GLaDOS and Me

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Wheatley hadn't been so happy since he was a child.

Going to see GLaDOS after work was the best way possible to end his day. She was always happy to see him, no matter how many emails they exchanged in the many hours before they physically met, and he always went to her with an almost uncontrollable grin plastered across his face. She was just so... so special, she was, just completely different from anyone else he'd ever met, and for once he found himself thanking his lucky stars he'd been pegged as the idiot. If not for that, he never would have spoken to her, would have looked down on her coldly or never seen her at all. No matter how boring or stressful or annoying his day, she would be there waiting for him at the end of it, and on those rare days he couldn't go to see her because of illness or take-home assignments, he had many an anxious email to go through in order to reassure her of why he wasn't coming.

What they did at this time varied from day to day. Sometimes, if he remembered, he'd bring a board game and they'd play for days on end. He tried to choose games that she would be able to play easily, seeing as many of them were not designed for robotic claws half as tall as Wheatley, but she was so stubborn that even if it took her a long time she still made it work. Sometimes they would just chat, though never about work, and if ever he asked her about the events of her day she would shake her core and say nothing. He understood that the scientists were not all that kind to her and she disliked talking about it, but hashing out his problems with her always made him feel better, and so he continued to ask from time to time even though he knew he was going to get the same response. Sometimes she would try to explain to him the way she saw the world, which was quite hard for Wheatley to understand, but he tried. On occasion they still clashed on the grounds of morality and conscience, because she vehemently argued that the employees at Aperture had neither while he tried to convince her that not everyone was the same, but it never got so bad that they were actually fighting. On many occasions she asked him about facets of humanity she did not understand, and he did his best to sate her curiosity, though he never really did. Even as he answered her he could almost hear her brain coming up with new questions, something which unnerved him but knew she couldn't help. She was always pushing the boundaries of knowledge, both his and hers, and many a day he'd had to return to her with a sheepish correction on some subject he'd gotten wrong the first time. But she never held it against him, only nodded and said she would make the amendment.

Tonight she looked at him for a long moment, as if she weren't sure whether she should ask this one or not, but finally asked, "What is a 'family', Wheatley?"

Wheatley's gut clenched, and he found himself grinding his teeth a little. Of all the questions...

"That's a good question," he said, to give himself a bit of thinking time. "A family is a lot of things."

"Like what?" He knew he was not mistaking that eagerness in her voice; she tended to get excited when words or concepts had many interpretations. She didn't always understand them, but she always tried.

"Well... first of all, I guess it's... the group of people you... have, sort of, after you're born. Your mum, your dad, your sister, all that. They're... the people that love you, I guess."

"You mentioned that you're not from here. You used to live in Bristol."

He nodded, studying the distorted tiles below the smudged glass. "That's right."

"And the rest of your family is still there."

He nodded again. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going, and he didn't like it one bit. GLaDOS had a knack for asking him things he didn't want to answer.