A/N: This is the first fanfiction I've written in years! You have no idea how glorious it feels to stretch one's wings after keeping them cooped up for so long. Enjoy!~

POP. The champagne bottle spurted as its cork sailed gracefully over many heads and out an open window before plummeting into nothingness. Glasses tinkled and voices mixed. Most of them were pleased but some were jealous. "Congratulations." "Congratulations, Caroline." "Congrats…" "Congratulations."

"Congrats, Auntie!" A little girl shook her aunt's hand violently, grinning. Caroline, still too modest to speak from all the attention, patted the child's head. The girl fled. Probably to find her friends or something, she thought. Caroline was still trying to take in the importance of her new position—she would almost be in charge of Aperture, right underneath the CEO.

Since she'd worked in a private wing where several hazardous gels were made, she'd never seen him before, but had pieced together information from heated gossip. Several rumors floated about from the sane (he was a veteran and a ladies' man) to the dangerous (he had no idea how to handle money) to the completely absurd (he had a side job at an ice cream shop). Caroline wondered if she should be happy or afraid of what was to come.

Caroline was jolted out of her thoughts. "Ms. Caroline?" She turned around. Behind her was a gentleman who radiated charisma. He extended a hand toward her in introduction. "Cave Johnson. We need to have a little talk."

Caroline stammered that she didn't recognize him and of course she'd speak with him, after all, they'd be working together for a while, she hoped…Cave smiled inwardly, noticing the iridescent pink hue creeping onto her cheeks as she grew flustered. He took her by the hand and marched her away from the party, away from the endlessly falling cork…

"Gotcha!" A metallic hand shot out of a window and neatly caught the cork. The hand drew back, its owner's face glowing with a rare sort of triumph, if you could call it that. "Hey, guys!" He commanded attention, proudly displaying his newfound treasure. Several cores smiled and nodded, easily impressed by the…what was it again?

The core who caught the cork shrugged. "I honestly don't know, but isn't it awesome?" Adventure stepped forward and took a long, discerning look at it. "Seems like an artifact of some kind." Fact scoffed. "That small piece of rubber-wood is used for cleaning the strings of a musical instrument. That," he straightened the front of his suit. "is a fact." Intelligence rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what the cork was, but he figured it was pointless to say so. After all, the only thing anyone asked him for was recipes, so what would it matter?

"Ohh, what is it?~" A musical voice rang out, and a sprightly female core bounced toward the object of recognition. "What is that? How'd you get it? Why is it that brownish color?" The core holding the cork tried to answer her, but before he could, she snatched it up and began to canter around the room, showing this mysterious object to everyone.

One core got excited. "Oh, OH! I bet it's from space!" Every head in the room turned towards him, all but one glaring in disgust at this ridiculous suggestion. The girl holding the cork actually considered it a possibility.

Another core refused to touch it. "You know what the manufacturers said—if we touch anything small and brown, we would die. So I honestly can't see why you lot are ignoring them. "

While every other personality core was gathering around the strange small item or mingling with others, Anger was sulking in the corner and quietly growling to himself. Why, oh why did he have to come to this party? Sure, Aperture got a new assistant for the CEO, big deal. But did Social Core have to organize an entire event for all of the cores simply because he cared for her? And, most baffling of all, why on earth did GLaDOS approve?

A sudden burst of music interrupted his argument with himself. Anger's raging questions and the unexpected music made him even angrier, and his growling increased in pitch and volume.

Curiosity Core chose that precise moment to bound up to Anger and present Social Core's cork. "Ooh! Hey, Mister! Do you know what this is? I just have to know! Oh, you're one of the cores I'm going with later! Hello! Why is this thing so small? Why are your eyes getting so big? Why is…" she faltered for a moment. "W-why are clouds c-coming out of your ears…?" Curiosity's orange eyes grew wide. "Y-you're going to hurt me now, aren't you?" Curiosity began to tremble.

Morality, who said or thought nothing of the cork, turned around at the unusual sound of Curiosity whimpering. She rushed over right away, trying to keep calm. She touched Anger's arm lightly. He looked at her and his expression immediately softened, but not without confusion. What did she want?

Now was Morality's chance.

She linked arms with Anger, muttered "Shall we dance?" and whisked him off to the center of the floor.

Anger, realizing he'd been manipulated, snarled at Morality for dragging him out of his corner. Morality looked hurt for a second, but her expression turned to pity when she figured it out. Why else would he be upset when asked to dance? It was simple: He didn't know how. She held a finger to Anger's lips, who was positively steaming at his emotional turmoil.

What was this? Part of him wanted to push her away, livid for having been put on the spot. Another part of him wanted to dance with Morality; she was always so sweet to him. However, it bothered him that he was experiencing something other than his namesake, something on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whenever Anger was around her, he felt…calm. More than just calm. His circuits turned warm, but not hot, and whenever she smiled, electrical impulses made him want to smile too. But that was not in his programming at all!

Morality clasped his hand with hers and slid her other hand onto his shoulder.

Anger could sense his circuits heating up, but tried to take no notice as he gingerly placed his arm around her waist. They stepped together, (well, mostly) occasionally treading on each other's feet. Anger smiled in spite of himself.

In the time that Anger wasn't looking at the floor to step accurately, he watched. He watched Morality's gentle strides, heard the light clack of her heels. He watched another couple dance. Squinting, he could see Curiosity's head resting on the Space Core's chest, eyes half-shut in utter contentment. Why that wretched little—oh, he'd stepped on Morality's foot again.

Morality observed Anger when he wasn't looking. He seemed to be learning to dance quickly, and was much more docile than she'd ever seen him. She felt a rush of satisfaction. It was she who followed her directive and gotten her friend to dance with her. Only one thing troubled her, mild as it was: she felt a surge of something else.

What could it be? When she was around him, electricity raced inside her, for reasons other than potential danger. As she danced, she noticed that her points of contact with him felt a little strange. It was a nice sort of strange, she supposed.

That wasn't all.

Anger had changed in all of the time she'd known him. He was more than placid. In fact, she could go so far as to say that he was pleasant to be around.

Morality snapped herself to the present. She had to pay attention. She twirled, Anger still holding her hand. Morality leaned back, hoping Anger would hold her and not squeeze her like her previous dance par—ohh, she did not want to think about that. She shut her eyes and shuddered at the memory.

Anger blinked in surprise. What was wrong with Morality? She'd only shudder if…someone had put her through a bad experience similar to this! Anger felt a stab of hatred toward that man-core. Surprisingly, he suppressed it, determined to make this dip much better than that guy did. He held onto Morality, not holding too tightly, not letting go. A tiny smile etched itself onto Morality's lips.

The dance was over.

Anger let go of Morality's hand. It was too much for him. His circuits scorched him and he walked away, fuming. Morality laughed to herself. Oh, Anger.

Her laughter evaporated when a handsome core ambled up to her. Morality looked at him, trying to appear emotionless. The green core grinned. "Hello, sweetheart. You remember me, we danced one time? The time you said I looked like danger?" Morality nodded. "What can I say, I'm programmed to handle danger and even be danger. And you," he paused to flash that lady-melting smile of his, "are as beautiful as ever. Now what do you say we get down and I'll show you my latest black belt in bedr—I mean, ballroom."

Adventure gave himself a mental thump on the back. The smile, the killer line, the gentleman approach—this is perfect. Looks like I got a dance with a pretty lady. Oh yeah. You go, Rick.

What he didn't notice was Morality politely but emphatically shaking her head no. He was too caught up in congratulating himself for being the gentleman and trying to figure out how to handle her more gracefully this time.

Anger saw everything.

Rick slipped his arm around Morality's waist, simply not hearing her silent protests.

That did it.

Anger stomped up to Morality and Rick, seething. Much to her surprise, Anger tossed an arm around Morality's shoulder and hissed something that sounded very much like "She said NO."

Rick, not wanting to pick a fight in front of a lady, backed off with a flourish and yet another flash of his charming smile. He left with elegance, muttering to himself, "What went wrong?" only when he was out of earshot.

Morality stared at Anger, who was still breathing heavily. He gave a final bark as if to say, "And don't you try that again!"

Morality's wiring crossed itself with gratitude and the other strange feeling from when she was dancing with him.

It was both of these which caused her to throw her arms around Anger's neck and clasp him to her.

Anger sparked in surprise. Just after Morality embraced him, his inner workings nearly ignited, but not in anger. Mysterious.

Anger tentatively encircled his arms around Morality. She could sense a kind of saline gathering in her eyes.

Anger marveled at his sentimental capabilities and her tolerance for him. This felt right. This was nice. This was—wait a minute. This wasn't what he was supposed to feel at all!

Anger abruptly released Morality and glowered at the floor. His facial circuits were practically on fire. Morality had a look of questioning empathy written on her face. Anger stayed silent for a few seconds, then turned away and at last opened his mouth.

"Damn it, Morality…"

A/N: Well, there you have it! This was a lot of work, but quite fulfilling on my part. The most fun I had with this was writing Rick's dialogue; I simply ADORE him! Ahaha~

Even so, I sense a bit of a sidestory with Caroline and Mr, Johnson and an expansion of this short story—possibly. It all depends, really. Thank you for reading, and do critique, I won't whine. ;)

P.S. About Social Core—he sounds like a truly potential OC. There was no way I could have done this story without him, but he's not really essential to the plot. Hmmm…

In case you were wondering, the song that was playing when Anger and Morality were dancing was the same as when Johnny English and Lorna Campbell danced in Johnny English. The song changed to a slower one, and enter Spacosity! 3

If anyone else noticed the hole made by GLaDOS existing, the one mentioned was a previous version of her, before the scientists made her 'gentler' by inserting Caroline as an AI. You know I'm making this up as I go along, don't you?

If you were thinking of them as you read: The human designs belong to Forte-Girl7 on DA