Gaster walked through the hall as fast as he could, he really didn't want to be away from the lab for long, not only did he have his son to worry about but he had so much work to do. He needed to make more improvements to the core, he still had to work out how to make a artificial human soul or find some other way to break the barrier. He also had to check on his Followers and look over their work. He was stressed and overworked. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd slept properly.
He passed by one of the Followers' labs just as the door opened. He was about to say hello to whatever Follower came out but instead he saw a little girl. Alphys, he belived her name was. He wondered why she was even here, she was about the same age as Undyne. Gaster didn't mind his Followers bringing their kids to work every now and then during less busy and less dangerous times but everyone was really busy right now, he could've have a little kid getting in the way.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Gaster asked.
"EEK!" Alphys jumped and turned to face Gaster, "o-oh Dr G-Gaster, I... I'm not getting i-in the w-way, I-I was just b-bringing my Father his l-lunch that he f-forgot and M-Mother is r-really b-busy..."
Gaster smiled at her, she was a very shy child and always stuttered but he knew she was very smart, her father often bragged about her. "WELL, THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN, BUT YOU REALLY SHOULDN'T BE WONDERING AROUND THE LABS ALONE."
"I-I'm sorry. I'm n-not going t-to go s-somewhere I s-shouldn't. I know the w-way h-home."
He sighed he didn't want to deal with her, he had work to do... But he couldn't just let her go off on her own, the labs weren't safe for kids, that was something he'd have to fix if he was keeping his son. He supposed he could walk her home, it was on route to Asgore's castle.
Gaster was really just procrastinating.
"I'LL TAKE YOU HOME."
"Oh, y-you don't h-have to," Alphys shook her head, "I d-don't want to w-waste your t-time."
"NONSENSE," Gaster took her hand so she wouldn't run off. "I'M ON MY WAY TO SEE THE KING, WE'RE GOING THE SAME WAY, WE MIGHT AS WELL GO TOGETHER."
"Okay," Alphys muttered and the two began to walk off quietly.
Gaster didn't mind the silence, he knew Alphys was shy and the quiet gave him time to think. He supposed he was good with kids like Alphys, she was quiet and intelligent, she didn't cause trouble and although she asked a lot of questions, they were mostly about science, he didn't mind that. Undyne was loud and full of energy, she ran around recklessly and caused trouble, Gaster couldn't handle kids like her. He hoped his son would be more like Alphys than Undyne...
He wondered what his son really would be like... He couldn't wait to teach him, he'd make sure he had high grades and he would be very happy if he went into science, of course he wouldn't push that on him, he'd be proud of whatever his child choose to do.
He knew it'd be hard. He wouldn't get much sleep, not like he go a lot anyway. He hoped his son wouldn't be a difficult child. Then he thought about how one day he'd be a teen. He dreaded that, honestly. Mainly because he'd be a really horrible teen, he'd gone through an 'emo phase' in his early teen years, it was really cringe, he was glad no pictures had survived of that. He remembered his teenage rebellion, staying out late, getting drunk alone and fighting with and making his parents worry. He'd started smoking, a habit he couldn't really get rid of. The only reason he didn't smoke much anymore was because he was so busy, he had no time to and he couldn't smoke in the lab, with all the flammable items around.
He defiantly didn't want his son to turn out like he had been in his teens...
Gaster needed to stop thinking so far into the future. He didn't know what would happen, his son wasn't born yet and he did only have one HP. He just kept telling himself it'd be okay. Sure he didn't know how to raise a kid but he'd get help.
"D-Dr Gaster?" Alphys asked.
"YES?"
"Are you a-alright?"
"I'M FINE, JUST THINKING."
She nodded. "U-um..."
Gaster down at Alphys it looked like she wanted to say something. "WHAT IS IT?" He asked.
"O-oh I... Um... Well F-Father had b-been showing me how to b-build r-robots. I w-want to make one myself t-to s-surprise him b-but I g-got s-stuck... Um c-could you maybe t-take a quick l-look? A-and maybe g-give me a h-hint?"
Gaster was close to saying no, he was the royal scientist he didn't have time to mess around with kids. However, he had to keep a positive image which meant he couldn't be an ass to his Follower's kids and he was about to be a father himself, he could use some practice with kids. Plus he really did have a soft spot for children... and that would be an excuse not to see Asgore yet...
"ALRIGHT, AS LONG AS IT'S FAST," he said.
Alphys smiled. "Yay, thank you Dr Gaster!" She called out not stuttering this time.
"JUST DON'T MAKE A HABIT OF IT. I HAVE WORK TO DO AND FROM WHAT YOUR FATHER SAYS ABOUT YOU I KNOW YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT. YOU'LL BE A GREAT SCIENTIST ONE DAY."
Alphys's smile got bigger hearing him say that, but it quickly fell. "I-I'll never be a-as good as y-you."
THAT'S TRUE, Gaster thought but he couldn't say that. He was about to say something to encourage her but was interrupted by the ground beginning to shake.
An earthquake... There hadn't been one in a long time, not since he was on the surface. His first thought was of The Core, the lab was a strong building and unlikely to be damaged badly but The Core was being upgraded all the time, it wasn't very stable in some places and if part of it was damaged then they'd lose power in some areas. Then he thought of his friends, Asgore would be fine, he was too strong to be hurt in a falling building plus the castle was also a strong building but Grillby and his family... If the quake burst a water pipe and their homes and work places flooded...
He couldn't think about this right now. Alphys was panicking and it was hard to stay standing.
He pulled her to the ground. "STAY DOWN! COVER YOUR HEAD! IT'S OKAY, WE'LL BE OKAY." He tried to calm her, she was hyperventilating, clearly scared. "IT'S JUST AN EARTHQUAKE. WE'RE SAFE HERE."
Alphys nodded and stayed still. She was worried about her mother, the lab may be stable but other buildings might not be able to stay standing.
Gaster was concerned about Alphys but he was more worried about his son, he had to get to his lab. What if something damaged the capsule or the life support machines? The building wouldn't fall but that didn't mean that other things couldn't fall and break things. The capsule was keeping his son alive until he was strong enough to be 'born' if something happened to it or the power supply he didn't know if the child would make it. The human souls would be fine they weren't relying on electricity to keep them stable, his child was. He had tubes in his soul giving him nutrients and magic and he was in a fluid that was helping him by giving him energy to grow and protecting him. Gaster had to make sure everything was still alright.
He knew that he should stay were he was. He knew that he shouldn't move but he had to so he stood slowly and balanced himself. "STAY HERE," he told Alphys.
"W-what are you d-doing?"
"I HAVE TO MAKE SURE MY... EXPERIMENT... IS NOT HARMED." Gaster hated himself for referring to his son as an experiment, he may have started out that way but now he wasn't. He couldn't just say 'my son' since no one knew about him yet and the first person he told would definitely not be a child; he didn't want rumours to be spread. He had to come out and say it himself.
Alphys opened her mouth about to speak but there was a sudden click and the lights went out.
Gaster froze. "...NO... NO NO NO NO!" His son needed the power on. He didn't have a back-up generator yet, it was something his Followers had been working on. He couldn't let his son die, not now, not when he had just deiced to keep him, not when he was finally not the last.
He took off running in a panic. The ground was still shaking but he ignored it as best he could as ran as fast as he could into his lab.
He grabbed a flash light from his desk and turned it on. The capsule had lost all power and his son was laying suspended in the fluid, limp and unconscious. Gaster tried not to panic, he had to save his child, the only way he could do that would be to take him out of the capsule... Prematurely... His HP would never raise above one, at least not easily, but it was better if he was fragile than him being dust.
He manually drained the fluid with a lever that opened the bottom of the capsule a little. The child floated down and lay on the bottom.
The earthquake had stopped.
Gaster took no notice as he opened the top of the capsule.
"What's that?"
Gaster turned fast. Alphys had followed him... How could he forget about her? She was scared of course she followed the only adult that was close by...
Gaster sighed, well he couldn't not tell her now. "THAT IS A BABY SKELETON."
"H-how?"
"I CAN'T EXPLAIN THIS RIGHT NOW, HE'S DYING! EITHER HELP OR GO AWAY!" Gaster snapped, he didn't really mean to, he was scared and mad at himself for not protecting his child better.
"W-what can I d-do to h-help?"
Gaster pulled off his lab coat and folded it up before placing it in the crib hoping it'd give the child something soft to lay on. He then he leaned into the capsule and carefully lifted his child out and placed him in the makeshift crib.
"HE'S NOT BREATHING," Gaster was panicking. The child needed oxygen and Gaster needed to get some medicine in him to keep him alive. "ALPHYS, IN MY OFFICE THERE IS A BOX LABELLED 'SOUL ENHANCER' BRING THAT TO ME."
She nodded and ran off. Gaster wasted no time in pulling over an oxygen cylinder and mask that was in the corner of the room. He connected the mask and put it over his son's face making sure it covered his 'nose' and mouth and then turned the oxygen on. After a few seconds Gaster saw his ribs rise and fall slightly. He was breathing but barely.
Alphys returned with the box and Gaster took it. He pulled out the bag of medicine. He hoped that this would be enough to strengthen the child, his soul was so weak...
He hung the bag up and connected a long tube, it was a drip that he'd connect to the soul. He was scared to stick a needle in such a fragile soul but if he didn't then the child would die. He did it fast.
He then grabbed a small scanner, it ran on batteries so it should work. He scanned his son. HP: one, it wasn't falling, good. DEF: one, ATK: one, that really wasn't good...
But at least he was alive and in a stable condition at least for now.
Gaster slowly walked to his seat and sat with a thud. He let out a breath in relief. He couldn't think right now. He son was premature, he was 'born' now and no one even knew he existed. Gaster had needed that month. He had no food for him. Asgore didn't know.
"Um... Dr Gaster... I-I h-have q-questions." Alphys stuttered quietly.
"I KNOW BUT I DON'T HAVE THE TIME OR ENERGY TO ANSWER THEM. GO FIND YOUR FATHER AND BRING HIM HERE. DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THE BABY THOUGH. I DON'T WANT ANY RUMOURS TO SPREAD."
He knew how people gossiped, he didn't want people to think he was having some kind of affair or worse; have people think he was experimenting on babies.
He got up once Alphys ran off. His child was still unconscious and he was shivering. Gaster had no blankets and the child was still covered in the fluid. He grabbed an old towel he used to dry his hands when he washed them in between experiments and very carefully wiped the child down. Then he went next door and grabbed his hoodie. It'd have to do. He went back and placed the hoodie over the baby, making sure not to move the drip.
"PLEASE DON'T DIE... YOU CAN'T DIE... YOU CAN'T... I WON'T BE ALONE AGAIN..." Gaster spoke to his son. He had no idea what he was doing. He was a father now, his son was dying, he didn't even have a name...
Gaster couldn't name him until he make a sound, after all skeletons were named after their fonts. If his son didn't make a sound he wouldn't know what the font was, if he didn't know that then he wouldn't have a name.
Gaster felt sick. He'd never been so scared in his life, even during the war he was never this terrified.
There was a knock at the door, Alphys had returned with her father. Gaster let them in by opening his door with his magic hands.
Alphys's father looked over at the crib and the child inside it and back up at Gaster. "Um, Sir? Is that...?"
"YES."
"How?"
"I TIRED TO MAKE AN ARTIFICIAL SOUL WITH MY OWN MAGIC AND DNA. I DIDN'T MEAN FOR IT TO BE ALIVE BUT HERE WE ARE."
"My god..." he seemed lost for words, "what are you going to do with them?"
Gaster looked at his child again, "KEEP HIM OF COURSE. TRY TO SAVE HIM." He was trying really hard not to make his voice shake, he couldn't let anyone know how scared he really was, he had an image to keep, although that was hardly important right now.
"Okay, so what would you like me to do, Sir?" He asked Gaster. Gaster had never been so happy that his employees worshipped him and did what he said without question.
"I'M GOING TO NEED FOOD FOR HIM, CAN YOU BRING ME SOME?"
"Yes, Sir."
"AND DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS. I'LL ANNOUNCE IT AFTER I KNOW THAT HE'S ALRIGHT."
"Yes, Sir," he took Alphys by the hand and turned away leaving Gaster alone with his son again.
The infant was still just laying limp, his breathing was slow and seemed to be getting slower.
Gaster should really be going to fix The Core but he couldn't leave his son alone. His Followers could handle The Core.
The breathing was getting slower still, his soul seemed dull, Gaster was losing him. He just stood staring at the child, he'd do anything to save him but it seemed the baby was falling down. He simply didn't have enough hope.
He needed a magic transfer.
Gaster didn't think about what he was doing, he acted on instinct. What he was about to do was dangerous but he had no other choice, he couldn't lose the child, not now.
He used his magic to remove his soul, he held it in his hands and none too carefully stuck a needle inside it, removing a large amount of his magic, as much as he could. He had to inject pure magic into his son... He did just that after putting his soul back. He felt weak after removing so much magic but he couldn't pass out yet.
It wasn't working.
In a panic he grabbed the last vial of determination, there was very little left. He had no idea what would happen if he gave a monster determination but with so little... It couldn't make things any worse. It'd probably keep his soul together and then it'd be spent, it wouldn't affect him in a bad way... He wasn't a real monster anyway. That was the logic Gaster was going with as he injected just one drop into his son's soul.
He stood upright again and felt really dizzy, he'd take too much magic from his soul and the world around him was spinning. Gaster's vision began to blur. He collapsed on the ground with a thud.
Gaster woke up on his desk to the sound of crying. It took him a moment to work out why there was someone crying in his lab and he shot up right away once he worked it out. He didn't even remember passing out. He took note of the bottles of baby formal on his desk and a note that said, "We found you on the floor, I lifted you onto a chair and have left the food on the table."
Gaster could worry about that later, however. Right now his child was crying, he was alive, he was alright enough to cry, although the cry was very quiet.
"LOWER CASE," Gaster stated. That was a surprise, most of his family had been upper case, only his brother Tempus and his Grandmother on his Father's side had been lower case.
He knew he should try to stop the child crying but he wanted to see what font he was first, now that he was making sound. He looked down at the child, listening carefully and he let out a laugh.
Comic Sans.
That was his font. In a morbid sort of way he was glad there were no more skeletons, after all that was a font most didn't really like. He would've probably been bullied if he went to a school with skeletons like Gaster had been for his font. Wingdings was hard to understand and a weird font after all.
Gaster wasn't disappointed by the font, it seemed to fit the child well.
"COMIC SANS GASTER," he said his son's full name aloud and he seemed to react to it. "I GUESS I'LL JUST USE SANS, FOR SHORT." Even though there was no more skeletons to bully him for the font he just wouldn't feel comfortable saying Comic Sans just in case some other monster knew the font wasn't favoured.
He smiled at his son and slowly removed the oxygen mask, he was breathing by himself now. He also removed the drip, his soul was stable now. He noticed but it was slightly deformed, probably a side effect of the determination. He'd have to make sure to get that out of him before it caused more harm but right now he had to calm Sans down.
He had no idea how to do that.
He supposed he should pick him up but he was scared, Sans was so delicate one wrong more could dust him. He'd held him already but he hadn't thought about that, he had acted with adrenaline. He just had to do it. He reached in and picked Sans up by his middle. His head fell back little and Gaster summoned a magic hard to support the head. With the aid of his magic hands he repositioned Sans in his arms so he held him properly.
He couldn't believe he was really holding a babybones, his own child. He was so tiny, his cries so quiet and weak. He tried to shush him, he didn't know why he was crying. Maybe he was hungry?
Gaster didn't want to put him down, he liked holding him but his attempts at calming Sans weren't working. He used his magical hands to grab a bottle of baby formal and read the instructions.
Sans was hungry. Gaster was relived he had found out why he'd been crying. He fed Sans with a magic hand and held him with his own. He summoned another to grab his phone, he didn't know how he'd do all this if he didn't have his magic.
He had lots of missed calls, some from his Followers probably calling to report on the damage. He probably had about thirty missed calls from Grillby and his family, mainly Grillby's mother who worried way too much. Gaster felt bad when he saw that he had seventeen missed calls from Asgore, he must be worried about him.
Gaster had to call him back, he really couldn't procrastinate telling him about his son now that he was born but he still hesitated, he didn't even know how to explain it. He couldn't just call Asgore and say 'HEY, ASGORE, I ACCIDENTALLY MADE A CHILD!'
He just had to do it, Asgore had to know and he had no reason to keep Sans a secret. His magic finger hovered over the call button, he looked down with a small smile at the infant in his arms who was happily drinking the milk.
He jumped a little when he heard his phone ring, Asgore was calling him. Well that forced his hand.
"Gaster! Thank god! Do you know how worried I was? The power's out in Hotland and your Followers are running in a panic to get it back on! And one of your Followers told me that you were having some troubles with something but he wouldn't say what it was and you weren't answering me or Grillby and I-"
"I'M FINE, YOUR MAJESTY, YOU NEEDN'T WORRY," Gaster said, his summoned hand appearing before Asgore on the other end to sign his words to him.
"I do need to worry, you don't take care of yourself. What happened? I certainly hope you didn't do something stupid to save some experiment?"
"... IT WAS NOT AN EXPERIMENT..."
Gaster heard a sigh on the other end of the phone. "You aren't hurt or anything?"
"NO, LIKE I SAID I'M FINE. AT LEAST NOW I AM."
"Now? You mean you weren't alright before?"
"NOT REALLY. I'M NOT INJURED, DON'T WORRY. I WAS SIMPLY IN A PANIC."
"You? Panic? What could possibly make you panic?"
"THAT'S... COMPLICATED. I WAS ON MY WAY TO TALK TO YOU WHEN THE EARTHQUAKE HIT, BUT IT CAUSED SOMETHING BAD TO HAPPEN. I'M NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS OVER THE PHONE, IT'D BE EASIER IF YOU COULD COME TO THE LAB?" Gaster couldn't remove Sans from the lab yet, it was better if he was here so if something happened he'd have everything he needed to save him.
"Come to the lab? Now?"
"IF THAT WOULD BE POSSIBLE, YES."
"You do realise that it's one in the morning?"
"OH," Gaster had a bad habit of losing track of time, especially when he was getting into something but he tried not to bother people at weird times. "SORRY, I DIDN'T NOTICE BUT YOU ARE STILL UP AND YOU CALLED ME."
"Because I was worried about you! If you say that it's really important then I will come now."
Gaster didn't want to bother Asgore and make him come down to the labs at a ridiculous time but he really needed advice, Sans was important. "IT IS PRETTY IMPORTANT BUT IF YOU'RE REALLY TIRED I COULD WAIT UNTIL MORNING... I MEAN, LATER?"
"It's fine, I've been sleeping and waking up all night and I doubt I'll get anymore sleep now. I'm on my way."
"THANK YOU," Gaster said before he hung up. He should get ready.
Sans was finished and had fallen asleep, Gaster was glad for that and he stood up placing Sans back in the crib on his lab coat and he placed his hoodie back over him.
He didn't want Asgore to see Sans until he'd explained everything; he knew how Asgore got around kids, he'd never get to explain if Asgore saw him first but Gaster couldn't just leave the room and leave Sans alone, his cries were so quiet and Gaster was worried he wouldn't hear them from his office, after all he didn't have a baby monitor.
Instead he positioned the crib as close as he could to the door and left the door ajar. He took his bag with his soul research in it to his office and left the office door ajar as well.
He sat at his desk and placed the folders in order before he face planted the desk. "URG, I NEED A CIGARETTE," he groaned. He couldn't go out for one though, he simply waited nervously until Asgore showed up.