Chapter 2

"Sans? Sans wake up."

His shoulder was given a gentle shake and he lifted his head just slightly without opening his eyes in the hopes of shrugging off the insistence.

He'd been woken up against his will by Grillby's gentle crackle pop of kindling voice many a time, but if it wasn't with his head against a hardwood bar with a splitting hangover and Papyrus making it worse by marching in to drag him bodily out then it just wasn't worth it.

"I brought breakfast." Grillby announced and the smell of coffee and oatmeal with crab apples and cinnamon was just enough to get Sans to open his eyes and sit up a bit.

"I'll leave the fire door up., but I have to get to work. I suggest you do try to see Alphys today." he added. This was the first time since his arrival Grillby had actively been more than just a personal bouncer and well, a bartender, at least in the listening department.

"Thanks Grillbz, you're a hero. And, ah, I'll think about it." He added to the rest.

"I haven't really had time to properly visit myself."

Sans knew by now that 'work' referred to the fact that the fire elemental, Burgerpants and the Nice Cream vendor made the rounds keeping the survivors fed and watered (or whatever) as best they could, but even so Grillby's comment made no sense. He knew Sans needed to come to terms with his situation and deliver a report to the two people in charge, but the flame elemental had made it sound like said 'business' was a very friendly social call. If Alphys had been into Grillby's in her entire life, he'd pay his tab in full.

"Hey…" he looked around, but his host had already left. Wasn't that supposed to be his move?

Instead he pulled over the bowl and started slowly eating, more out of obligation than hunger and put it down two bites in, deciding to begin the day instead with his new routine of going out and collecting the tokens that had been left behind by the mourners and well wishers. It gave his room the appearance of living in a shrine.

Papyrus would have been over the moon to have seen just how much he was missed. He wished he could have found some of his brother's dust but the chances were high that wherever the wind had taken it, it would have settled on something he loved. Papyrus after all had loved everything.

The thought gave him pause to smile, if a bit thinly. and then it fell when he spotted something among the blooms of a flower arrangement..

The god damned flower was here, and he knew that Sans wouldn't dare risk destroying one of his brother's memorials. So much for his theory of the stupid flower not lurking around a crowded space...but then this particular space was hardly crowded, not to mention Flowey had only shown up after the presence of plant withering fire was definitevly out of the way. He wondered if that had been some kind of deliberate 'you don't scare me' type of choice.

"Golly friend-o, I'm surprised you're still here."

A tendril snaked out to lift the leaf of an echo flower in a pot. Of course, now that flower would never repeat Papyrus' wish any longer but rather only Flowey's voice. He casually smashed the pot and its' occupant to dust with a bit of gravity magic, but of course the flower was already somewhere else.

"Now I am surprised you're still wallowing here, not when there's such a dire threat on the loose. and perhaps a seventh soul to get us all out into the world, but by gosh there was something else. What was it?"

Sans took a few deep breaths. Quite apart from not wanting to fly off the rails again in front of the flower, Grillby definitely wouldn't appreciate him razing his quarters after he'd offered it willingly.

"Aren't you excited about a baby? If I'm not mistaken, it's been years since poor old Trashbag's had a BABY to play with..." The flower popped its head back underground, apparently finished up with this week's torment, or perhaps just not willing to push things.

Sans was suddenly very aware of just why Grillby had been so insistent he visit Alphys.

Still being something of a scientist, Sans was aware that humans, like monsters used a variety of gendered or non-gendered words to refer to themselves. but in order to have children, the humans had to have a compatible set of internal parts. Monsters on the other hand, while depending on form could choose to birth their young in a similar way, did not necessarily have to go down that particular path. It was however generally acceptable practice to not be related by 'dust' and that the strongest of the two would carry around the developing soul.

Sans suspected that many, many monsters would under the circumstances be combining their souls, or attempting to. He was at least fairly sure he'd overheard something about Burgerpants and Catty. Sans actually cracked a smile at that. Take that, whatever-you-are.

Of course, Alphys would be left protecting the soul while Undyne charged into battle. Now that she was gone, well, that presented a problem. If humans had less options to conceive a child 'biologically' speaking, then they had a far better chance of bringing it to term on their own. A Monster without a second source of magic to nurture the baby well…

He sighed. Grillby was more correct than he realized; he probably should pay a visit to Alphys. Flowey was of course as astute with his needling - Sans did enjoy kids, particularly very young kids. They mostly just ate and slept and were easily amused. Right up his street. He would of course be delighted to have one around, particularly if it belonged to a longtime friend. If Alphys was a friend and was missing her partner, he would want to lend some support, especially now.

But as to Flowey's game in all of this, well it certainly didn't make anywhere near as much sense. He could have sworn, up until he had proof positive floating in a container in his shed, that Flowey himself had been in charge of the resets. All signs had pointed to the hypothesis that somehow the flower was testing the waters of what he could accomplish and manipulate others into doing. He wondered if he'd personally ever given up entirely.

If he couldn't reset, he wouldn't want to further decimate the population. Pushing Alphys into the proverbial pool or digging at his psyche was a dangerous game to be playing. Sans was pretty certain he had bested the flower more than once over the course of many, many resets. Seeing as the power to reset had been perhaps, passed? Well, this time it couldn't be undone for a different option and for all his soulless bravado, Sans was willing to wager gold to dust that at the end of the day Flowey was a coward.

He'd talk to Alphys. It was a start.

Sans found a map of the camp on the table. He wondered if Grillby had left it on purpose, but he was grateful for the fact that he didn't have to run into anyone he didn't want to. The doctor at least had never been a particularly social creature to begin with, so commiserating with her would be easy.

The next shock was the actual arrival in Alphys' home. As a fellow academic he was well aware of some of the nastier habits that could manifest. Organized chaos being chief among them, slightly off kilter eating habits and in his personal case the fact that apparently 'academic' was only a few letters away from 'alcoholic'.

That wasn't even counting the sheer magnitude of the horror show both of them had seen. Well in his case he was almost grateful for his patchy memory. Alphys could remember every detail of the amalgamates.

The sight of the pristine, well-ordered pup-tent of a lab then, came as a shock. Furthermore, there wasn't a ramen cup in sight.

"Alphys?" Sans called, a hint of nerves creeping up on him. Almost anything that was off-model these days was cause for worry.

There was a long, long pause.

"Doctor?" Sans tried again. He pulled out the figurine. "I um, I brought this for you. I thought maybe you could use it."

"Sans?" Alphys' voice was soft but there was no hint of her usual stutter, which he took as a good sign.

"Alphys I…" He looked in the direction of the voice, spotting a crest of yellow behind her box-futon he had mistaken for a pillow before.

She peered up at him. It was hard to gauge what she might have been thinking or feeling. She certainly wasn't crying but there was very real pain in her eyes that she couldn't mask. She'd lost Mettaton and she'd lost Undyne and whatever she could have been thinking or feeling towards either had clearly not been the way she wanted to end things.

"I um, thank you for coming to see me." She said at last and she sounded like she meant it, taking the figurine and cupping her claws to clutch it close to her chest.

"Hm. You shouldn't be alone right now." Sans continued. "I heard from Grillby that you're ah…"

She nodded. "I...I'm starting to feel like I can handle this, Sans."

He nodded. "I'm sure you can. Think you can let me have a look? Might be good to get another set of eyesockets here."

Once again she fell silent, simply choosing to nod. "When we're done that, think you're up for a further project?"

It caught her attention. "P-project? I um...heard you ah, killed…"

"Not sure if it's a human." He explained. "That's the short version anyway. I've been around for some of the early harvests and I can't be 100% sure that's what we're looking at. There's no need to get everyone worked up or destroy all the progress we've made."

Alphys swallowed a sob audibly at the sound of the word 'progress' and Sans felt like mimicking her. Nothing about this felt like anything close to 'progress'. Nevertheless, one of them had to keep going here and it was all the more important to keep an expecting mother calm.

He knelt in front of her, taking a look. She didn't look as far along as she should be, but not nearly as poor as he'd expected. "Someone's been helping you?"

She almost managed a blush atop the slight smile. "A-Asgore…"

Of course.

Sans nodded rather gratefully. He'd resolved to try and help the moment he'd figured things out, Flowey or no Flowey but his own situation wasn't exactly conducive to bolstering a young soul with magic. He was fairly sure he needed every drop.

"Listen, what do you know about a yellow flower?"

Alphys froze. Sans switched tactics instantly, smoothly lying his way out. "I mean, you spend time with Asgore, isn't that his favourite tea?"

Alphys stared him down, perhaps unclear as to whether she had an out or not. At long last she sighed, wringing her hands in front of her stomach and barring him from further observing the new soul growing in her. "You weren't talking about Asgore's tea really, were you?"

"No."

"You're talking about...the accidental experiment. The determination experiment. The one that no one else knows about."

Sans nodded again.

"You somehow know about it."

"It likes to come talk to me from time to time. Offer blossoms of wisdom."

Alphys scowled a bit but chose not to be deterred by his attempt at a pun. At the very least she allowed him and the stethoscope access once again.

"It talks to you." She said faintly.

There was a long pause.

"It talks to me too."

No big surprises there, Sans knew. Still, he was having trouble imagining the flower actively getting rid of his personal entertainment section.

"Don't listen too hard to him." He advised, trying to keep his tone light enough that it wouldn't cause her too much serious alarm but would at least ensure she understood the gravity of the situation.

He was surprised by her response.

"Actually, he's really been...very….nice. He wanted to know where it was that Mettaton and Undyne had...passed. He was suggesting a funeral even."

Sans was stumped. With no soul, just simple determination, the creature was unpredictable certainly but not entirely without patterns. His first thought was that they were actually in agreement but that was far too simple. Even trusting that Flowey would want 'something new' and that Alphys and any other disaster children that might come out of this situation were definitely that, he didn't trust Flowey further than he could throw him and that was without the use of his spatial magic. Sans slowly sat up, turning away from her. "Did you tell himwhat he wanted to know?" he asked, very slowly. He had to turn away to mask the distinctly non-conversational tone of the question.

"Of course I did. I don't want to forget either. They were my friends."

Sans stiffened. "I have to go. Take care, Doctor."

When Sans arrived, the lab was open but silent in the sort of horrible way that you didn't want to run afoul of someone's slinky pet cat that you knew was watching, just ready to give you a hard time when your neighbor was out and you were house sitting for them.

Sans knew the Amalgamates were lurking about, confused but probably hungry. A glowing blue bag of dog food trailed after him like a puppy and he hurled it down a hallway, moving swiftly as he could into the back rooms.

He knew Alphys, he knew scientists. She could give up on experiments. She could hide them. She would never, ever throw them out, no more than he would be able to or...what's his face had been able to.

He moved closer to his destination, soul clenching wildly. It was almost if he knew what he would find, regardless of what he hoped for.

The one room at the back of the lab was where his worst fears were realized, even if he hadn't yet pieced together the whole puzzle quite yet. Vines trailed up table legs, coiled around pried open doors, and knotted around cupboard doors. A room away he didn't need a ventilated fan to feel a cold chill as he took stock of pots of yellow blossoms, several pulled up by their roots. . The flowers were resilient, but a few dried leaves left a trail back and forth between rooms, a few speckles of dirt to show where hey'd been dragged along.

Deep in the lab there were smashed vials, mingling with the dirt and...

Flowey had wanted the dust of the fallen.

Flowey too had an idea to create some new life.

Sans sank to his knees , extremely grateful that he'd skipped breakfast that morning. If he didn't act fast, one flower was not going to be the issue anymore, and there's no way he would allow that to happen to anyone. Especially not Papyrus.