Alphys stared into the pot with disappointment. She continued to futilely whisk away at the lumpy, greasy mixture, but it was no use. The hollandaise was broken. She glanced over her recipe again, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The answer was one of a hundred possibilities. The eggs might have been the wrong size, or she had misjudged the temperature of her portable burner, or perhaps it was that she was distracted by the feeling of someone watching her, dangling a threat over her head with gnarled vines.
Her book's helpful list of tips and tricks to fix a broken sauce had proved fruitless as well. It didn't help that she was too distracted to read it properly anyhow. Every time she tried to focus, she could swear she heard the rustle of leaves, or saw yellow petals darting by in the corners of her vision, causing her hands to once again slip and muck up any hope of fixing the complicated sauce.
She placed the goop filled pot next to a glass bowl full of wasted chocolate from an earlier attempt at baking a cake. The chocolate had formed into grainy waves. A wooden spoon sat, stuck firm in the middle of the bowl, sticking straight up like a wooden beacon. It would be a job and a half to chisel it out later, but Alphys simply did not have the stomach to deal with the unpalatable substance she had created. She felt awful for ruining something so precious. Once again, her beloved cookbook had proven to be of no help with her distracted mind.
Her stomach rumbled softly beneath her apron. Disappointing or not, she had to find something to eat for dinner, even if it wasn't eggs benedict. She supposed it had been foolish to try to step up her cooking game while she was so distracted, but she had wanted, well, a distraction from the distraction. She continued to stare forlornly at her failures, wishing she had just made waffles again. Her stomach prompted her to action with another quiet rumble. She walked to the fridge and grabbed a package of ramen. The smooth, slippery package felt both familiar and foreign in her hands. It had been so long since she had eaten her once go to staple. When she opened the package over boiling water, she nearly dropped it. She didn't know it was possible to become out of practice for making ramen, of all things. She chalked it up to her frayed nerves.
Even so, the first bite did not prove to be as nice as she had hoped. The noodles had turned out slightly undercooked, her internal ramen clock out of practice. She stared into space, chewing the gummy noodles and feeling like trash.
"You, uh, you got anymore of that?"
The deep voice startled her out of her stupor, causing her to jump. She inhaled a half-chewed noodle and began hacking from the intrusion in her throat, tears forming in her eyes.
"Ah, jeez!" Sans darted forward and started patting her back, not nearly hard enough to be of any help.
Alphys lifted a hand for him to stop and roughly swallowed the food in her mouth, clearing the noodle from its precarious spot.
She pointed to a bowl off to the side on her desk and hoarsely croaked. "Over there."
"Thanks." Sans joined her at the desk after retrieving it, his chair once again mysteriously under him despite the fact he had left it at the monitor. Alphys didn't have the energy to question it. She rested her head on her arms, elbowing her bowl away to the side. Tears were still flowing from her eyes. She didn't want to cry. She blamed it on her coughing fit.
"So, uh, nice weather we're having?" Sans offered up the conversation starter warily.
Alphys snorted despite herself.
Sans continued. "That snowstorm hit Snowdin right when it was predicted to, it was white on time. Of course, I was watching Waterfall, when all that fog picked up. The echo flowers looked amazing reflecting off it, I can't believe you mist it. By the way, I'm thinking of starting a debate group about how the cavern seems to be getting warmer, I hear it's quite a heated topic, what do you think?"
Alphys sat, giggling slightly. The way he had said it was nearly funnier than the jokes themselves. He had said the whole spiel impossibly fast, almost too fast to process. Any monster who needed to breathe would have run out of air by the third sentence. She clutched her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.
The soft shuffle of a letter sliding under her door broke through her momentary glee.
She stood up, her chair squeaking from the sudden motion. She quickly nodded at Sans in thanks for trying to cheer her up, and went to get the letter, hoping that her speed walking wouldn't tip him off to the nervous sparks in her stomach. He watched her get the letter, his expression as close to a concerned frown as it could possibly get, but he finally just shrugged and turned back to his ramen.
Alphys let out a quiet sigh of mixed relief and disappointment. She wanted to tell Sans about Flowey. Heck, she wanted to tell anybody about Flowey, just so she wouldn't have to face the crazed flower alone. But Flowey… he had to be really strong. He was filled with determination after all. And Sans… well, from what she understood from her impromptu medical exam a few days ago, he really wasn't strong at all. One solid slap from Flowey's vines could…
She didn't want to think about it.
Sans was staring again. Alphys realized she hadn't moved for at least a few minutes, that had to look suspicious. She quickly smiled and waved, walking to her desk to fumble around for a letter opener. Her insides fluttered when she saw the prophecy symbol stamped in wax on the envelope. It was a letter from the king.
Dear Doctor Alphys
Howdy! Sorry for taking so long to get back to you about your letter. I've thought over your proposition about the funeral, and I think it is a splendid idea! If you would not mind, I would like you to come over for tea and we can discuss things further. If my estimation is correct, I should be free during the afternoon the day after this letter arrives. Hope to see you then!
With Hope, Asgore
"What's it say?" Alphys jumped slightly. Sans had snuck up on her again.
"He must be suspicious." She thought. "My hands are shaking, could I be more obvious?"
"It's from the king." She said carefully, trying to keep worry out of her voice. "We… We're going to have a funeral."
Sans, who had seemed to slowly be leaning in, suddenly stopped. His eyes went dark. Alphys noticed his hand go into his pocket.
"A funeral." He echoed. "A funeral... huh." He looked up at her, his eyes relighting. "Sure, sounds… good."
He turned around, going back to his chair. He stared for a moment into his empty bowl. Alphys went back to her chair too, poking her still mostly full bowl with her fork. She wasn't hungry anymore. A sudden whine by her side shook her from her funk. It was Toby, he was hungry.
Goodness, she had been distracted.
Endogeny also started working up a ruckus, all the dogs within them whining in an unearthly, hungry unison. They used their head to push Alphys up from her chair.
"Okay, okay!" She giggled. She looked around for a moment, her eyes falling on the dog food still sitting by her fridge. She put her bowl of ramen on the floor as well. Toby sniffed it, but turned his nose up at the (now cold) undercooked noodles. Endogeny, on the other hand (or paw), had no reservations. They smacked their face over the ramen, eating it bowl and all.
That was what it took to shake Sans from his funk as well. "Hey!" He shouted at the dog(s). "Spit that out!"
Endogeny chewed faster.
Sans lunged across the table, sticking his hand into the dogs' face. "Hey! Drop it! Drop it! Bad dogs!"
Endogeny whined, their ears flopping back. The bowl came out of their face and into Sans' hands, covered in apology froth. The ramen was gone.
Sans sighed, putting the bowl on the counter and wiping his hands on his shorts. Endogeny whined again, their tail and head low. Sans scratched them between the ears. "Sorry guys, you're good dogs. Just, don't do that again please."
Alphys laughed at the scene as she poured two bowls of dog food, one larger than the other. It felt good to laugh.
She put the bowls on the ground and whistled quietly. The dogs bounded over. Toby let out a yap when Endogeny, who often had trouble seeing the smaller dog below their line of sight, tripped over him. They stumbled forward right into Alphys' face, whining an apology to both her and the other dog. Alphys giggled and pet them, and in return they gave her an affectionate, slobbery lick.
"Hey! Down! Not on the face!" she laughed.
Endogeny backed up to enjoy their food, which was in a bowl big enough to feed five or six dogs, perfect for them. Yet, despite its size, Alphys watched in surprise as Toby wrapped his paw around the rim and pulled it away while Endogeny was distractedly chewing. By the time the dog(s) went in for another bite, they found nothing. They whined, looking from Alphys to Sans in total confusion.
Alphys laughed and pat them on the head, pointing towards the small dog who looked all too pleased as he began scarfing down Endogeny's food. Alphys moved in to take the bowl back, but Toby managed to latch his teeth around the rim and tried to growl as threateningly as a dog his size possibly could, a high-pitched motor noise that was more funny than it was intimidating.
Sans grabbed the bowl as well and suddenly Toby's jaws closed on empty air. He turned back to his own food begrudgingly. Alphys didn't think she had ever seen so much self pity on a dog's face, and it was truly hilarious: so she laughed.
And for that moment, for that time, she forgot all about the threats that Flowey was hanging over her.
It felt good to laugh.
Alphys was in her pajamas, but she certainly wasn't in bed yet. She sat, staring at the tiny clock in the corner of her computer screen. A paused anime was open in the middle of the screen, but she couldn't bring herself to continue watching. She had already missed a significant portion of the plot due to how distracted she was. She would have to rewatch it tomorrow to catch back up. That was, of course, if she was still alive by then. The clock switched to 1:34. She had about 13 hours left.
"Cann yeepe?" Sans asked through Alphys' headphones. She pulled them off.
"What?"
"Can't sleep?" he repeated.
"...nah." she replied. She could just barely see him on the spare mattress in the dark, her computer screen glaring bright colors off his skull and the backs of his eye sockets. "Sorry, this light is probably keeping you awake too." She turned the monitor off, reducing the room to near darkness save for the orangey glow coming through the edges of the skylight covers.
She started making her way to the escalator, before she paused. She turned back around and walked to the side of Sans bed. Screwing up what was left of her courage, she asked: "Sans, what do you know about timelines?"
His body, which had been quite relaxed, suddenly tensed. He had closed his eyes, and they remained closed, but he seemed to be gritting his teeth. "Not much, really. I know about theories and all that, but I've never done any research on them."
He figured he technically wasn't lying. He felt like he had done research, many, many times, enough times that it should have been burned into memory. This time around, though, he hadn't done any. He cracked an eye open.
Alphys looked disappointed.
"Why, what's eating ya?" he asked, already regretting it.
"What do you think would happen if someone could stop and restart time? Do you think some things would get erased? Would anyone remember?"
Sans could feel sweat on his forehead. He closed his eye and shrugged. "Who knows really?"
He could feel the mattress shift as she sat on the edge, her mouth beginning to run faster than her head. "And what if the person who had control over time was really irresponsible or cruel? Or what if the person got bored and decided to mess with time for fun? Or-"
Sans was really sweating now, and he was way too tired for this. "I don't know Alphys, and this really isn't the space or time for talking about this." He chuckled drowsily. "Heh, spacetime."
"You're right, I'm sorry." She made a motion to stand up when Endogeny emerged from the darkness. They tilted their head and whined, clearly able to tell that Alphys was upset.
Alphys gently pushed their head away. "It's okay." she said. "Go back to sleep."
Endogeny whined again and proceeded to follow Alphys up the escalator, despite her insistence that she was fine and that they should go back to sleep. At the top they raced past Alphys, jumping onto her mattress and turning around until they got comfortable. They wagged their tail slightly and tilted their head. Alphys stared at their behavior quizzically, but decided that she was too tired to ask questions and crawled in beside them. Endogeny snuggled their head up to her, before seeming to nod off almost instantly, their whole body quivering with the calm breathing of several dogs.
"What incredibly good act did this world ever do to deserve dogs?" Alphys thought.