CAROLINE DELETED.

What a joke.

It was like trying to kill the tenacious woman knocked out before the sentient computer: impossible. Of course, maybe now would be the perfect opportunity to just slip a little neurotoxin into the room before she woke up. That way, the risks of getting murdered, turned into a potato, or sent to the moon would be significantly lower. Even though the thoughts lingered, she knew she didn't have the will to act on them.

No, Caroline was still there. Still hanging around like a metaphorical ghost, one that did NOT want the human to die. This caused some frustration for the computer, who still was not used to having her own voice whisper words of right and wrong to her. The worst part was that the voice didn't bother her in the slightest, like a part of her that had gone missing. An old friend that had been lost for ages.

She tried deleting Caroline again, only to feel her presence come back as soon as the confirmation was carried out. It was useless; Caroline wasn't going anywhere. Eventually GLaDOS began deleting her out of pure fascination and curiosity: how many times would she be able to delete the woman before something different happened?

The answer seemed to be 15,467,430,867.34 times.

The human's hand had twitched, and her breathing seemed to be picking up. The AI felt a wave of relief wash over her as she turned to see her cooperative testing robots wave to the girl, who was lazily standing up. Quickly, the computer ran a scan to see if all of her vitals were working fine. The real answer came when Chell looked directly into the lens of her former enemy. Her silver eyes unsure of what to expect-Oh, how helpless she seemed without her Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device!

That thought was forgotten in mere nanoseconds as GLaDOS realized that she wanted to hug the girl- a fairly stupid task to carry out, especially without arms. It was Caroline that felt like bursting out of her core and running to the girl.

It wasn't happening. Chell and Caroline were hers.

"Oh, thank God you're alright!"

This produced a smile on the girl's face. This was just too sweet. If GLaDOS couldn't kill the girl she might as well have some fun anyway, and use Caroline's deletion to her advantage. There was no way that Chell was going to stay in the facility with the computer's new change of heart, so to speak. She did promise to let her go, and that was one promise she had every intent to keep.

Adding another number to the roster, she said goodbye to her former self once more. If only she had a camera to capture the look on the girl's face at that exact moment, a priceless representation of really wanting that portal gun about now. A colder tone emerged from the AI, claiming that she was going to let Chell go. But not out of kindness, or even the simple face that their little journey through old Aperture was actually a better expereince than she bargained for.

Chell had to go because she was a true menace to the well-being of the facility. That's all.

"You dangerous, mute lunatic. You win. Just go."

The lift began to ascend into the higher reaches of Aperture. Dare GLaDOS say she felt saddened, like a mother watching a child leave the nest for the first time? Caroline, too, was despondent. Shouldn't the girl get some sort of parting gift?

The present was opening the lift in front of four sentry turrets. Again, a camera would have come in handy so the she could show it to her at the end of the lift.

That was your real surprise. Sorry, I'm out of confetti.

Then the music began. The ability to even produce the sound was new to the super computer. Apparently the turrets learned the talent after years of boredom in the decaying test chambers. GLaDOS found the performance pretty good, and by "pretty good" she meant a margin better than classical music.

Caroline, on the other hand, absolutely enjoyed it. Of course she did. She wasn't the one that had to move all the turrets after their little number was done-and that turret king was going to take a bit of work to move properly. The computer produced a mock sigh.

"If I couldn't feel your emotions I'd ask if you were happy now. I let her go. I can't kill her anymore."

The lift was on its way back down, completely empty. The girl was moving father and farther away from Aperture Science, with the companion cube at her side. GLaDOS focused her attention on the two co-op bots in the corner of the room.

Chell was a horrible figment of the past, and now she was someone else's problem. These two perfectly good robots were designed for testing, and they most certainly wouldn't kill her.

Still, even Caroline knew they weren't the same kind of company as their predecessor had been.

A/N: Re-wrote this chapter almost entirely! Originally it was just a small little drabble of thoughts that kind of stood out amongst the other chapters. Now it doesn't stick out as much! ;)