Frisk had never actually been inside a hospital before. A doctor's office, certainly – even if their biological parents tried not to call much attention to them, they were still required, by law, to bring their child in for a checkup at least once a year. But never a hospital.
They might have been fascinated by the experience, if they hadn't been rushed straight into surgery, and by the time the bullet had been removed and they were actually mostly coherent and no longer bleeding out (thank the stars for monster candy!), the novelty of being there had worn off, and their ambassador instincts were kicking in.
"How long am I going to be staying here?" Was the first thing that came out of their mouth when they were rolled out of the operating room on another stretcher.
"At least overnight," the nurse accompanying them said, checking the patch of newly-grown tissue on their shoulder with a frown. "We've never used monster food to heal such a deep injury before, so we want to make sure there are no side effects."
There wouldn't be. Even monster candy, which took at least two pieces to put someone back at full health, was more than capable of healing injuries much more extreme than this. They'd recovered from falling into lava once.
No need to point that out, though – that hadn't actually happened in this timeline and the last thing they wanted was questions.
"Will I be allowed visitors?"
The man shrugged. "Probably."
Several minutes later, they were lying in a bed in one of many rooms on the first floor, sipping orange juice from a cup and listening to the worried conversation between several voices outside their door and Chara's incredulous comments.
*Since when do hospitals have TVs?!
Since now?
*I'm serious, Frisk! I thought hospitals were just full of big rooms with cots surrounded by curtains and lots of windows and IV drips, so why is there a TV?!
They almost laughed, but quickly stopped themselves as the conversation outside finally stopped, and the door was opened to allow Toriel to hurry to their bedside.
"Are you well now, Frisk? Did they remove the bullet?"
Frisk sat still, letting the monster check their shoulder for herself. "Yeah, they got it out. I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure, Mom." Now they pushed her hands away, giving her as reassuring a smile as they could before smoothing their expression to something a little more serious. "What happened to the shooter? Do you know?"
A look of disdain swept across her features. "That man had the gall to pretend that he hadn't done anything wrong – he even denied shooting you, claimed that he suddenly awoke in the police's wagon with no memory of how he got there!"
They blinked. "Really?"
"Yes! Obviously, they didn't believe him… Undyne told me she'd let me know what they found out once her shift's over."
The ambassador nodded, barely even paying attention at that point as their brain sparked off several thoughts at once.
Why would he try to pretend that he didn't know how he got there? Is he going to try to plead for amnesia in court? Is that even a valid defense? I'll have to check, once I have access to the Internet again…
A sigh drew them out of their musing. Toriel had sunken down to sit heavily in one of the chairs in the room, looking at them with an expression somewhere between sadness and disappointment.
"Frisk, if you knew that man would be there… why didn't you tell me? We could have arranged for a different location, while there was still time…"
A lump rose in their throat.
Toriel had asked that question before. In every run where they had used the call the police and make themselves a target technique (or the call and charge technique, as Chara had taken to calling it), she always asked the same thing, almost word for word, with the same expression and the same sad, mildly frightened tone of voice.
No matter how many times it happened, or how they tried to reassure themselves that it had been the right thing to do, they always felt guilty for making her worry.
"If we'd gone somewhere else, he could have still found us," they said softly, "and… and I didn't tell you because you would have been keeping watch for and if he noticed that… who knows what he might've done? At least this way, he's been arrested, and he's not going to hurt anybody else..."
Their voice trailed off as Toriel engulfed them in a hug, arms wrapped protectively around them. They tried not to pay attention to how the monster's arms were trembling, or how her breath was hitching as if she were about to cry.
They just hugged her back.
Night had fallen, pitching the city into darkness, only interrupted by the occasional light from the window of some building – and even those were going out, one at a time, winking out like stars behind thick cloud cover. Wagons and carts had been parked out of the main thoroughfares, horses tied up in their stables (or garages, in some cases), and overall, Dublin's streets were lifeless, save for the shape of a human or monster shuffling along the sidewalks every now and then.
In contrast to the emptied streets, however, the police station was still brightly lit, standing out like a beacon.
Sitting as only a faint shimmer above the station's main door, a LEPrecon captain shifted uncomfortably.
He shouldn't be here. He really shouldn't. As a rule, fairies were encouraged to avoid areas of dense human population and were especially encouraged to avoid monster populations, and Dublin had both now. Even if the People's only human allies lived here, it was too big of a risk.
But that hadn't stopped his superiors from assigning him and several other Recon officers to watch over the monster ambassador, and it was probably just as well that they had, considering today's events.
That shooter had looked a little too blank-faced to just be some emotionless assassin, and a brief scan of the man with a MagiScanner had earned some worrying results.
There was magic on the man. Not a lot, but roughly the same amount that one might expect from a mesmer.
They couldn't be certain, not without speaking to the man himself, but the Commander had deemed it enough of a risk to send someone to check it out. In all likelihood, it was just residual from being too close to a monster.
But on the off chance that it wasn't…
The station door swung open, and one of the humans on the night shift that night stepped out, bringing a newly lit cigarette to her mouth. The fairy slipped in before the door could close behind her, whatever noise he was making covered by the sound of the woman exhaling a puff of smoke into the air.
The inside of the station was lit by florescent bulbs, putting shadows into sharp, cool-colored contrast. There were no other humans in sight, the room empty.
There was a camera, though, just as expected, pointed towards the door. Not a particularly advanced one, but still, if the security guard watching the video feeds paid enough attention, they might just see a faint haze hanging in the air near the door. Best not to linger.
"Commander, do we have any of their video feeds?" There was no verbal reply, but several camera feeds appeared on the edges of his visor. The station was almost empty, save for a few officers lingering in the break room and a couple standing guard outside one of the holding cells. Inside the cell itself, the figure of a man in a hoodie sat hunched on a cot in the corner, looking positively miserable.
"The techies are sending you the building schematics now." The Commander's voice said. "Stand by."
A moment later, said schematics appeared alongside the camera feeds, several pulsing red dots marking the locations of the humans still in the building.
"Got'em, sir. Moving now."
Sparing a brief moment to focus on the images and memorizing the recommended route to the cells, the Recon officer flitted down the appropriate corridor. Several turns and a couple long hallways later, he turned a corner to find the two officers and the door they were guarding.
"Can the techies set up a loop?"
There was some muttering on the other end of the line as he fingered a small compartment in the wrist of his suit, waiting for the all clear before he snapped it open.
"They should be able to," the Commander said after a moment. "Only for a couple of minutes, since we don't want to risk the humans noticing anything off with their cameras."
"That'll be more than enough time, Commander."
The camera feeds in his visor jittered for a nanosecond before settling again.
"The loop's started. Get moving."
The fairy darted forward, popping open the little compartment on his wrist and pulling out two paralytic patches (new mandatory equipment for LEP jaunts in high-population areas). He quickly poked one into place on the back of both humans' necks with hardly any pressure at all – at most, the humans might feel a slight breeze – and then pulled back.
A few seconds later, both men stiffened and went rock still.
Good. That left him three minutes to do his thing, and neither policeman would remember their brief paralysis or notice the lost time.
The cell door was unlocked quickly with his omnitool, and pushed open just wide enough to allow the elf's small form to slip through. Inside, the prisoner's head jerked up to stare at the door.
"Hello?"
The man likely did not expect a response, but he got one anyway, in the form of a small, dull-green suited figure materializing seemingly from mid-air, visor already down to reveal elfin eyes.
"Hello," the LEP officer intoned with the hypnotic mesmer. "I mean you no harm, human."
The man's frame tensed for a moment, then loosened, his face relaxing and his eyes glazing over as the magic took hold.
"Okay," he slurred.
" How are you today?"
"No' good… got arrested…"
" What for?"
"They ' I shot somebody… Some ambassador..."
"And did you?"
"No!" The human , the sudden loud sound nearly popping the elf's unfortunate eardrums. "No, I didn't, I swear!"
"Okay, okay, I believe you." The captain assured him quickly. "You didn't shoot anybody."
When the man settled down again (and the fairy checked his moonometer – two minutes to go), he continued.
" Do you know why they thought you shot somebody?"
"They said they saw me shoot… said I had a gun, but I don't own a gun..."
" Do you remember where the gun might've come from?"
"No..."
" What is the last thing you do remember, then?"
The man's brows furrowed, his daze fading just a tad as he struggled to recall the information.
"I remem'er a… a voice…?"
"A voice?" Dread was rising in his gut like a rotten nettle smoothie, and by the sounds of the muffled cursing in his earpiece, the Commander must have felt the same.
"Yeah… a voice… really pretty… choir of angels… and eyes…"
D'Arvit.
Their hunch had been right. Some fairy had mesmerized this and tried to use him to kill the monster ambassador. But who…?
Well, there were a fair number of fairies below ground who had been clamoring for the Council to take out the monsters right in the beginning, but as the creatures had spread all over the world, those voices had died down, and some had changed their tune completely, cheering the monsters on. And wanting the creatures gone wasn't the same thing as wanting to cause a full-out war between them and humanity, which would probably have happened if the shooter had succeeded…
Who would want that? Why take that risk, if fairies might get caught in the crossfire?
"Thank you, human," he said. "Please forget this conversation ever happened, and that I was ever here."
"Okay..."
The visor was lowered, and the tiny figure shimmered out of sight. A few moments later, the cell door swung gently shut and locked behind him.
In the darkened interior of a cozy hotel room a few nights later, the buzzing of a mobile phone woke Frisk up. They fumbled quickly for the device, flipping it open before the loud noise could wake a fretfully sleeping Toriel (she had been waking up at the smallest of noises ever since they had returned from the hospital, no doubt paranoid about another attack).
HumerusPnmaster: kiddo
HumerusPnmaster: just saw the news
HumerusPnmaster: p stupid thing you did there
Frisk groaned quietly.
FriskyBits: Really
FriskyBits: Did you text me in the middle of the night
FriskyBits: just to tell me how stupid I was being?
HumerusPnmaster: nah
HumerusPnmaster: did it to tell you me n paps r on our way to
HumerusPnmaster: and uh
HumerusPnmaster: the weeds coming too
Frisk started, eyes widening.
FriskyBits: What
FriskyBits: coming with you?
HumerusPnmaster: yep
For a long moment, no other texts popped up. Then, after several long, pregnant moments, one finally arrived.
HumerusPnmaster: he says he has something he needs to tell you
Prepare for some terrified fairies in the future! They are NOT going to be happy that Flowey's coming to Ireland, AT ALL. And who can blame them?
I've been chatting with someone called danielxcutter on Tumblr quite a bit, and somehow most of the chatting ended up being about the world this fanfic takes place in, so I got a lot of lore stuff to tell you guys! (And thanks for making me think of some of this stuff, daniel! Pretty sure I wouldn't have come up with some of this without you asking those questions!)
So, worldbuilding stuff: Can Sans actually remember the different timelines?
Sans doesn't actually remember the actual events that happen in each timeline – he retains the memories to an extent, but he can't consciously remember them. However, thanks to certain unorthodox circumstances (that may or may not be addressed later in the fanfiction, depending on how things go), he IS able to sense when time's been messed with – in other words, he can sense when Resets or LOADS occur, if not what happened before/after them.
He does get nightmares about some of the more violent timelines, though. He never remembers exactly what they're about, but they still leave him pretty shaken.
