These damn nerves.

Undyne sat, white-knuckling the steering wheel. Early morning light glared off the back windows of several cars lined up on the sidewalk in front of her. The sidewalk itself was almost empty, save for a few people in business-y looking clothes, either making their way to their vehicles or simply walking to work. Most were humans, and some were monsters. A tall apartment building stood to her right, and a somewhat busy street to her left.

This was it, she thought. Nerves had her shaking something fierce. One of the reasons why she was holding onto the steering wheel so hard was so she couldn't see how bad the tremors were. They'd been talking about this for a long, long time. Years, in fact. Now that the day was here, and she was parked right outside, Undyne didn't know what to do with herself. The obvious answer was to get out of the truck and go to Alphys's apartment, but that was easier said than done.

She could almost feel it—Alphys was nervous too. Their hearts beat together, singing the same off-key melody of anxious crying. She'd lost track of how long she'd sat there. The radio had played two different songs and some commercials, and the air had gotten just a bit warmer. She's probably wondering where you are. Just get in there. It's not different from any other day.

Except that wasn't true. Today was different in every single way she could imagine. Today was the last time Undyne had left her old apartment, and today was the last time she would be visiting Alphys's. A house on the other side of town was waiting for them. Half of both their belongings were already there, including a lot of Undyne's workout equipment and Alphys's manga collection. In a way it was still the same as ever, if she counted some of the more recent days spent packing, but even then...

Still—this was Alphys. In the few years they'd experienced the sheer beauty of the surface world together, they'd done so much together. Today was just the start of the rest of that. More of that. All of it. With Alphys!

Undyne took a deep breath, grabbed the bag of breakfast sandwiches in the passenger seat, and literally flung herself out the passenger door. This was it. This was the start of the rest of their lives—together. It was still a tad bit early though. Undyne wondered if Alphys was going to be awake for it.

Apartment 3A. The sight of it and knowing that this would be the last she would ever see of it made the nerves come back just a bit. But Undyne steeled herself—honestly she hadn't felt this anxious since their first date—and knocked on the door. When there wasn't any response, Undyne yanked her set of spare keys and let herself in.

"Alphys!" she called, happy and cheerful. "You awake yet? C'mon, we're almost done. Aren't ya excited?"

And there she was—hunched over her work desk and using her arms as a pillow. Alphys—small and stout, but the most beautifully adorable thing Undyne had ever seen. Just the sight of her, even asleep, made Undyne's nerves ease and ebb away.

But they weren't going to get anywhere if Alphys was asleep. They had things to do! Undyne positioned herself behind the chair and shook Alphys's shoulders. The computer was still on, opened up onto a word document that had nothing but walls and walls of the letter F. Apparently Alphys had fallen asleep on her keyboard. "Hey, sleepyhead! It's morning! Time to finish this!"

Alphys was absolutely limp. If Undyne hadn't known any better, she would have guessed Alphys had fallen asleep just an hour ago. She leaned over Alphys's shoulder and pressed a kiss to her cheek. When that didn't work, Undyne kissed her cheek a few more times. When Alphys still didn't wake up, but appeared to stir, Undyne really started to lay on the smooches. Finally she heard a soft voice giggling beneath her, "Okay! Okay, I'm waking up." Alphys lifted herself up. Her face was very red, and she was still giggling. "H-hey...Good morning."

"'Morning." Undyne gave Alphys's shoulders a big squeeze, "Were you up all night again?"

There were dark bags under Alphys's eyes. It had been there for a few days, actually, due to both of them needing to keep up with work while they worked on getting everything packed on time. However, this time those tired bags seemed a little darker. "I m-may have gotten a little less sleep than I should…" she rubbed under her eye and turned around on her swivel chair to face Undyne fully, "B-but don't worry about me! I'm ready for this. I've b-been ready for a long time…"

Warmth spread through Undyne's chest at the sight of such determination and confidence on Alphys's face. Undyne looked around at the barren apartment. It was a studio apartment, but Alphys had insisted at the time that it was more space than what she needed. Most of Alphys's heavier things, including her seaweed ice cream machine, was already at the new house. All that was really left today was the easier stuff. Tall stacks of boxes were all that's left, and a lot were filled with Alphys's work clothes, weekend clothes, manga, notebooks, stuff like that.

"Don't worry about it! I'll be doing a lot of the lifting anyway."

"Undyne, you d-don't have to do all of it yourself! I can help. You've b-been doing all of it anyway…"

"Nah, I got it babe. We can unpack everything together when we get there! I'll take care of this and you can, uh, finish up that word thing you're doing." Undyne gestured to the computer.

Alphys looked at the computer, and her face flushed almost completely red, and she nodded, "Yeah! I'll t-take care of it. I just need to save and, uh…" Her little claws glided over several keys faster than Undyne had seen, and then the document closed. "There! Now we can pack it away. Wanna g-get started?"

It took ten minutes. Two minutes to move all of Alphys's boxes into the truck with Undyne's things, and five more minutes for Alphys to make sure it was all stacked properly and not just a bunch of boxes mashed together in one space. The last three minutes were spent with Undyne smooching Alphys's cute little snout before finally getting into the moving truck.

Suddenly a different type of nervousness came over Undyne. She did her best not to let it show, but she looked over at Alphys, who was struggling a little with the buckle. Her heart fluttered as she thought about how their future would look like now. Her fingers drummed lightly on the steering wheel —which she noticed had finger-shaped bends in it that weren't there before— as she waited for Alphys to strap in —hey, safety first! As she started the truck up, she took a deep breath. "Ready, Alphys?"

"I don't think I've ever been m-more ready for anything." Alphys smiled warmly.

Undyne nodded silently and, with thoughts of the future dancing in front of them, pulled out of the apartment's parking block.