***Hello, everyone! I have returned to this story. Grillby and Ember belong to Toby Fox, Cyra belongs to me, and let's go!

Chapter Seven: The Very Next Day

Ember was already awake when Cyra came to her room. "Hi, Mom," she said.

"Hey. Are you feeling any better?" Cyra asked, sitting down by the bed.

"My chest is still sore. And it's a bit hard to breathe still. But Dr. Holland came by earlier and gave me my medications. He said that he'd come by later, though. It gets really boring, being stuck in here," Ember explained.

Cyra took her hand gently. "You'll be out of here soon," she said.

"Yeah, I guess so. Dad sent me a text earlier today," Ember said.

Cyra crossed her arms. "I know, he ditched you to go to his stupid restaurant," she said.

"No, let me read you what he sent me," Ember said. She picked up her phone and read the message: "Good morning. I hope you get to feeling better soon, I know that this is rough on you. I won't be there today because I have to work, but I'll be there tomorrow, promise. I love you." With that, she dropped her phone onto the bed.

Cyra nodded, but kept quiet otherwise.

Ember watched her mother for a few silence moments. At last, she had to say something.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"What do you think about Dad?"

Cyra's gaze focused downward, and her expression turned to one of slight anger. "You know what I think," she said.

Instead of a reply, she heard clapping. Slow, sarcastic clapping.

"What?" she asked.

"Nice front. I know that. And I've known that for years now. But tell me how you really feel about Dad. What you really think about him. I know that you wouldn't put down your guard with him here, but he's not here. It's just us, and you can say whatever," Ember allowed.

Cyra raised an eyebrow. "I feel like this situation is normally reversed between a parent and their child," she commented.

"Mom, please?" Ember asked.

Cyra sighed. "Since you're apparently my counselor now and not my sick daughter, then alright," she said.

Ember sat up in her bed, folding her hands in her lap patiently. She knew that she was going to get an earful of something she would never get to hear again.

"Alright. It's not that your father's a bad person. He's actually a wonderful man. It's just... I was so young when I had you. We weren't even married when I found out about a little flame who would be born. We hurried to get married, all because we both wanted you to be born into a real family. Of course, he had to make a living to support us all... but I was so desperate for something stable. Someone who would take time, someone who would be there and care..." Cyra trailed off.

"So when Dad started working more, you thought he didn't care any more?" Ember guessed.

Cyra nodded. "Then I started acting selfish. It's just... I was thrown into this all so fast. It's not that I don't love you and your father, it was just all of the stress and the pressure of everything that caused me to feel so much of that resentment I did! I ended our marriage, and what's done has been done for well over a decade. Is that everything you wanted to know?" she asked.

Ember's eyes were still wide in shock of what she'd just heard. She took it off her face, however. "If that's how you really feel about Dad, then yeah. Thanks for telling me," she said.

"This is all... just our secret, isn't it?" Cyra asked.

Ember nodded and held out her pinkie. "Pinkie swear."

Cyra rolled her eyes at the silliness of it, but she smiled and locked pinkies with her daughter regardless.

As the day went on, Ember made a note of one thing that she had to mention. She normally didn't break a promise, but this thing that she'd heard in particular was important.

"...it's not that I don't love you and your father..."

***Okay, little side note: I had on in the background an evolution of video game music in violin covers. Should I mention that Megalovania was thrown in for 2015? Anyways, be sure to leave a review on the way out and I'll see you all in the next one! Bye!