Her breath hitched as she felt their gazes all falling on her, their moth eyes following her invisible flame. Their stares trailed her. She couldn't see them, but they were there. She knew it. They were always there, always watching, waiting for a moment when she was at her weakest to strike. They could see her, she found out right after she had died. It must have been the DETERMINATION. They could see her. They were following her. They wanted revenge. Nothing could change that. That's why she had built Mettaton, but currently he was out of commission, leaving her vulnerable and helpless if one should choose to strike.

The small yellow ghost gasped upon hearing a slight chuckle from beside her. Her eyes, which had been narrowed to her feet, shot over to the figure beside her who was currently taking a magic marker to a slightly dented telescope, circling it around the eyepiece. Why…? Well, it didn't matter. Frisk wasn't the person to talk to. This was adult stuff. This was science stuff.

"S-Sans?" Alphys called out into the peaceful scenery around her. Her voice was hushed, barely able to be heard over the sound of lapping water had she been visible for others to actually descry her.

It was then a familiar voice forced up what had been, until this point, a pushed down memory in the collection of Alphys's regrets. Her head swiveled to the right, where a very masculine, buff-looking seahorse was in the midst of flexing one of his biceps to a floating fish head hovering in front of him.

The fish giggled a bit, heat creeping over her green scales. A fin graced through her bangs as the buff seahorse encroached.

"As I was saying, Shy…"

"Aaron!" Alphys gasped. No no no this couldn't happen! What if he sees her!? What if either of them see her!? Their older siblings… oh god, they knew already, didn't they? They had to know. Whoever had stepped up as the next Royal Scientist (because, as much as she'd like to think otherwise, there had to be one) surely found them by now. Those things. Oh geez, and now everyone was going to...to…

Alphys shook her trembling head, instead choosing to exit through the opening to her left. It was darker there, so inside wasn't very visible until she had actually entered the aperture where several of the light-giving crystals glistened. Her eyes, however, were not immediately drawn to that. What grasped their attention and commanded the dinosaur to freeze was not the light source, but what the light unsheathed.

In front of her and slightly to her left stood a metallic cart laced with decorations of frozen cream stuffed inside cones. A small umbrella was perched on top, slanted behind the well-known figure; a tall, slender figure, adorned in a black trench coat with white buttons snaking down the upper chest of it. His hands rested on the edge of the cart, a hole in the center of each, and his eye sockets were pointed down at the floor. There were a few cracks in his skull, which Alphys's eyes widened at the sight of.

"D-Dr. Gaster?" No, but...but he was in Snowdin! How did he get here already?

The man, naturally, didn't look up at the call of his name. He likely couldn't even hear her call.

She took a deep breath in. At least the ghost could still breath. It was the only thing she knew how to do to calm herself. Did she have to? Did she have to talk to them? What if Sans-?

No, Sans isn't going to help you. Not if he knows Mettaton is involved. Does...does he know Mettaton's a robot? Maybe. It's sort of hard not to, but she wasn't really sure how closely he paid attention on his...job. And where's Undyne for that matter!?

I-It doesn't matter, she thought to herself, taking a small step towards the deformed skeleton whose white floating pupils were directed down to his hands, twiddling his thumbs. Dr. Gaster is here! A-and, um...a-and he can...h-help, probably…

"D-Dr. G-Gaster…?" Alphys called out again. She had to strain her voice a bit- it was somewhat difficult remembering how to make a living monster hear her- but he had at least lifted his eyes up.

Starting with her hands, the ghost began to gradually fade into sight, visibility crawling up her sleeves and painting over her pale, fragile form. Her shoulders were hunched up as far as they could go and her eyes fluttered in just about every direction except toward the monster they should've been fixed on, but she was most definitely there, and judging by the former scientist's sudden tensing, he knew.

His own bony fingers moved to the air in front of him, curling around it and rubbing at the emptiness before him.

"Alphys?" the scientist questioned, squinting, as if he wasn't entirely sure this vision was real or just some depressed mirage. His holed hand reached out for her as he took several steps to meet the ghost before him, but she simply backed a few away.

"U-um." In return, Alphys turned her head to the rich blue wall to their side. "H-hi, D-Dr. Gaster."

"Alphys," Gaster said again, this time a bit louder, more firmly.

Before she knew it, a light pressure was applied to her shoulders, and the woman jumped, letting out a small whimper in the process. Two floating blue lights had taken a firm grip beside Alphy's neck. Both looked exactly the same as the ones still attached to Gaster's outstretched arms, save for the glow that surrounded them, however, Alphys was too familiar with this ability to mind much. Her superior had used it so often and so casually while training her that seeing them was almost calming in a sense.

His face regained a more serious tone, mouth straightened into a thin line and eyes narrowing on the ghost, a reaction more typical in his days before the lab incident. His hands folded behind his back as he examined her. Tension rose. Yes, this was a common occurrence back when she had apprenticed under him, but that was so long ago that she had forgotten her defense against the stress of Dr. Gaster's disapproving glare. All that could conjure in her head were the harsh words of regret she'd been no doubt set to receive.

Instead, however, she found the two hands of her former mentor meeting her own, which had been scrunched into a ball up until then. Much to her surprise, they didn't phase through. His glowed ever-so-slightly with an orangish-blue light, but it either slipped past his vision or was something too familiar for the skeleton to acknowledge. The two floating balls of light on her shoulders dissipated.

"Alphys," he spoke, his voice much gentler this time as he rested what served as his eyes onto her gaze.

"Uh...y-yes?" she found herself stuttering out, a warmth crossing her cheeks as her old mentor ran one of his hands over the top of her head. A moment passed where he could hear her breath.

Gaster stood still. It felt as though his apprentice would vanish if he so much as inched a step closer. Did he dare speak more? Would his rationale push through and prove it was only an apparition?

Finally, after a moment, the skeleton straightened his spine. "Where were you?"

"Um." Where was she? Oh geez. Did she even know? The Ruins. She was in the Ruins; she knew that much. But he would want more than that. How could Alphys explain something she didn't even understand? And on such a short time limit.

Alphys shook her head. "I'll...I'll answer...I'll answer any q-questions later." Oh boy. How long has it been since she spoke with another monster? Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Disappearing would be the best thing to do right now, honestly, but then she wouldn't get Mettaton the help he needed. "I need you!"

Tensing, the skeleton lifted his hands off of her, mouth pursing in surprise. "What?"

"I-I mean…" A heat crossed over her cheeks once more. Those...those weren't the right words… "...I need you to...t-to help because...because I need your help!"

Noticing that his apprentice was trembling, Gaster placed a hand against her shoulder once more. Social interaction might not have been his speciality, but he knew her well enough to feel comfortable providing comfort. If only he knew what it was that was causing her such fright.

"Alphys, what's the matter? You've been missing for almost five years. Now you need help with something? What could possibly be so important that you can't so much as answer where you've been all this time?"

"I…" Alphys took a small step back, or attempted to, but was, however, grasped firmly by her elder. Despite her trust in Gaster, the trembles in her body became much more evident. How was he able to touch her? Mettaton could. After the backtrack in the timeline, Mettaton could touch her. She hadn't tried touching anyone else. Was that it?

There was time to worry about that later.

Seeing as she gave no immediate response, Gaster let out a loud sigh of defeat, removing his hands from her shoulders and rubbing them against his face. His apprentice, while incredibly nice, could sometimes be aggravatingly insecure.

"What do you need?"

She blinked. "U-uh…" That was a rather abrupt change in mood…

"What do you need?" he repeated, a bit more forceful this time.

She pushed her hands against each other and glanced back up at her mentor. "I, um, I need some parts...like, m-mechanical parts. Wires and gears and...and…"

Her eyes turned down to the floor, voice fading as her mind whizzed about in thought. The damage. What did she need? A new spring, new wires, new parts…

"Do you know exactly what parts you need?" asked the former scientist as he pressed two boney fingers beneath her chin, guiding her stare up to his. Another technique the pair was used to from when the older had trained the younger.

Alphys gave a curt nod.

In turn, Gaster felt his smile perking up ever-so-slightly. "Good. Wires, gears...is there anything unusual you need?"

After her eyes were allowed to trail aside for a moment, Alphys promptly carried them back to her mentor and shook her head.

He nodded and removed his hand. Instead of letting it fall limp at his side, however, the skeleton scientist held the bones out for his apprentice to grab hold of. The faint glow around them returned, this time swirling with blue and orange, as Alphys stared down at it. After a moment, she hesitantly drew her eyes back up to the doctor.

"You know exactly what I'm doing," replied him, offering a warm smile of encouragement. "This isn't the first time we've been through this."

His apprentice took another gaze down at his hand before gracing hers against it. He curled his fingers around the target and tightened his grip, the corners of his mouth raising just slightly as a blue aura began to envelope the two.

"Do you remember the shortcut?"

There isn't a schedule anymore, but I'm slowly getting back into this.

Hi :3