A/N: Shortish chapter, but I'm hoping to keep updates coming. (Shouldn't be any warnings that didn't apply to the last few chapters, except for some mild swearing.)
Enjoy!
Frisk sleeps, and sleeps, and nothing changes. Everyone watches them for a long while indeed, and there's nothing anyone can do.
Undyne knows this, but it doesn't make her feel any less helpless. Really, it only makes things worse.
It's one thing to watch Sans go without slugging the jerk for putting Alphys down, sick kid or no sick kid. That's hard enough. But then she has to let him go, arms still around her crying girlfriend, and all she can do is hug her and make what she hopes are soothing-sounding noises in her ear.
Across from Frisk, she hears Toriel sigh. Asgore follows suit shortly thereafter, falling quietly to his knees at the foot of the bed, eyes still on Frisk.
The silence stretches.
"RIGHT," Papyrus says eventually, "I'M GOING TO JUST...UH...I'M SORRY ABOUT MY BROTHER. I'M GOING TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO HIM. HE'S GOING TO APOLOGIZE."
Papyrus sounds very certain of this. He also sounds aware, somehow, that at the moment the fact of Sans's apology doesn't help all that much.
"You do that," she says instead. She isn't mad at Papyrus, after all. He's a good friend. It really shouldn't be his responsibility to apologize for his jerk brother.
"WELL THEN," Papyrus says, and leaves without much more fanfare.
Alphys has stopped audibly sniffling and seems to be trying to bury her snout in Undyne's shirt, but there really isn't much Undyne can do about that, either. She pets her head, running her fingers over the ridges in the back of her skull, tapping out gentle rhythms. She lets herself wrap around Alphys, trying to comfort her.
Actually, she realizes as her breath hitches into a quiet sob and she hides her face against the top of Alphys's head, it's pretty comforting for her, too.
Things stay like that for...a while. Undyne loses track of the time again, only hearing the impossibly quiet hiss of human breathing. Eventually, though, something in her pocket buzzes.
She ignores it for what feels like only a few moments before giving in and checking it, still holding onto Alphys with one hand. It's from Jay. He's wondering whether their meeting's still on, because it's morning and they haven't shown up.
She barely bites back some curse words and starts to disentangle herself from Alphys.
As she moves, she catches sight of Toriel starting to cross the room. She pads silently to Asgore, where he's still watching Frisk, and lays a paw on his shoulder.
Her voice, when she speaks, is not angry so much as it is resigned. "Get out of my house."
Asgore takes a deep, unsteady breath, and gets to his feet. Toriel lets her hand fall.
Undyne speaks up, not sure if it's her place, but willing to risk it. "Your majesty, we've missed our meeting time."
"...So we have." Asgore sounds lost. "Well. This may...we may be able to have words with the humans, now. New ones."
Undyne stares at him. "Like what?"
"I'm not sure yet," Asgore says. "Honestly, I'd like to sleep on it, but..."
"You're in no shape to do anything today," Toriel says, matter-of-fact, clinical, as though she's talking about the weather. "Tell them that there was an emergency, and figure it out later. You're no good when you're compromised."
"You're right, of course," Asgore says, heavily. "I'll do that. I'll be leaving now."
"Please do."
And just like that, Asgore sweeps out the door and is gone. Undyne's phone buzzes a few minutes later with his addition to their group chat—a succinct but courteous apology and request for another meeting time. She likely won't have to chime in on the chat for a while yet, she thinks, and resolves to ignore any buzzes that might follow for the next short time.
"Alphys..."
Undyne feels herself and her girlfriend jump at the same time at Toriel's voice.
"Y-y-yes?" Alphys says. It's barely even a whisper, run ragged with tears and fright. Undyne feels her gut twist in sympathy.
"It is possible," Toriel says, "that you have saved Frisk's life. I would like to thank you."
"I..." Alphys turns around in Undyne's hold, eyes wide with shock. "I...I mean, you—your...um...Toriel. I..."
"You are not certain you were correct." Toriel's gaze is removed, calm. "Nevertheless, it appears that you were right after all. Heartbeat or not, Frisk is still among the living. If you had not noticed, I do not know if any of the rest of us would have."
Alphys just shakes, for a long moment, but then swallows and finds her voice. "I just...wish that I could do more." She sounds miserable.
Undyne tightens her hold on her from behind. I'm here, she wants to say, and You've done so much already, but there is a former queen to talk to, first, and a grieving mother. She hopes Alphys can wait a few more minutes.
"I know you do," Toriel says softly. "Thank you for that as well. I will be sure to alert you of any...developments. If you have any more ideas like this one, please let me know."
"I will," Alphys says, still sounding rather dazed, and Undyne takes that as her cue to depart.
She lifts her girlfriend off the ground and into her arms, tucking her tail out of the way with practiced ease. "I'm sorry about what's happened," she says to Toriel. "Let us know if there's anything we can do."
"I will be sure to do so," Toriel says, and Undyne lets herself and Alphys out.
It's a long, dark, cold trip up to the surface, and Alphys is quiet for most of it, making no effort to leave Undyne's grasp.
Undyne doesn't want to talk about what's happened in front of prying ears. She doesn't know how Toriel and the others plan to handle this latest development. Monsters are terrible gossips, and she doesn't want to start any more rumors than the ones that are already inevitable.
So she pulls the new elevator up to the surface herself, though one-handed it's a bit tricky, and then takes Alphys back to her own house, and makes tea in Alphys's kitchen. She keeps the flames a bit lower than usual, for both their sakes.
Alphys sits listlessly at the table, and watches the steam curl into the air.
"You did good," Undyne says, finally, sitting across from her.
"I don't know," she starts, wincing, but Undyne interrupts her.
"No, you did." Undyne glares at the mug between her hands. "You know that guy was talking out of his ass, right?"
She flinches a bit at that. "N-no, no, he was...right."
"Like hell he was."
She does her best to say it calmly, and Alphys looks only confused, instead of shocked. "But...he is right. What I did..."
"Was the best you could back then, too. And you were working on your own. You've learned better since then. You talk to us."
"But..."
"Bad things that happen aren't always your fault," Undyne says, as gently as she can but still forceful, because she needs Alphys to understand this. "We've been teaching Frisk that, too, right? It counts for you, too."
"I just..." Alphys sniffles a little bit, again, voice tight, and reaches for her tea. "It's just...it's stupid."
"What is?"
"I'm guilty because I lied to Frisk," Alphys blurts out, all in a rush.
Undyne blinks, and tilts her head to one side. "Okayyy...run that one by me again."
"I—I said I wouldn't...help..." Alphys spreads her hands. "And then I w-worked on the defibrillator, I know it isn't exactly medicine, but Frisk told me not to try to h-help and then I d-did anyway and it didn't help, I didn't use it, I broke my promise again deciding not to use it..."
"Don't be ridiculous."
Alphys stares at her. "B-but..."
"You're making this way too complicated." Undyne knows she's glaring again, at Alphys this time. She tries to soften the expression a bit, but it's stuck on her face no matter what.
She reaches across the table and takes Alphys's claws in her hands, holding tight. "Listen. You know why Frisk had you make that promise?"
"B-because..." Alphys stops, shakes her head. "Because I'm a screw-up who couldn't handle helping?"
"Because they didn't want you to worry," Undyne says, as flatly as she can manage.
"O-oh."
"When you made something anyway, but it was a machine this time, did it help you feel better?"
"A..." Alphys seems surprised. "A little, actually. Yeah."
"And then you went to help them, even though you didn't have to, even though they told you you didn't have to, and you thought on your feet, and BAM!" Alphys jumps, slightly, and it's Undyne's turn to wince. "You saved them," she continues, tapping just one finger on the table this time. "Just like that."
Alphys frowns. "We don't know that I—"
"But you TRIED," Undyne says. She doesn't want to yell, but it's hard, so hard, it's just what her voice does when she's emotional and she feels so many emotions right now, all at once. "You tried and you're a awesome little genius—you realized something, and you acted, and you saved them. That's what HEROES do, Alphys. You did good."
Alphys's eyes are huge and glimmering with tears. "I..." she says, and shudders, "I'm not a hero."
"You know what? From where I'm sitting, you sure look like one." Undyne folds her arms, staring Alphys down. "And I bet Frisk would say so, too."
Alphys puts her head down on the table and cries a bit more, and Undyne circles around behind her and rubs her back, then pats her on the head and gets her more tea, because it seems like the thing to do. She looks out the window and it's already noon, or a bit past, and she isn't sure when that happened but time seems to have turned itself inside out for the past several hours.
Alphys eventually takes out her phone, apparently more to have something to look at than for any other reason, and makes a tragic face at it, looking ready to start crying again. "Mettaton wants to know what happened. How did he even...?"
Undyne makes a sympathetic face. "You know what? I'm gonna talk to Asgore, make sure that he's okay with word starting to get around, and then I'll talk to Mettaton. Don't worry about it."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Look, you don't have any important work to do, do you? Because there's that new dating sim you've been talking about, right? I think we should try to 'one-hundred percent' it, or whatever. Today."
She smiles tremulously at that. "T-that...actually sounds f-fun, yeah. Go, uh, go talk to Asgore or everyone and I'll go set it up, okay?"
Undyne looks at her girlfriend and squeezes her shoulder. "You do that," she says softly. "I won't be long."
"O-okay." Alphys hops down from the chair and reaches up, giving Undyne a quick hug. Undyne returns it, careful as always not to squeeze too tight, and then Alphys leaves, stumping her way out the door.
Undyne starts planning what she'll ask Asgore, and what to say to Mettaton and the rest of the Royal Guard and possibly the humans and anybody else who asks. But she also, in the back of her mind, she starts thinking about other things. Things like mushy, silly, extravagant plans that might take a while to set up, and longer still for Alphys to be ready for.
After all, Undyne's learned enough by know to know that she's in for a long haul. Cheering up her girlfriend is gonna take more than a few cups of tea and comforting words, or even a day playing dating sims on the couch. It's gonna take time, and patience, and creativity. Honestly, it might be more than one monster can handle, period. But that doesn't mean she can't try her hardest.
Besides, really, what else are girlfriends for?