A/N: I ended up writing summaries of all the chapters so far! You can find them on my Tumblr (not even gonna try to link it, because FFNet is notoriously bad with links. My username here is the same as my Tumblr URL, so it shouldn't be hard to find, if you're interested). I'm going to do my best to include a previous chapter summary in each new chapter from here on out, too.
Last time: Alphys POV, a week or two after Frisk's collapse (so, roughly, January after leaving the underground). Alphys prepares to attend an unofficial test that Mr. J has volunteered for, to determine the extent of monster food's healing power and what happens afterwards. Undyne gives her a bit of a pep talk before she goes, and she meets the human child (Nat) and explains what the monster scientists are doing. Undyne introduces her to Mr. J and Nat as her girlfriend, and they chat until the tests start showing solid results. Alphys is spooked by being the one to spot Mr. J's returning (very mild) injury, and leaves the lab, only to be confronted by Sans, who surprisingly enough gives her a pretty satisfactory apology and promises to give her space unless and until she's comfortable being around him again.
For days and days and days, Toriel plays a somewhat reluctant hostess to a variety of guests.
They are, at least, considerate enough to come in groups of twos and threes, seldom more. Some she is happy to see, some less so. All of them are a distraction from her charge that feels, at best, rather unsettling. At worst, it feels dangerous.
Some of them insist on staying the night, or at least a few hours of it, so that she can rest. Some of these she turns down; she even almosts attacks Asgore one particularly sleepless night. But eventually, she gets used to the idea that Sans will come to relieve her every other night or so, usually when she starts to worry she is right on the verge of nodding off.
Others come to stare at Frisk from anything for a few minutes to a few hours, before offering their support—some tactfully, some not—and then finding their way back to wherever they happened to come from. These visits take a little while to get used to, but eventually she does accustom herself to them.
The River Person, the same one who apparently handed Frisk their death sentence, comes by once. She seems like she is watching Toriel as much as Frisk, and does not prove to be so bad a conversation partner. She even pulls out a chessboard from somewhere and challenges Toriel to a match at one point.
She is a worthy opponent, something Toriel has not had since...well, for a while, at the very least. It is pleasant to spend some time with someone as long-lived as she is. Plus, the River Person, the former human, seems genuinely pleased when she wins. Maybe a little smug, but Toriel can forgive that. It is rare enough that she is not held in awe by other monsters.
She understands that Mettaton is busy, so is surprised when he comes soon and often, every few days, at least once a week. Every time he apologizes for being gone for so long. Every time he looks at Frisk with a fresh concern, as though he were not there earlier that week, as though something has changed.
(It has not. Nothing changes. Toriel has watched for hours and hours, as days turn into weeks, and she is convinced that little, if anything, has. She accepts the platitudes about their improvement with equanimity, but she is sure. Frisk is not going anywhere quickly. That is not to say that there is no hope, but it is going to be a long time. She cannot allow herself to hope for more.)
Napstablook comes as well, sometimes with Mettaton, sometimes not. Toriel, if she is being honest, must admit that she is not entirely sure of all the times that he is there. He is a quiet presence, one that is all the more welcome for his silence.
Asgore comes to visit, because of course he does. She will not allow him to involve himself beyond visits, but she manages to restrain herself from kicking him out of her house, albeit sometimes barely.
(It seems to her, sometimes, that the most important things left in common between them are the biggest holes in their hearts, the same shape and size. The first two, anyway, but in ways those were the worst. Asgore carries more marks, now, different ones than the ones that came to her after. The mark those left on him are likely worse than those left on her, since they lost their first children. She has fought the children she begged not to leave. She has not killed them.)
Gerson will take Frisk out to the couch in the living room and tell them stories by the fire. If Toriel is another, more responsive, audience member, he seems to mind not at all.
He chats with her, as well, about his efforts to herd the Tems generally upwards to at least get a look at the surface without losing any; and he tells her about Mettaton's plans for a miniseries. But when her attention drifts back to the sleeping body in the corner, he always seems to understand.
Undyne and Alphys come by occasionally, always together. Alphys does not stay for long, but will accept tea or snacks graciously enough, though she makes for only poor conversation. It is always Undyne that goes through most of the pleasantries, that reminds her that it is time for them to be gone.
Papyrus usually forgets not to be loud, but despite this, Frisk does not stir. It is nice to have his energy in the house; even if he does begin to grate on her nerves after a little while, it is an oddly good feeling, like stretching an under-used muscle. It reminds her of the world outside her solitude, which is loud and brash and does as it pleases.
Muffet takes time out of her schedule, leaving day-old baked goods and slightly creepy reassurances as she goes, promises that she and her spiders are keeping an eye on things. Toriel will take her allies where she can get them.
Monster kid comes, bearing on their back a precious cargo of a piece of snow, to be returned to the Snow Person later with a report as to Frisk's state. They have been worried indeed, Toriel thinks, if they're willing to send a piece of themselves indoors with such an...enthusiastic visitor. Still, aloud, all she does is praise the young one's dedication.
The most surprising, and perhaps (in some ways) the happiest visit, comes with a quiet knock on the door and the hint of a bright orange smile around the corner.
"Nacarat," she says. She had not seen much of the monster herself, up until now, but of course she has heard the story from Frisk. The last she had heard, there was little hope that they would wake up again. But they come, with their small, big-eared friend, and sit thoughtful and a little stooped, a little hunched, at Frisk's bedside.
"They saved me," the monster says to Toriel. "I wasn't aware of it, but I was told, later. I heard that they cried."
"Well..." Toriel does not know, but she feels that it might well be so. Frisk had, after all, been very upset. "They will be happy to hear you are better."
It is not a lie. Perhaps in its certainty it is a bit of a stretch, but even so, she cannot bear the thought of saying anything that would discourage this monster, not now when they still look so frail, so young.
Everyone looks so young to her, nowadays. It only ever happens more and more.
And so her days settle into a kind of monotony, a visitor most days and sometimes more than one, another time to try to feed Frisk. Human food does not work, but monster food disappears at their lips and afterwards they have a bit of a healthier glow, if Toriel is not fooling herself. At the very least, she can hope.
Things are very quiet, and she is very tired. There is peace throughout the house when everyone but she and Frisk are gone. It is a peace of settling dust, of quiet things. It is the peace of endings, and though the ruins have always been rather empty, it is the first time she remembers feeling them to be so quiet.
It is Sans, surprisingly, who brings the matter to her attention the first time.
"hey. uh, tori."
"Yes, Sans?" This sounds different from their usual ritual of silences and small talk. It sounds, somehow, slightly more ominous.
"i was talkin'. with, uh. alphys, actually, if you'd believe it."
"That is, rather...something." She cannot help but ask the obvious question: "But the two of you were fighting, were you not?"
"yeah, and tell you what, that crow kinda stuck in my throat." Sans admits. "but sometimes you gotta eat it anyway, ya know?"
"I suppose so," Toriel says, but finds herself uncertain. She tries very hard, after all, not to be wrong in the first place. But even she has managed apologized to Frisk, not so long ago.
"yeah, and it was, well...it was more important than somethin' stupid like pride." Sans shifts. "not sure you're gonna wanna hear what we were talkin' about, though."
"I am happy to listen to whatever you have to say, Sans. You must know that by now."
"all right, don't say i didn't warn ya. He takes a deep breath. "we were thinkin', maybe we should bring frisk back to the surface."
She blinks at that. It certainly was not what she had been expecting, though she is not sure what she thought that might be. "Back to the surface? But..."
"yeah, well, see..." Sans shrugs. "if they're really more like a monster now, then bein' around friends should help, yeah? We're worried about 'em, sure, but otherwise things are goin' well up there."
""It is...worth considering," Toriel says finally, though part of her is terrified about the idea of carrying Frisk so far in their current condition. "I will need to speak with...the scientists, I suppose. See whether they believe it is safe."
"talked to alphys about that too," Sans says. "she guessed it'd be fine, though you could pick 'em up for a bit beforehand, see if it changes anything."
Toriel looks around at her belongings, then back at Frisk on the bed, and frowns. "I do not know whether I will be able to move back up there with Frisk to look after," she says. "I would not like to leave them for so long as it would take to bring everything back to the surface, and without my things, I do not know if I can continue looking after them indefinitely."
Sans makes no comment on the "indefinitely," probably because he has realized by now that Toriel will be there for as Frisk for as long as it possibly takes, all the way to the end of time if need be. Such is the plight of the parent, and especially a boss monster. "we'll help ya," he says instead. "you got an awful lot of fans, after all, tori. we'll work somethin' out, one way or another."
And so he does.
One day, Toriel takes her heart in her throat and her dear child in her arms, and carries Frisk back the way they came, to the surface. It is still cold, thought the snow is finally starting to melt, the snowman on the hill put into his small, frozen glass cottage to await the next winter. She puts Frisk in a jacket, and holds them tightly but gently against her, and drapes a shawl over herself and their shoulders to share body heat, and then puts a blanket on top of that. She does not know how much Frisk's body is affected by the cold. She does not wish to take any chances.
Finally, she settles back into the house on the surface. The others help, and the process goes entirely smoothly, and no one stops her whenever she pads out of the room to sit for a little while by Frisk's bedside.
Not so much changes. But some things do.
It is not quiet anymore, for one thing. She hears the sounds of people coming and going at all hours of the day, nd some of the night. Visitors are more frequent.
And, likely because of her move, there come the strangest visitors of all: a human man, and his child, apparently a ward like Frisk has become Toriel's.
It is her first time meeting the man and the human boy face to face. She had heard of them, but their brief sojourns in the past did not involve her. They look quite similar to each other for humans, but quite dissimilar for family members. The child is, rather like Frisk, quiet and solemn. Unlike Frisk, he is all bony, awkward angles, and eyes that are wide and inquisitive, and a very active and expressive mouth.
He is also remarkably shy, especially for someone who has encountered monsters before, and who has no reason to expect even so much as a friendly battle.
Toriel finds herself thinking, absently, that he would not have survived for five minutes beyond the ruins. She feels an immediate rush of guilt at the very thought.
When she takes the two of them up to Frisk's room, though, there is suddenly very little fear in him at all.
He sidles over to Frisk's bedside, watches them breathe with eyes wide and...and Frisk, when they looked at people, did not look like that. They were stoic, a little difficult to read, with words chosen carefully that said more than their physical expression. Even now, having known Frisk long enough to read even the little signs, Toriel could read more in this child's eyes than she could in Frisk's. It was like looking at a particularly expressive monster.
A particularly expressive, sad monster.
He reaches out a hand, then pulls it back, frowning.
"What is wrong?" she asks him, curious.
"I shouldn't touch people who are sleeping," he says, tucking his hands behind his back. "I won't be able to tell whether or not they like it."
"That is an interesting rule," she said, because she couldn't quite find it in her to think it a bad one. Frisk did seem a bit lonely there, though, lying there alone. "Is there any rule that you cannot speak to them? It is possible that Frisk may be listening."
The boy blinks, eyes glinting sadly again, and straightens, looking out the window for a long moment.
"Thank you," he says finally. "You helped save me. I was very afraid, and I'm not sure exactly what happened. But I needed help, and you came. Thank you for that."
Toriel sits in the corner and picks up her knitting basket. She is not willing to leave the two of them alone, not with what happened the last time children of hers were left at the mercy of humans. Still, she has enough heart to pretend she is not listening. She glances over her shoulder to see that the adult human has pulled out his phone and is fiddling with it, leaning against the doorjamb.
The child, meanwhile, is speaking again. "I heard that you're not...feeling well. I hope you feel better soon." He pauses. "You have to live here now," he says, "and humans can't. I think that's a little sad. Not for you, but...I'd like to visit again, maybe, but we're not sure it's safe. They're doing tests on Mr. Jay right now, to see if we'll be okay; then maybe I'll be able to eat the fiery monster's cooking again. It's good."
The man puts his phone in his pocket again, a small smile on his face. It is almost a smirk, eyes squinting, but there is also a great deal of pleasure to it. "Covering the important things, I see."
"Food and sleep are important," the boy says, crossing his arms. "I have to keep reminding you about that."
"I've never been good at it, it's true." The man stretches, one of his sleeves riding up to expose a brightly-colored plaster on his lower arm.
The boy bites his lip. "Are you still feeling all right?"
"Completely fine." He puts his hand on the boy's shoulder; to Toriel's studied eye, it looks like a welcome weight. "Mind if I take a turn? I've got a few things I'd like to say, too."
The boy shrugs. "Sure."
"Okay, here goes." The man takes a deep breath, carefully looks Frisk in the face. "I...look, I know the kid just thanked you. But I'm thanking you for something a little different. You went after him when you didn't have to, when you thought no one else saw him. That was good thinking."
He swallows before he speaks again. "And...well, you aren't the only one who helped, and brought him back to me. So this next thank you's for all of you, I guess, but I wanted to make sure you heard it. Because he is a precious, beautiful person"—the hand still on the human's boy's shoulder squeezes, and he lowers his head, blushing—"and you all brought him back to me after taking care of him the best you could. We've been talking for months, now, but I think that that more than anything makes me glad that humans and monsters have a chance to become friends."
He pauses, then looks over at Toriel. "How much have you told them about...their condition?"
"We have not kept much from them, really," she says. "But we do try to keep things...well, you know."
"No reason to give hope any more work to do," he says, with a crooked smile. "I can understand how that works. Then let me say this." He turns back to Frisk. "I've heard you're not...quite as human as you used to be. If I may...congratulations. I think that might be exactly what you needed. Seems to me like you belong here."
The boy frowns. "I still wanna be friends with you, though," he blurts. "It's...kind of cool, if you're really part monster. I kind of wish..."
The man squeezes his shoulder. "Come on, now."
"No, let me finish," the boy says, frowning.
The man suddenly looks troubled. "Sorry," he says. "You're right. Continue."
"I almost, kind of, wish that I was here with you," the boy says, finally, voice soft. "Everyone here seems so nice, and...I only just moved here. I'm a little scared of the other humans in town. They don't seem as nice as the monsters. But..."
There is a long pause. Toriel's heart suddenly aches for the boy, as she glances up from under her thick lashes to look at the way the boy and his guardian do not look at all alike, at the new shirt above the boy's ragged but well-cleaned jeans and thinking back to the new-bright coat on the rack in the entryway. Frisk's clothes were...older, when they had arrived. But they had also been well-worn, well-loved, and only recently dirtied and torn.
"But it's different," the boy says finally. "We're pretty different. Sorry. I mean, I have Mr. J, and he's...new, but he's made a place for me. And you had to make a place down here because you fell and you couldn't get out. And you got everyone else out, right? They said you were a hero. That's...really cool. Seriously, I want you to wake up anyway, but it'd be cool if when you did you could maybe tell me how you did it..."
He shuffles his feet, then falls still. "That's all," he says, awkward but certain.
"Good job," says Mr. Jay. "You're getting better at speaking your mind."
The boy's mouth twists wryly. "I'm trying."
"You're doing good." He ruffles the boy's hair.
"Just because that doesn't hurt doesn't mean it isn't annoying," the boy says.
"You're right," the man says, bending over. The boy sticks his hands in it, mussing the slightly longer strands, and the man looks distinctly windswept when he stands up again.
"An agreement from before," he says dryly. "He's keeping me honest."
Toriel, having long since sets her knitting aside, suppresses a giggle. "So I can see." The next sentence, she addresses to both of them at once. "Congratulations on the addition to your family."
Between the visitors, perhaps inspired by their example, she starts to speak as well, a habit she had not even realized she had lost down below. She mutters to herself as she writes down summaries of people's visits—for her own sake, a bit, but mostly because what a soul might hear and take to heart, a waking mind might forget. She counts stitches aloud during the day, narrates what she is making for dinner, carefully feeds Frisk tiny bites of magic food, reads stories, ponders her syllabus.
Sometimes she even speaks her own thoughts aloud, and finds that it helps her, not only for the clarity. She must be careful of what she says aloud, and hearing the slightly brighter selection of her thoughts, thinking of things she can say, that are encouraging and not bitter, is...helpful to her frame of mind.
The snow begins to melt. She starts asking people to come by more regularly, because she is concerned for the rest of the house. She does not let Asgore plant her garden, though he offers. She consults him on the plants and then takes only the advice she pleases. She straightens up the other rooms, on a rotation of about a month. (She did not build his room in this house, and she has yet to regret that decision.) She takes trips to the aboveground library. She cannot take trips to town, not at the moment, but she does ask for Undyne to pick up a few things for her.
She catches odd hours of sleep, dozing in her chair at Frisk's bedside, or catching a few moments in her own bed when she is giving a trusted visitor some privacy. Sans continues his way of turning up just when she is starting to think she needs a bit more than a nap.
And, of course, she always finds herself baking quite a bit more than she actually needs. She finds ways to give away her leftovers to a number of her visitors.
