Portal: Love as a Construct

Part 25: The Part Where She Loves You

Part 25. The Part Where She Loves You

She didn't seem to realise she'd spoken aloud.

She also didn't seem to notice he was staring at her. He couldn't make himself stop. She hadn't said anything in a bit, and he hadn't wanted to disturb her, but... now he had to wonder just what she was thinking about. She had said it in such a quiet voice, as though she was discovering something simply fascinating, that he actually felt bad that he'd heard it. That was probably not something she had wanted to say until she was good and ready. But he was pretty sure it wasn't something he should keep from her so he said softly, "GLaDOS?"

"What," she said, twitching a little bit. Nope, she definitely hadn't meant to say it. And now he had to bring it up.

"You... you do know what you just said, right?" he asked, hoping against hope that he was wrong.

"Did I say something?" she asked.

"Yeah," Wheatley said, not knowing how to tell her. "You... you... I'm sorry, I wouldn't've listened if... if I'd..." He stopped trying to work out what he was thinking when she suddenly stared at him for a long moment.

"I... said it out loud, didn't I."

Wheatley emulated taking a breath. "Uh... yeah."

She looked away somewhat defeatedly. "Thank you for letting me know."

Hm. This was awkward. He could defuse it, though, couldn't he? Yes, yes he could.

"Oi, GLaDOS," he said, "I just thought of something."

"If it's another revelation, it can wait," she said wearily. "I don't want to deal with any more of those. I've hit my limit."

"Oh no," Wheatley said, "nothing like that. Stay still, please."

She sighed but did as he asked, and he looked her faceplate up and down, trying to decide the best way to go about it. Carefully, he lowered himself on the control arm so that he was directly in front of her, then frowned when he saw the flaw in his plan: she was staring right at him.

"Uh, you can't look at me," he said, knowing she wasn't going to take this well.

"Where do you want me to look, then?" she asked, but she actually didn't sound that annoyed. Good news, that.

"Up or down. Doesn't matter."

She pointed her lens upward, and he emulated a breath inside his head. He hoped he wasn't about to do something really, really stupid, but he had to try. He got the control arm to flip him 'round sideways, which GLaDOS must have seen because she twitched a little, but happily she didn't move despite the fact she must have been very confused. Carefully, he brought his handles to meet her optic assembly on either side of the metal bit that inserted into her core, and pressed against the rest of the mechanism as hard as he could. He heard her open and close the lens assembly a bit. He hoped she understood what he was doing. It wasn't really a successful project if she didn't.

Then he felt a pressure on his left side, which was now kind of his top since he'd flipped himself to the right, and was instantly overjoyed. She did! She did understand what he was doing! Yes!

"I've only got one arm, so to speak," she murmured. "I hope you don't mind."

"Nope!" he said happily. She laughed gently.

"I didn't think you would, honestly."

"I thought you might," he said shyly, backing off of her after a few more moments and flipping himself around again. She glanced about a little.