”

“That’s a long time,” GLaDOS said thoughtfully, resettling her chassis.  “I don’t know about you, but I would get pretty annoyed if you didn’t answer one of my emails for an untold number of months.”

“Well, what d’you want me to do?” Wheatley asked hotly, and even though he already knew the answer he was still surprised when she set a scruffy white phone in front of him.  “What, I’m just s’posed to ring my sister on the spot?”

“Obviously planning to do it doesn’t work.  So yes.  ‘Ring’ her on the spot.”

“D’you have any idea what time it is there?”

“Sometimes I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted,” GLaDOS answered dryly.  “Yes.  I know exactly what time it is there.  She’s a young girl in her twenties.  Eleven is early for her.  Call her or I’ll do it for you.  And don’t tell me I can’t.  I can.”

Wheatley angrily snatched up the receiver and dialled, almost hoping she wasn’t up just to prove GLaDOS wrong, for once, when a familiar voice said very loudly into his ear, “’allo?”

“Mathilda,” he said in a voice just shy of wondrous, and he could not for the life of him remember why he’d put off calling her for so long.

“Wheatley!” she screeched in his ear, and he laughed excitedly and pressed it harder into his ear.  “What took you so long?”

“Oh, well, y’know, just uh, just this an’ that, really, just uh, just got busy.”

“Ahhh,” she said knowingly, and he imagined her nodding and winking at his mum across the room.  “American bigshots don’t ring people, is that it?”

“I’m… not a bigshot, Mathilda,” he said sheepishly, winding the phone cord around his finger.  “I’m just me.  You know that.”

“Do you want me to turn my microphones off?” GLaDOS asked softly, and he looked up at her, startled. 

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know how private this conversation is going to be.”

“Who’re you talking to?” Mathilda piped up, and Wheatley looked down at the phone again.

“Oi, how d’you put it on speaker again?”

She laughed and led him through it, and he hoped that answered GLaDOS’s question. 

“But who’re you talking to?” she repeated, and Wheatley smiled and pulled at the side of his left shoe. 

“A friend,” he said shyly. 

“Oh, you’ve got your friend there?  Can they hear me?”

“I just had you put me on speaker, didn’t I?”

“’allo, Wheatley’s Friend!” shouted Mathilda, and Wheatley looked behind him in time to see GLaDOS jump back and eye the phone suspiciously. 

“Well, go on,” Wheatley said in a low voice, and GLaDOS shook her head.

“You’ve found a mute friend!” Mathilda said suddenly.  “You must go quite well together.”

“My friend’s not mute,” Wheatley said, giving GLaDOS a sort of ‘just do it already’ look.  “Just very, very, very stubborn.”

“Oh, go on then!” Mathilda called out.  “I don’t bite.  Least not over the phone.”

“Hello,” GLaDOS said in a more cautious voice than he’d ever heard out of her.  That was when Wheatley realised she had never held a casual conversation with anyone except him in her life.  She was hanging back simply because she didn’t know what to do. 

“You’ve got a bit of a funny voice, if you don’t mind my saying,” Mathilda said.  “Sound almost like one of them sci-fi robots, you do.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Wheatley cut in quickly, because GLaDOS got a bit tetchy when compared to human representations of robots.  “You know how long-distance connections are.  Of course she doesn’t sound like a robot.”

“I don’t?” GLaDOS asked in a voice somewhere between very angry and very confused, and Wheatley waved at her very wildly in the hopes of getting her to shut up.  “What does that mean?  I’ve never seen you make that gesture before.”

Mathilda laughed and Wheatley stared at the phone, wondering if this was a bad idea after all.  “She sounds simply hilarious, she does.  Oi, Wheatley’s Friend, what’s your name eh?  Can’t sit here calling you Wheatley’s Friend all day long.”

“All night long,” GLaDOS said, more automatically than anything.  “It’s night time.  And my name is…”

She paused, and Mathilda filled the gap by saying, “Right you are, mate, night it is.  Just got back from a lovely film, I did.  A nice comedy.  What was your name again?  Didn’t quite catch it.”

“Gladys,” Wheatley supplied.  “Her name is Gladys.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, lunkhead,” Mathilda snapped. 

“Well, God forbid you talk to the bloke who rung you up,” Wheatley told her sarcastically. 

“That’s my name,” GLaDOS interrupted.  “My name is… Gladys.”

“You don’t sound too sure of that.”

“I haven’t told it to too many people,” GLaDOS said to her.  “Sometimes I forget how to pronounce it.”

“Wow, really?  What d’you call yourself in your head, then?”

“Oh, just… other things.”

Wheatley would have liked to know the answer to that as well, but now was not the time.  “Oi, Mathilda, did you find that gentleman yet?”

She giggled.  “I may have at that, big brother.  Why, you jealous?”

“Always,” Wheatley said, a sad smile coming across his face.  “What’s he like?”

“All the usual stuff,” she answered.  “Dashing, funny, handsome, clever, dreamy, brave, lovely –“

“That’s all rubbish,” Wheatley cut her off.  “I told you.  He’s got to be respectful first.  Doesn’t matter how, how earth-shatteringly good looking he is, if he doesn’t –“

“’course he does,” she interrupted in a soft voice.  “That’s how I met him.  I was out shopping and he opened the door for me to leave the store.  Asked if I had a long walk home, which I did.  And yes, I know I’m not to get into cars with strange men, but just like you know a smart person just by standing near them, I know who can be trusted.”

“It’s not that I don’t, that I think you don’t know what you’re doing,” Wheatley said, a little helplessly, “I just… would rather you didn’t go through the whole teenage heartbreak thing.”

“That’s said and done, Wheatley,” she told him, “but enough about that.  You tripped into any nice American girls yet?  Bowled them over with your charm, and all that?”

“Bowled them over, yes,” Wheatley admitted, “but I don’t think they found my size very charming.”

“What, are they all tiny little things?  And don’t they know how useful it is, having someone who can reach the top shelf?”

“Let’s just say they thought I was doing it on purpose,” Wheatley told her. 

“So you haven’t got a girlfriend?”

“I have,” Wheatley answered, hoping GLaDOS would stay quiet.  He could hear her getting restless behind him, and if he guessed right she was probably working herself into a tirade.  “Gladys is… is my girlfriend.”

“Ahh,” Mathilda said delightedly.  “Plug your ears for a bit, will you dear?  No, not you Wheatley.  She doesn’t fall down when you trip on her, I’m guessing?”

“She’s taller than me,” Wheatley said, entirely truthful.  “And she weighs more than me, and no, she’s not fat.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You were thinking it.”

“What colour hair has she got?”

Wheatley thought that one over for a minute.  “You could say it was black.”

“And her eyes?”

“Sort of a golden colour.”

“How lovely!” Mathilda exclaimed.  “I’ve never seen golden eyes before.  They’re not contacts?”

“No, she doesn’t need them.”

“Is she very beautiful?” she asked in a whisper, probably so that GLaDOS wouldn’t hear, but of course she did, looking as though she wished she’d turned the mics off after all.

“She is,” Wheatley answered unabashedly.  “She is very beautiful.”

“More beautiful than I am?”

“Be nice, Mathilda, I can’t answer that question and get away with it.”

She giggled and asked, “Has she got a job?”

“She’s got a very important job,” Wheatley answered, fingering the phone cord again.  “She’s got a better job than I have.  Than anyone, really.”

“Gladys, what d’you do?” she called out, and GLaDOS looked down at the phone apprehensively. 

“I do… research.  I’m a scientist.”

“Wow, a lady scientist!” Mathilda exclaimed.  “Just like Madam Curie, eh?  What d’you specialise in?”

After a few moments, GLaDOS answered with, “I specialise in quantum mechanics and molecular physics.  Among other things.”

“You’re a bloody genius!”  Mathilda sounded honestly impressed, which was actually not that common.  “Aren’t you worried hanging ‘round with Wheatley will –“

“Now, come on,” Wheatley interrupted, before she took that any farther, “let’s not go there right now.”

“I was only kidding,” Mathilda protested.  “I know you’re only absent-minded.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that about your own family,” GLaDOS said suddenly, and Wheatley looked up at her in surprise.  “He’s never said a bad thing about you.”

“Never does, though he probably should,” Mathilda answered softly.  “But you’re right.  Sorry, Wheatley.”

“S’okay,” he told her.  “Hey, is mum around?”

“Oh yeah, I’ll go get her.  Be back in a bit.”

“She was just teasing,” Wheatley said in a low voice while they waited.  “Sisters do that.”

“But you don’t.”

Wheatley took a deep breath.  “Thing is, it’s true.  I’m not that smart.  All I’m good at is hacking, really, and I haven’t even got into the mainframe yet.”

“Because of me.”

His brows furrowed, and he turned to face her.  “No.”

“You haven’t even tried to get into it since I was activated.  First because you were teaching me things, and now because I email you nonstop all day.”

“I try to get into it while I’m reading your emails.”

“Humans can’t multitask.  It’s a known fact.  You do one thing well or two things badly.  Unlike me, who actually can read emails while writing them and doing three hundred other things at the same time.”

He stretched out his hand.  “C’mere.”

She eyed him, looking annoyed.  “What, I come when I’m called now?”

Wheatley sighed, not knowing why she was being difficult this time.  “If I could get up and get closer myself, I would.  But I can’t.  Hence the asking.  And I know I didn’t really, didn’t actually ask, but I thought maybe we were past ‘come over here, if you please’.”

She seemed to accept that, or came level with him, at least, and he dragged the phone back with him, snaking his hand underneath her core.  She twitched and shifted a little.  “It’s not Friday.”

“Just sit still and try to pretend it is, then.”  He actually greatly preferred having her so close, Friday or not; the Central AI Chamber was kept at a fairly low temperature, and GLaDOS was always very warm.  Then there was the small fact of having a giant cuddly robot.  No point in having one if she only cuddled on Fridays.  He smiled and ran his fingers over what he could reach, and while she didn’t return the gesture, she at least relaxed a little and remained still.

“Wheatley?”

“’allo, mum!” he called out excitedly.  “How’re you getting on?”

“I hope you’ve called to say you’re coming home.”

“No, mum,” he told her, mentally kicking himself.  She always ragged on him for that.  “I’m staying here.”

“You can bring your friend with you.  Just keep it down.”

“Mum!” he exclaimed, horrified.  “That’s not- that’s- no!  Don’t be- are you out of your mind?”

His mother laughed and said she was only teasing, of course, and then he had a nice chat with her about work and what they were doing at home, afterwards talking a bit more to his sister, but eventually she had to go and they made their goodbyes.  Wheatley pressed the button to turn off the speakerphone and then sat back to lean into GLaDOS’s core.  He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was late, he knew that.  Probably he was going to catch it if he didn’t get out of here soon.

“Why did you lie to them?” GLaDOS asked quietly. 

“I didn’t lie about anything,” Wheatley said, sensing that this was going to be an intensive discussion and trying to wake himself up a little.  “Ev’rything I said was true.”       

“You lied about having a… girlfriend.”

“No,” he said softly.  “I didn’t.”

“You don’t have one, and if you did, it would definitely not be me.”

“D’you even know what a girlfriend is, luv?”

“A female partner that you may or may not intend to spend the remainder of your life with.”

“Hm,” he said thoughtfully, “that’s true.  But she’s a bit more than that.  She’s also your very best friend, the one you tell ev’rything and spend all your time with.  But unlike the other kind of best friend, usually you do a few other things with her that you wouldn’t do with anyone else.”

“Such as?”

“I would not ever do this with Henry.”

“Oh, the touching.”  She was silent for a long moment.  “But you told your sister I had black hair.  I don’t even have follicles, let alone hair.”

Wheatley didn’t actually know what a follicle was, though he wasn’t sure GLaDOS knew that.  “I said you could say it was black.  Because back when they were still building your core, there, it was plugged into all these computers with black wires.”

“You should probably find a real girlfriend.”

“You’re real.”

“I lack certain… necessary attributes.”

“A human body is not necessary for… for a relationship.”

“And yet it is a huge part of them anyway.  As has already been mentioned with the whole ‘touching’ thing.  Which usually leads to other things.  And unlike human females, I have no desire to… interface with your apparatus.”

Wheatley blushed and re-crossed his legs self-consciously, and GLaDOS laughed and gave him a bit of a shove.  “I never said anything about… interfacing,” he said, clearing his throat. 

“And yet humans are overwhelmingly designed for that purpose.”

“I’m fine with this,” he said, leaning on her again and closing his eyes.

“For now.”

“Oh, shut it,” he demanded, smacking her with the palm of his free hand.

“Oh, were you swatting a fly for me?  That was very considerate of you.”

“But I’m serious,” Wheatley went on.  “You really are my girlfriend.”

“And yet this has never come up before.”

He shrugged.  “Didn’t really need to.”

“What if I don’t want to be your girlfriend?”

“Then we would go back to being friends,” he answered slowly.  “GLaDOS, there’s nothing to worry about.  All I’ve done is put a bit of a label on it.  You don’t have to, you’re already a very good girlfriend already.”

She shook her core as best she could with him lying on it.  “It’s a bad idea.  I can’t leave, and they’re in the middle of firing you.  It’s stupid to get into a relationship with someone you can never be with.”

He listened to the sound of her brain whirring away for a long moment.

“I know,” he said, hoping she hadn’t heard the crack in his voice, “but it’s been worth it.”

“Get a new email address before you go,” she told him.  “It won’t be quite the same, but it will be something, I suppose.”

“Remind me later,” he answered.  “I’m going to forget.”

“And you should go home.  To your family,” she continued, shifting her chassis.  “You came here searching for something you didn’t find.  Stop wasting time and go home.”

“I found it,” he whispered, and to his surprise she shook him off and backed away.

“Don’t,” she said warningly.  “Stop being an idiot.  You didn’t find anything.  I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m not what you were looking for.  I just got stuck in the middle.  That’s all it is.”

“No,” he said softly, shaking his head.  “That’s not true.  People don’t just do this, GLaDOS.  There has to be something there.”

“There’s nothing.  You just can’t find anyone who’ll take you.”

“I did,” he said, and he was on the edge of tears now, “but unfortunately I can’t take her with me.”

“You said it yourself.  One day I’ll wise up and figure out you’re not worth all that much.  You don’t think I can get over this bizarre attachment to you?  I can.  I just don’t have anyone else to do it with.”

That hurt, it hurt him deep down inside, and he looked away, biting his lip very hard, but a silent sob worked its way out of his chest anyway and when he blinked the tears spilled over.    

“Oh God, no.  Don’t cry, Wheatley.”

“I’m not crying,” he said, but his voice was all choked up and he could barely even hear himself.  “I’m fine.”

“You know I didn’t mean it… right?  I only said it because I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen.”  Her voice softened and grew wistful and sad.  “It doesn’t hurt as much when I pretend I don’t care.”

“No, because you’ve gone and passed it onto me,” he said, trying not to sniffle. 

She came up very close, not enough to touch him but enough that he could feel the heat from her core, and she said, in a very hushed voice, “I’m sorry.”

He turned to look at her, hoping his eyes were mostly dry.  “GLaDOS, if… if you weren’t what I was looking for, why d’you think I stopped looking?”

She shook her core.  “I don’t know anything about any of that.”

“Then stop being stupid and stop trying to tell me I don’t have what I want!”

She made a noise in annoyance and looked at the floor.  “All right.  I admit, I was a bit… insensitive, so I’ll let that one pass.  But you’d better not tell me I’m stupid again.  You wouldn’t want me to prove you overwhelmingly wrong.”

He laughed a little hysterically and threw his arms around her, and she pretended to be annoyed but pressed her assembly as hard as it was safe into his ribs. 

“I consent to the whole girlfriend thing,” she told him, when he backed away and wiped at the damp spots under his eyes.  “As long as you keep your apparatus out of it.  You can play with that on your own.  And don’t pretend you don’t.  I know about these things.”  And she said it with such conviction and with such a knowing nod of her core that he started laughing so hard he couldn’t stop. 

“I have to say that’s an… interesting reaction,” she said bemusedly.  “I wouldn’t have guessed that would send you into hysteria, but it seems it has.  I’ll check back with you in a little while.  Make sure you’re still breathing, and all that.  Just so you know, I’m the one who doesn’t need to breathe, not you.  A helpful reminder.  Because you look like you’ve forgotten.”

“You’re the best, GLaDOS,” he told her, grinning, and she looked at him with her core tilted about thirty

 

degrees.

“It took you an awfully long time to figure that out, especially considering all the evidence right here in front of you.  They didn’t build me this size for no reason, you know.  They had to have somewhere to put all of my bestness – oh dear God, you are rubbing off on me, I’ve made up a word…”

“I’m not leaving tonight,” he said suddenly.  “I’m going to go find a blanket or something, and then I’m coming back.”

“That’s got to be the worst idea you’ve ever had,” she called out as he scrambled down the stairs.  “If they find you here, it’s over.  You won’t be able to get out of it.”

“Look,” Wheatley said, running down the hallway and hoping he didn’t run into Janitorial, “I’ve always wanted to, to… to wake up in a… a bed that’s not empty.”

“Why don’t you have any pillows on it?  Don’t humans usually have pillows on their beds?”

He almost laughed.  “I mean… a person.”

“That makes even less sense than not having pillows on your bed.  It sounds horribly uncomfortable to have someone else in your bed.”

“It’s not.  You’ll see.”

“Okay, I admit it.  I’m confused.  I don’t have a bed, if you haven’t noticed.  And I find it difficult to believe that even you failed to notice that.  And even if I did have one, I doubt I’d want to share it with you.  You’re disgustingly soft and fragile.  Seriously now.  Whose stupid idea was it to give you an endoskeleton?  You in particular, I might add.  Considering all the accidents you have.”

Aha!  Wheatley snatched up a handful of sheets from a closet, presumably used for the beds in Surgical, and even managed to locate a pillow.  Excellent.  He dashed back through the facility and into her chamber, somehow managing not to fall over on his face. 

“Oh, you’re building yourself a bed.  I still don’t know what I have to do with it.  Let’s just say I wouldn’t even notice that pillow was there if I tried to lie on it.”

He had to stop arranging the sheets, he was laughing so hard.

Once he’d finally gotten them to his liking, he flopped down on top of them and kicked off his loafers, pulling a couple of them up over himself.  “Now.  Come down here.”

“Do I have to?  That looks uncomfortable.”

He looked up at her and stabbed the pile of sheets next to him. 

She reluctantly came down, but she didn’t relax her optic all the way.  “Move those.  I’m not going to be able to see.”

“You don’t need to see.  You’re going to sleep.”

She tentatively poked at the pile with her lens, but shook her core and retracted it.  “I’m not doing it.”

“Stop being such a baby!  You’ll get used to it.”

“Let’s bury your face in these things and see how you like it.  Oh, that’s right.  You’ll suffocate.  So unless you want to participate in an explanatory experiment, move those or I’m turning the other way.”

Wheatley decided she was making a lot of sense and flattened the sheets.  She still didn’t seem all that happy with it, but did not argue further. 

He moved himself so that he was next to her optic assembly and curled his body around it, positioning his head underneath the assembly so that it was over her lens and hooked his left elbow underneath it.  He could hear her brain going at it as she tried to figure out whether she was going to let this continue or not, and then she asked in a soft voice, “This is what you do when you have someone in your bed?”

“Mmhm,” he answered, stroking her lens a little bit with his fingertips. 

“But I’m supposed to be horizontal.  Right?”

“Can’t help that,” he murmured.

“Don’t use that word in front of me.  I could do that.  Potentially.”

He sat up, excited.  “Really?”

She gave a rare sigh.  “Yes.”

“Oh GLaDOS, could you, please, just one time, I won’t ever ask again, just one single time, I just want to know what it feels like, and no I don’t want to wait for a human girl –“

“I’ll think about it,” she interrupted.  “It assumes this goes well.  And that we don’t get caught with this.  And that you’re not fired tomorrow morning.  So on and so forth.”

He put himself back in position underneath her optic assembly and closed his eyes.  It was really quite wonderful, lying there with her like that.  This was just like he’d always thought it would be, but better, because she was so huge he felt sort of like he was enveloped by her.  It was surprisingly cozy, what with the heat emanating from her and the comforting scent of warm electronics.  Even the fact that her optic assembly was made of metal instead of something softer did not bother him like he’d thought it would.  It was quite warm as well, heated through with the light from behind her lens, and all in all he felt very relaxed and very satisfied with himself for going through with it.  Sure, if anyone walked in, they would find it odd and probably very disturbing, but they would be wrong.  It wasn’t GLaDOS’s fault her mind was inside of a giant robot.  She deserved to have someone to sleep next to just like anyone else. 

“Human partners do this every night?” she asked softly.

“If they haven’t had a row, yeah.”

“A what?”

“An argument.”

She was silent for a long moment.

“I think… it would be nice.”

“It is nice,” he said gently.

After another long silence, she said, “If anyone knows about this, it’s over.”

“It’s ending anyway,” he mumbled.  “Might as well do ev’rything we can.”

He’d almost fallen asleep when she whispered, “Wheatley?”

“Mm.”

“Did you mean it when… you told your sister I was… beautiful?”

“No,” he said, stretching out his legs.  “I meant it when I said you were very beautiful.” 

She shifted, pressing her assembly into him, and he smiled sadly, stroking her gently with his fingertips until he fell asleep.