Dust motes spun through the artificially lit lobby of the Royal Laboratory. They passed briefly through the miniscule tornado at the top of the escalator before wafting down to land on one scally, yellow head.

Alphys rubbed her claws nervously over one another as she shuffled through her different camera feeds. It wasn't as though she thought her missing experiment would be causing trouble...okay, that was exactly what she was worried about. Flowey scared her. She wouldn't put it past him to cause mischief. He'd startled her into dropping chemicals more times than she could count...well, not really, but 7 times was a lot!

Her eyes lit on one of her Snowdin Forest station feeds just as it switched and she frantically scrabbled with the keyboard to stall it. A few seconds later she was back, and the strange scene once more filled the screen.

There was her creation; his bright yellow petals were easy to distinguish from the white snow. But in front of him, wearing an obviously hand-made costume of red boots and a blue speedo under his classic red cape, was Papyrus.

It had been years since she'd last seen him. She couldn't even remember where they met, but he had been one of her few childhood friends. He looked well, even if he still seemed to favor ridiculous clothes. Then again, skeletons aged at a much slower rate relative to saurids. He wouldn't have nearly the same mental age as she did, now.

It didn't seem as though he'd developed as much discretion as her, either. He looked quite enamored with Flowey's speech, and that wasn't good. She knew that the flower was highly manipulative, and his morals were...flexible.

She hesitantly sent her old bondmate a wave of caution and warning through their bond. After a few seconds for the video feed to catch up to reality, the Papyrus on the screen visibly jerked. At almost the same time she felt that characteristic joy her memories of him always contained. She acknowledged it, but urgently insisted that he needed to be careful.

The pixelated Flowey looked annoyed. He summoned a single bullet at the same time that Alphys felt the pain. Her rush of concern was bowled over by quick reassurance. She insisted that Papyrus was in danger, especially as she was just now seeing the amount of damage Papyrus took. He reluctantly agreed, but she got the feeling he'd search the entire Underground to ask her why. Patiently, but still.

On-screen Flowey tried to weasel something out of Papyrus. Her old friend didn't let him. He patted the creature, who had just heaved a bullet at him out of peak, on his uppermost petals. Flowey was too hissy about this to realize Papyrus was leaving until he had already left.

Alphys followed the skeleton's progress through several camera changes. Finally, he settled down. His legs dangled off the edge of a secluded jetty by the river. An abandoned fishing pole rested beside him.

Happy reminiscence hit her like a suplexed boulder. She nearly buckled under the force of it, but rallied enough to echo it back. Friendly curiosity followed that; then mild frustration. She agreed. Bonds were great right up until they weren't, and then you were stuck across a chasm of spacetime without any means to bridge it. Reconnecting with someone you hadn't seen in years was difficult to do without letters and numbers…

Alphys' mind sparked with excitement. Papyrus, caught up in the torrent, reciprocated. It took some time for them to get calmed down enough for the scientist to convey her idea. But eventually Alphys watched, triumphant, as Papyrus carved his online username into the pure white snow.