Repairing Souls
"What?! You want me to give Flowey a Soul?!" Alphys shouted, astonished.
It had been several months since the monsters had left the Underworld. They had created a small town (baptized as "Newer Home" by Asgore) near the mountain, and most monsters were living there and in nearby cities. It was still too soon for them to spread worldwide, and Frisk had still a lot of ambassador work to do until that day came.
Once on the surface, the thing that had puzzled monsters most was how much the human had insisted on putting Flowey on a pot and let him live with them. The monsters had refused until the flower swore no trying to kill them again, and even then, Frisk's new family had accepted reluctantly, and always kept an eye on the plant. Flowey was annoyed by that. He had killed them because he was bored of the Underground, of the endless resets, of the limitations of that world; and being soulless he couldn't care about anyone. Now he was out and the human world had proven to be interesting enough for him, with endless new things to experiment and see.
"But why?" Alphys asked.
Frisk pouted and pleaded her with their eyes. They didn't want to explain the reason. First, because they weren't sure if Alphys would believe them that Flowey was the deceased son of Toriel and Asgore, and even if she did, it would probably take a lot of time to convince her it was true. Second, because they didn't know if Flowey had told that to anyone in that timeline. And third, because, well, they wanted it to be a surprise. If their plan worked. Frisk supposed that creating Souls was impossible, but since Asriel had had a Soul, they wanted to believe that there was a chance to bring it back, or something similar. And Frisk believed Alphys could do it.
"... All right." Alphys accepted, still not convinced if that would be a good idea. "But I don't know if I'll be able to do something like that. Bring Flowey home, and let him stay a few days. I'll need to examine him to know where to start the experiments."
Frisk smiled when Alphys accepted, and hugged her as a thanks. But she still had her doubts about that. It was true that almost everyone had tried to kill Frisk at some point, but the scientist didn't trust that flower at all. Even when he hadn't cause trouble yet (not more trouble than yelling and complaining because he wanted to watch a new show or visit a new place), she couldn't bring herself to trust him. But she had promised Frisk she would try her best. And the idea of giving Flowey a Soul seemed really interesting.
It was New Year's Eve and Frisk asked Toriel to prepare a huge dinner for all their friends for. She had loved the idea, and when Papyrus had insisted on bringing some food cooked by himself, they had all agreed on make something for the dinner. That way, Toriel wouldn't have to cook too much.
Papyrus and Sans were the first ones to arrive at Toriel's house, almost an hour before they had been told, because Papyrus was so excited he just couldn't stay home. Sans hadn't really tried to stop him. He loved watching his brother so happy. And, surprisingly, what Papyrus had cooked wasn't spaghetti, but pizza. Sans hadn't brought anything, but Frisk had already expect that.
Asgore arrived just in time. He and Toriel had made up and were good friends, even though they wouldn't be back together any time soon. But Frisk thought that was fine. Friendship was great, anyway. The former king of the Underworld had brought several kinds of cookies and chocolate, and Frisk's eyes literally gleamed when they saw them.
"They are for dessert, young one." Asgore kindly told them "You will have to wait a little more."
Frisk pouted, but knowing that there would be sweets after dinner filled them with determination.
Undyne and Alphys arrived late, probably because of the scientists experiments. Undyne had brought the food (a bunch of sandwiches made by both of them) and Alphys was holding Flowey. Frisk got closer to them and took the plant while asking Alphys with their face. She got a little nervous.
"Well... Hum... I created a machine t-that can detect Souls, s-so I could see easily if there was a change and—"
"Nothing!" the flower interrupted suddenly "This is nothing but a huge waste of time. Where's the food? I'm hungry!" immediately declared.
Alphys stared at Frisk in silence while giving them a nervous smile, not denying what the flower had said. The human frowned a little, disappointed, but then they smiled again. Alphys was doing her best. Then he went to the table and put Flowey near a plate with food because he had started to yell again about being hungry.
The dinner was great. Everyone was laughing and talking, and Sans was making lots of puns much to his brother's dismay and Toriel's amusement.
"I KNOW SOME OF YOU ARE DISSAPOINTED BECAUSE MY BROTHER CONVINCED ME NOT TO MAKE SPAGUETTI TODAY." was Papyrus saying "BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE. I JUST CUT IT IN SUCH A SMALL PIECES YOU CANNOT SEE IT, AND YOU ALMOST CANNOT TASTE IT. IT'S A SURPRISE-SPAGUETTI-PEPPERONI PIZZA!"
Alphys was eating slowly, only half-listening to the conversation. She couldn't stop thinking about the experiments. While Frisk's petition had come out of the blue, they clearly had a reason to had asked her that. And Alphys had the feeling that, if they had a reason, it meant that it had to be possible to give Flowey a Soul of some kind.
...I JUST CUT IT IN SUCH A SMALL PIECES...
"really, bro? i didn't notice." Sans said looking at his proud brother.
...YOU CANNOT SEE IT...
Everyone in the table looked at their pizza as if it had grown legs, except Flowey, who was just munching on a sandwich, completely uninterested in it.
... IN SUCH A SMALL PIECES...
Alphys let her sandwich fall on the plate while she stared at the food on the table in shock. Undyne noticed, and got closer to her girlfriend.
"Alphys? Are you f—"
"OH MY GOD!" the yellow monster suddenly shouted, while standing up "That's it! Oh, my God!"
Everyone stared at her, startled, but Alphys ignored them while looking frantically at the table, grabbing her girlfriend's hand, taking Flowey with the other one and starting running towards the door.
"Frisk was right! Frisk was right! I have to do something! We need to get to the lab, Undyne! NOW!" Alphys yelled while running.
The fish monster reacted to her words, and smiled, running too. She knew Alphys had been doing some kind of experiment with Flowey, and that they weren't going well. But she seemed to have discovered a clue, and Undying couldn't been happier about her girlfriend's excitement.
"We're gonna make the lab explode! See ya tomorrow, punks!" Undyne said while leaving the house. No one seemed to notice Flowey's complaints.
Alphys was running wildly through the lab, opening machines, taking parts and using them to modify the one that could detect Souls. The machine could show both monster and human souls, and was essentially a big screen with some buttons. Alphys had been three days modifying it so it could establish some kind of magical connection with whoever's soul you were watching, and had put a touch screen. Flowey and Undyne had been observing the scientist as if she had been the main character of a particularly stressful anime movie. The plant had even made popcorn, and the fish knew that the only thing she could do was making sure Alphys got enough sleep and food during her adrenaline rush. She hadn't been very successful. It seemed that not even Undyne, leader of the Royal Guard, could match her girlfriend in passion for her work.
"I'm done!" Alphys happily shouted, while bringing the machine to Undyne and Flowey.
"Great" Flowey said, not believing it would work "Use it fast, so I can go and watch that anime that's going to start in a few minutes."
Alphys turned on the screen and saw Flowey through it. As she had thought, there wasn't any soul on him. But she saw something else: tiny bits of... something that was solid-like and gas-like at the same time. Like an essence. Alphys didn't know what that was, but it was the first time she could detect anything at all on Flowey, and that gave her hope. Then she took a stylus, touched one of the small things and moved it around.
"Do you feel something?" she asked the flower.
"No." he groaned "Can we go watch anime already?"
Alphys frowned. She had expected some kind of reaction. But there was something else she wanted to do. Alphys touched another piece and moved it until it touched another one. They fused.
"What. Was. That." Flowey said before she could even looked up, staring at her completely still.
"What did you do?" Undyne asked, surprised by the flower's reaction.
"Did it hurt?" the reptile monster asked Flowey.
"No, but... it was weird." he informed them.
Undyne and Alphys looked at each other. Undyne wasn't understanding anything, so she just shrugged. Alphys decided to do it again. Flowey was tense, but didn't complain again. Alphys kept going for a long while. There were hundreds of pieces, but they were eager to fusion. They simply couldn't do that by themselves. They were parts of something extremely fragmented that no longer could hold form by itself. And after several hours, Alphys started shaking, knowing what they were. Fris was right, after all.
Flowey had a soul.
"No! Stop!" the sudden shout startled the monsters. But Undyne and Alphys were even more surprised and worried when they realized that Flowey was... crying. Big tears were falling down his face while he kept yelling in distress.
"Stop! Stop, please! Mom! Dad! Chara! Where are you? Frisk, help!" Flowey kept crying.
The monsters looked at him, completely perplexed by his sudden reaction. They looked at each other and then at the flower.
"Hey, punk." Undyne said in an unusually soft tone "Are you ok?"
But the flower ignored her and kept crying and yelling for Frisk. Alphys reacted first, and took her phone to call Frisk. She had the feeling that they would be the only one able to calm the plant down.
Frisk entered the house fast when Undyne opened the door, looking for the flower. The fish monster told them to go the lab they had put in the basement, and the human run downstairs.
"What's going on?" Toriel asked Undyne, worried. After Alphys had call Frisk, they had insisted on going to the lab no matter what, even when Papyrus and Sans had been there on a visit. They had followed them to Undyne and Alphys' house too, of course.
"I have no idea." Undyne confessed the monsters, as lost as they were, and let them in.
Downstairs, Frisk was hugging and patting the yellow flower until he managed to calm down. Alphys looked at the scene almost as lost as her girlfriend was with the situation. Then Frisk looked at the machine Alphys had.
"Oh, this. Yes!" the monster seemed to remember her discovery and her excitement started to come back. Which only made the plant more upset and he started trembling again. Frisk noticed Flowey was awfully more emotional than usual, but let Alphys explain herself, while petting the flower to comfort him. Then they asked for the machine and made several signs with their hands.
"You want me to make relaxing tea? And give it a lot to Toriel?" Alphys asked Frisk, to make sure she had understood right. Frisk nodded, smiling. "That's... not a bad idea" she said, realizing how tired she was after sleeping so little because of her excitement with the experiment. "Yes, we will wait for you two to go up." And the monster left the basement after saying that.
Once they were left alone, Flowey seemed to relax a little. Frisk left the pot on the floor and sit in front of him, with the machine in their hands. Flowey looked at it anxiously. But Frisk understood how he was feeling, and wait until the plant seemed ready. He noticed, and let out a sad laugh.
"I always was a crybaby, wasn't I?" he said. Frisk kissed his forehead to comfort him, but the flower shook his head, trying to reject it. "Stop. It's not that terrible, all right? I'm just a little... scared" he admitted, while starting to cry again "I'm sure I already told you in another timeline. Maybe more than once... I want to feel again, I want to care again. I've tried it so many times... So do it, Frisk. I'm ready if you're with me."
The human nodded and took the stylus. Alphys had told them how the machine worked, and it was really simple. They stood there for a while, Flowey shuddering, but not shouting anymore and Frisk patiently joining all the soul fragments that were floating on his body thanks to the ashes that had fallen on that flower so long ago. Did monsters know what "letting their soul's essence live in a favorite object" meant in that situation?
Frisk looked at the flower right before joining the last fragment, but the plant didn't look back. Frisk completed the soul. There was a sudden light coming from Flowey, and the ceramic pot broke in pieces. The human close their eyes, fearing a fragment or some dirt hit them in the face, and looked again when it was over.
Flowey wasn't there. Instead, a small monster with white fur, big ears and small horns wearing a striped shirt was sitting on the rests of the pot, looking confused. Frisk smiled while the monster whipped the tears of his face and smiled back. They got up and Frisk took his hand. There were people waiting out of the basement.
"I don't trust that fricking flower!" Undyne shouted, again. "And Frisk is taking too long! Let's go down there!"
"Flowey can't hurt, Frisk." Alphys reassured her, again. "And there was still a big portion to complete. I'm sure they're fine." But despite her words, Alphys was even more worried.
All monsters had sit in the living room, drinking the tea Frisk had told Alphys to make. She didn't know why Frisk had wanted Toriel, of all people, to drink it, but their adoptive mother had accepted several cups of it. Everyone had drank it, in fact, and Sans had already fallen asleep on the sofa. Papyrus had to take the tea cup with his blue magic to make sure the liquid wouldn't spill on himself. The sudden change of gravity meant it had spilled on the coffee table instead, but at least that was easier to clean. Toriel had gotten up and gone to the kitchen to take a towel before her hosts could stop her.
It was then when she heard the basement door opening and Papyrus shouting.
"ALPHYS! DID YOU CLONE TORIEL AND SHRINK HER?"
"Greetings." a small voice said then. A voice she knew. "I am the prince... eh... the former prince, I guess, of the Underground, Asriel. Nice to meet all of you."
Toriel stopped looking for the clothes and started running the few meters that separated her from the voice, arriving before he could say anything else. All monsters (except Sans, who was still asleep) looked at her, confused; while Frisk was smiling. The young white monster looked at her and gave her a small smile.
"Hi, mom. I'm back." Asriel said.
Toriel fell to her knees, crying, and hugged her son. It was a miracle, it had to be. And she knew Frisk had done it, somehow. Frisk and Alphys. She would never be able to thank them enough.
She managed to calm down after a while (the tea had helped, for sure), and then Asriel told them his story since he had awoken as Flowey. That worried Alphys a little, since Asriel had been the flower she had injected determination on, and that substance was dangerous on monsters. But Asriel seemed perfectly fine. Then she remembered how easily it had been to fusion the first fragments of Asriel's soul, and how difficult it became as she progressed. The determination probably helped the fragments to fusion and, since the supply wasn't endless and monsters didn't naturally have it, the more she and Frisk had repaired his soul, the less determination was left until it had completely disappear. Alphys sighted when she realized that. One problem less to worry about, but she would still make some checkups on the boy. Just in case.
Once Asriel finished their story and every monster had absorbed everything it meant, they were more than happy to forgive what he had done as a flower, bringing him to tears again. Then they realized they had to call Asgore too. The only problem was they forgot to tell him to drink something relaxing, and the poor monster passed out the moment he saw his son alive and well after all those years. Their reunion would have to wait.
Frisk and Asriel lived together since then. At first, Asriel only slept on Toriel's and on Asgore's house (he already knew his parents had divorced and lived separated and, while that made him a little sad, he understood their reasons). But as time went by he started to rotate houses with Frisk, who would sleep around one week in each one of their friend's house. He soon learned that he would mostly eat spaghetti in the skeletons house, and going to Undyne and Alphy's meant training evening and anime night. Even Mettaton let him (or, rather, made him) appear in his show a few times with Frisk, whenever he recorded it near 'Newer Home'. Ratings always rose incredibly when the young and cute prince appeared. And, at school, Frisk had introduced him to all his friends, and he soon had become one of them despite his shyness.
Asriel had never been more glad to had awaken as a flower so long ago.
Also known as "the happy ending everyone wanted and no one got". I hope you liked it!