Note: This is late, and also probably not written well, ack.

Undyne made a beeline for the door of Alphys's lab, determined to get there before the smothering heat of the appropriately named Hotland overwhelmed her. She didn't come here often, only when necessary, because the armor didn't help the fact she could get extremely dried out fast.

Luckily, she was right at the door now, and she stepped inside with a sigh of relief, removing her helmet to call out, "Hey Alphys, you in?"

"O-oh!" Alphys's voice was muffled, coming from the next room, "J-just a second, Undyne!"

"Alright, well you better hurry up!" Undyne shouted, quite a bit louder than necessary, tossing her ponytail away from her face, "It's about Papyrus's punk brother, apparently Pap is worried about him for some reason!"

"O-ok, Undyne," Alphys stammered, "Please, j-just a moment."

"Yeah, the punk was so worried about his brother, I actually had to send him back home early!" Undyne fiddled with her helmet as she paced, "Not sure why he's worried though, the only thing wrong with that bonehead is that he's so lazy!"

She barked out a laugh, "And weak too, can you believe that Papyrus is even related to him?"

"Undyne, p-p-please!" Alphys's voice reached a worried pitch that Undyne didn't notice.

"You know, I honestly think Papyrus could be in the Royal Guard by now if it weren't for Sans causing him to worry," Undyne tossed out casually, slightly unsure of what the heck she was talking about, now impatient, she headed over to the door she had heard Alphys behind, "I guess burden would be a good word for that, especially with how much Pap carries that lazybones around."

She chuckled flatly to herself as she thought about that, then she pushed the door open, making it slam as she used excess force, "That darn useless sentry-"

She froze as she realized that Sans was there, with Alphys staring at him worridly. "I mean-" Undyne swallowed, her throat suddenly oh so dry, she tried to take it back, as Sans trained his hollow eyes on her, "I was just-"

"s'fine," Sans looked away, "you were just saying what was on your mind."

"No, really!" Undyne seemed at a loss for what to do, "I was just- I-"

She stopped, there was no excuse to make, there was no retracting the words she had carelessly said. Alphys stared at Sans a moment longer, then offered a hand, for what she didn't know.

He gently pushed her arm away, laying down to stare at the wall, as he forced a somewhat light tone, "i'm fine. just tired..."

finally.

And nothing Alphys could do would make him look at her, so she gave up, going to exit the room with Undyne, who watched Sans a moment longer, before following the scientist out.

Undyne closed the door with a sigh, then noticed Alphys was watching her, "I-"

"Why, Undyne?" Alphys snapped, seeming trapped between anger and sadness, "Why d-d-did you have t-to say those things?"

"C'mon Alph," Undyne tried to stay calm, finding that she was nervously fiddling with the fins on the sides of her head, "M'sorry, I wasn't thinking I guess, what's the big deal?"

Alphys grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the sitting area where she had left the psychology book. Then she half shouted, "I'm n-not the one you sh-should be apologizing to! And th-this is the big d-deal!"

She flipped the book open to the marked page, stabbing at the words with a claw before shoving the book at Undyne, "R-r-read this! And you'll underst-st-stand the big d-deal."

Then she bustled off to find another book, leaving Undyne staring in utter shock as she blinked away tears of frustration.

..."i knew i wasn't the only one who knew these things were true..."...

HP: 0.5/ 0.8

Ending Note: The way Undyne is acting is something I actually relate to. A year or so back, someone in my family was sick, so I was worried of course. But one of the other family members helping was... not helping in the best way. So, me and a few of my closest family members would sort of vent to each other about it. It wasn't that we didn't like them, it's just that seeing that what they did was hurting the sick person made us upset. I decided to put this in case y'all thought that Undyne was being really sudden or whatever. Nah, she's just venting to a friend.