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Chapter Text

      Ebott City was never completely quiet, but as the sky darkened and twilight began to turn into night, there was a general lull to the constant buzz of activity. The park was the only exception, but the quiet was broken by the sound of rapid footsteps. The owner of these footsteps wasn't running, but walking very fast, as if realizing that they were supposed to be somewhere and had forgotten the time.

      That was very close to what had happened, and the dragon-type monster child fluttered her tiny wings ineffectively, as if the motion could hurry her along. Boy, was she in trouble! The park was so nice, and the air was cleaner than it was in the city proper, and she had fallen asleep while watching the geese in the pond. Her parents were going to be angry. Her mother would probably cry! Why did she have to fall asleep like that?

      It grew darker. The halogen street lamps were close enough to each other that the little dragon girl was able to find her way, but far enough apart so that she could no longer see well enough to power-walk without tripping. She had forgotten her cell phone; it sat on her desk at home, like an expensive paperweight. Fighting back tears at the thought of the scolding she was probably in for, the child didn't notice that two large humans had begun to follow her.

      Even as the humans trailed after the little monster, slowly closing the distance without her noticing, a slim figure peeled away from the shadows of the trees and fell into step behind them. It made no move to attack, but there was purpose in its silent footsteps as it moved with a catlike grace, easily keeping up with the men.

      The humans made the first move. One of them grabbed the child from behind and held her muzzle shut to keep her from screaming or biting. The other had a roll of duct tape. Behind them, two points of acid-green light illuminated the slim figure's eyes...or, rather, eyesockets.

      The eyesockets of the unnamed skeleton narrowed, and it made a grabbing motion at thin air. To a casual observer, it would have looked like the skeleton was trying to catch and crush a bothersome mosquito, if not for the six-foot long bone that appeared out of thin air. Bony fingers clicked as they seized the staff, and the skeleton sprang into action. The men's legs were swept out from under them, one after the other, and their attacker used the rounded end of one of the staff's epiphyses to knock them out cold.

      "That was almost too easy..." the skeleton muttered, toeing at one of the men before poking him lightly with its staff.

      The child had fallen to her knees, and was hyperventilating as she watched the skeleton. She wiped her tear-streaked face with a shaky claw and got slowly to her feet. The skeleton's voice was quiet, but it had sounded female. Forgetting her manners, the child asked, "Are...are you a girl?"

      The skeleton looked over at her, the green light in its eyesockets dimming to reveal white pinpoints, and the harsh features softened into an amused smile. "Last time I checked. Are you okay?"

      "Y-yeah...I gotta go home. I'm in so much trouble..."

      The skeleton gave the men one final glowering look before tossing the staff aside. Instead of clattering to the gravel path, the large bone disappeared with an audible 'poof!'. "After what just happened, I think your parents will just be glad you got home okay."

      "You...you think so?" The child shivered a little; the night air was getting cold. Was it her imagination, or did a look of sadness cross the skeleton lady's face? She couldn't tell, because the look was gone before she could be sure.

      "Yeah, I know so," The skeleton held out a hand, satisfied that the humans would be out for a bit, and not much caring whether they woke up or not. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

Chapter Text

     When the Underground began to empty out, Grillby had been faced with a choice; remain in Snowdin and try to eke out a living by serving the few monsters who had chosen to remain behind, or relocate to the surface and see what the human world had to offer.  It wasn't a difficult decision, really.  Grillby's needs and wants were fairly simple, and as long as his bar was doing well, he didn't really care where it was situated.

    Grillby's clientele remained more or less the same.  Those who had frequented the bar in Snowdin quickly located it when it reopened in Ebott City, and now even the occasional human wandered in to see what was what.  At the suggestion of one of them, Grillby had a flatscreen television mounted on the wall so that his patrons could watch whatever game was on, but the only people who seemed interested in human sports were the humans themselves.  

    Humans visited the bar from time to time, but for the most part the monsters didn't seem to care about what was on TV.  Grillby had taken to leaving the remote on the bar, and oddly enough the most popular channel was the news.  

    Sans was still Grillby's most regular regular, and he turned up the volume a bit as he sat on his usual bar stool.  Grillby's was packed tonight, and even with the volume up as high as it could go, it was difficult to make out what the news anchor was saying.  Oh well.  He shrugged and uncapped his ketchup bottle, and he was just about to drink from it when he felt a draft on the back of his cervical vertibrae.  He turned his head to see who had just come in, and for a split second he thought it was his brother, Papyrus.

    No.  This skeleton was a few inches shorter than Papyrus, and her jaw was more triangular.  If she'd been human, her face would have been heart-shaped.  She wore a dark green tracksuit and black sneakers, and the laces of one of them were undone.  She was scanning the room, either looking for someone or hoping to find an empty seat, but the only free stool was the one beside Sans.  She caught him staring and frowned, but he simply saluted her with his ketchup bottle and turned back to the TV.

    Sans had been staring, but not for the reason she seemed to suspect.  Skeleton monsters were rare, and he was simply surprised to see one.  "you gonna stand in the doorway all night?  you're letting in a draft.  c'mon in and take a load off.  ya look bone tired!"

    The female skeleton cringed slightly, though whether it was due to embarrassment or the pun, one could only surmise.  She was tired.  No.  She was exhausted.  She just didn't think it was so blatantly obvious!  Shrugging, she nonchalantly crossed the room and sat on the stool, then proceeded to ignore him.

    Grillby looked up from cleaning a glass, and nodded politely.  For a man comprised entirely of flame, his demeanor was very mild.  He spoke, and his voice was an odd mixture of a quiet crackling hiss and a low baritone.  "Welcome.  What can I get you?"

    She tilted her head as if in thought, and pointed to one of the bottles on the wall behind Grillby.  It was about a third of the way full, and the liquid within glowed with a faint purple light.  

    "Would you like to start a tab?" Grillby asked, and the stranger shook her head.

    "No.  I'll just pay for the bottle, if that's all right." she mumbled.  Grillby quoted a price, and she handed over some human money, making eye contact with no one.

    Sans raised a brow ridge as Grillby got her the bottle and a glass.  The lazy skeleton watched as she poured herself a shot, knocked it back, shuddered, then poured another for sipping.  "that's the hard stuff.  good thing you don't have a liver."

    Silence.  Then, after Sans had downed half of his bottle of ketchup, she finally spoke to him.  "Why are you drinking ketchup?"

    "why not?" he shrugged.

    Having no argument for that, she sipped at her glass of monster spirits.

    Sans watched her with something almost like recognition, then looked up at the TV.  The current story was one that had been on the news nearly every night this week.  The mystery monster had struck again, sending a man to the hospital.  Sans's permanent smile never wavered, but he snorted.  "now, ain't that some shit?"

    "Hm?" she followed his gaze, then returned to her drink with a dismissive flap of her hand.  "I've been following those stories, too.  Every last one of them was involved in something shady.  Am I supposed to feel sorry for them?"

    "y'know..."

    Her posture stiffened, and Sans noticed this and filed the information away for later.

    "if you drink that whole bottle, someone's gonna have to carry you outta here."

    "Mind your own business,"  She narrowed her eyesockets.

    Sans held up his hands as if in surrender and took a bite out of his burger before asking, "is it worth it?"

    Poker face from the lady.  "Is what worth it?"

    "i think you know."

    The female skeleton knocked back the rest of her shot and emptied the bottle into the glass.  "I don't."

    Sans pointed to the glass.  "keep that up, and you'll kill yourself."

    "What do you care?"

    "i don't know if i do, particularly," Sans shrugged, "but i do know that our kind doesn't need the kind of publicity your actions are bringin'."

    Her eyes briefly flashed green, and she almost choked on the booze before she shot to her feet and turned to leave.  How in the hell did he know?!  Sans made no move to stop her; he didn't need to.  As she turned to rush out of Grillby's bar, she tripped on her loose shoelace and fell forward, right into the arms of another skeleton.

    "WHOOPSIE!" he chuckled as he nearly stumbled backwards himself.  "YOU SHOULD BE MORE...OH!"

    She quickly pulled away from him, adjusting her clothing and looking uncommonly like a cornered alleycat as she leaned away from him, one hand on the bar and the other clutching the glass she had somehow managed to keep from dropping.

    "SANS, I'M VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU!  IF YOU'D JUST TOLD ME YOU HAD A DATE, I WOULDN'T HAVE INTRUDED."  He didn't truly look disappointed; in fact, he was grinning at the two of them.

    The female sputtered indignantly, and Sans burst out laughing. 

Chapter Text

     "That...he...I'm not..."

    Sans shook his head, still snickering.  "that's hilarious."

    Even Grillby turned away, his shoulders quivering with suppressed mirth.  As for who looked more annoyed, it was a toss-up between the female skeleton and Papyrus.

    "SANS, THAT'S EXTREMELY RUDE!" Papyrus put a fist on his ilium.  "WOULD YOU MIND LETTING ME IN ON THE JOKE?"

    "i don't even know who she is, bro.  she just walked in."  Sans winked his left eyesocket.

    The person who had been sitting to the left of the female skeleton got up and walked out of the bar, and Papyrus looked between her and Sans as he sat down in the newly-vacated stool.  "SO, YOU TWO AREN'T DATING?"

    "I can assure you, we are not."

    "what she said.  by the way..." Sans turned to her, his hands in his coat pockets.  "don't you know how to greet a new pal?  tell us your name, and shake my hand..."

    She glanced down as he held out his hand, then folded her arms.  "Nice try.  I saw the whoopee cushion."

    "SANS!!"

    "heh...party poopers."

    She sat down between Sans and Papyrus, her posture a bit more relaxed now that the alcohol was beginning to kick in.  "My name's Adelle.  Your name is Sans, I presume.  And you are...?"  She looked at Papyrus, who drew himself up and placed a gloved hand to his chest in a motion that seemed both proud and humble at the same time.

    "I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!  YOU'LL HAVE TO FORGIVE MY BROTHER.  HE'S QUITE THE JOKESTER..."  He spoke through his teeth, his tone warning his brother to behave.

    Adelle nodded slowly.  She didn't know what to make of this situation.  Sans was a bit of an asshole, but he didn't seem to mean any harm.  Papyrus...well, he certainly had a high opinion of himself!  Still, he seemed friendly enough, and he had prevented her from making an embarrassing pratfall.  Maybe she didn't have to leave in such a hurry.  It wasn't as if she knew when she'd have company again.  "A pleasure.  Sorry for...um..."

    "fallin' for my brother?"  Sans winked again.

    It hadn't taken her long to figure out his particular brand of humor, and she couldn't resist what came out of her mouth next.  Later on, if she remembered it, she would swear up and down that it was the booze talking.  With a completely straight face, she traced the rim of her shot glass and quipped, "Well, I've been told I'm quite a trip..."

    Papyrus's head made a loud 'klunk' as he let it thump on the bar.  "OH.  MY GOD.  SANS, YOU'VE JUST MET HER, AND ALREADY YOU'VE CORRUPTED HER!!"

    The smaller skeleton gave a loud 'snerk' and a thumbs-up.  "not bad, not bad.  i've heard better."

    "Or worse." Adelle covered her mouth and stifled a yawn.

    "same difference."

    "I CAME HERE TO COLLECT MY BROTHER," Papyrus explained, getting Grillby's attention and holding up a finger.  The flame monster nodded and went into the back.  "BUT I GUESS THAT CAN WAIT A LITTLE WHILE.  I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU AROUND HERE BEFORE.  WHAT DO YOU DO?"

    Grillby came out with a tall glass of ice-cold milk, which was topped off with a little pink umbrella and a curly straw.  Papyrus handed over a dollar and sipped at his milk like the world's biggest kid.  Adelle cocked her head at him, wondering if she was actually seeing this.  "Well, um...I work at a plant nursery."

    Sans's smile turned slightly wicked.  "hmm...i guess you could say..."

    "SANS..." Papyrus warned, but his brother took no notice.

    "there's a little 'farmer in adelle'!"  He drummed an improvised rimshot on the bar counter.

    "Oh, Jesus..." Adelle covered her face as Papyrus groaned.

    "no, it's the cheese that stands alone, amiright?" Sans ordered another ketchup bottle, ducking as Papyrus reached over Adelle's head to give him a light swat.  "okay, okay."

    Papyrus made a valiant attempt to get the conversation back on track.  "UGH.  AN-Y-WAY, ARE YOU A GARDENER THERE?"

    Adelle tried to focus on his face, but her vision was beginning to get a little fuzzy.  She wasn't about to pass out, but she definitely wasn't feeling any pain either!  "I'm..." she glanced at Sans, then shook her head.  She just knew he would have something to say!  "I'm the scarecrow, actually...though if I get promoted, I get to handle the fertilizer."

    "...OH." Papyrus didn't seem to know what to say to that, and the pity he felt must have shown on his face, because she sat up a bit straighter (he had to put a hand to her back to keep her from overbalancing and falling off the stool).

    "I needed a job, they were hiring, so it's what I do now." she said, more than a little defensively.

    Sans did have something to say, but it wasn't what Adelle was expecting.  "do ya like it?"

    Adelle shrugged, staring longingly at the empty booze bottle, but knowing better than to ask for more.  Grillby might give it to her, but she would regret it later.  "It's a job..."

    Papyrus was saying something about admiring her work ethic and trying to sound cheerful, and Sans was just letting his brother talk.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Adelle knew that she should be asking these two about themselves as well, but once again she found herself feeling uncomfortable with the situation.  

    Sans knew about her, she reminded herself.  She had no intention of stopping anytime soon, and if she started a friendship with these two, he could end up being an obstacle.  He could blow her cover at any time.  Why he hadn't told Papyrus, she had no idea.  Maybe he was waiting until she left, so that he could do it the polite way, in private.

    Please...the man carried whoopee cushions in his pockets, and drank ketchup right out of the bottle as he shamelessly made bad puns.

    And Papyrus...talking animatedly about whatever popped into that noggin of his, drinking milk through a curly straw and eager to make friends...how ridiculous.  And oddly endearing.

    No, this friendship couldn't happen.  She couldn't lose what she didn't have, and she already liked their company a little too much in spite of herself.  It was the alcohol, she was sure of it.  In her right mind, she would have bypassed the introductions and simply left.

    "ADELLE?  ARE YOU LISTENING?"  Papyrus frowned indignantly, jolting her back into reality.

    "I...had a lot to drink tonight.  I think I better go."  She stood up too quickly, and had to steady herself on the bar for a moment.

    "WOWIE...YOU SURE DID!" Papyrus reached out, ready to steady her if she lost her balance, but she didn't.  Concern was written all over his features as he exchanged a glance with Sans.  The smaller skeleton bobbed his head once, as if agreeing with an unspoken question, and Papyrus offered Adelle his arm.  "BUT WORRY NOT!  I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL MAKE SURE YOU GET HOME SAFELY!  BY THE WAY, YOU DON'T GET CARSICK, DO YOU?" he asked anxiously.

    Adelle automatically took his arm, then wondered why she had done it.  It seemed she was on auto-pilot at the moment.  "No...and I ackshully...ahem...actually live very close-by."

    "THEN I SHALL WALK YOU TO YOUR DOOR!" Papyrus asserted, briskly patting the hand that held his arm.  "SANS?"

    "yeah, bro?"

    "TRY NOT TO GET TOO...BONELY IN OUR ABSENCE!  NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!"

    Adelle gave a rather uncouth snort.  "Now who's corrupted?"

    "IT'S MY BROTHER'S FAULT; HE'S A BAD INFLUENCE!"

    Sans watched them leave, then sighed and rested his chin on his forearms.  Grillby gave him a questioning look, and instead of waving it off, Sans told him, "wouldn't have thought it possible, Grillby...but i think we just met someone who's both havin' a bad time, and lookin' for one."

Chapter Text

     Awareness came slowly, and when it did it was unwelcome.  The moment Adelle was conscious enough to acknowledge the dull ache in her skull, it blossomed into a full-on hangover headache.  Despite not having a digestive system, she felt queasy.  The obnoxious beeping she heard from somewhere seemingly a long way off certainly didn't help.  What was it?  It should be familiar, but its nature and the reason for its noise weren't coming to her.  Maybe if she ignored it and tried to go back to sleep it would go away.

    She lay where she had fallen the night before, face-down on the couch.  The fuzzy cushion protected her tender eye-sockets from the morning light, and it felt oddly good against her dry teeth.  She didn't need to breathe, so she decided that this was a good place to spend the rest of the day.  She was just drifting off when she felt a hand grip her shoulder, giving her a rough jiggle.  "Snzzz...mrrblx..."

    "Oh, no you don't."  

    Another jiggle.  Pain lanced through Adelle's skull like a knife, and she peeked up at her tormentor with one eye-socket before immediately regretting it.  Moaning, she buried her face in the cushion again.  "Go away, Chad..." 

    The blue rabbit shook her again, sounding amused and almost sympathetic.  "I know, I know.  Hangovers suck.  Come on, your alarm is going crazy.  Don't you have to work today?"

    Ah, of course.  That's what that noise was.  "Myeah...what time is it?"

    "6:15.  Come on, I have Nice Cream to sell, you have birds to scare, and Burgerpants is pissed off because of the early wake-up call."  Chad sounded annoyingly chipper this morning.  

    The three of them shared a tiny run-down house, and had managed to turn it into something resembling a home.  The only reason they were able to pay for it was because of the value that gold had on the surface.  They hadn't known each other before leaving the Underground, but they were all in a similar boat.  None of them was particularly well-off, but when they pooled their resources they were able to make a down-payment on a crappy little house, and it took their combined income to pay the bills.  They weren't friends, exactly (at least, they hadn't started off as such), but they all got along okay, and Chad seemed to have his eye on Burgerpants.

    Speaking of which, the brown cat-monster peeked his head out of his room and called out, "C'mon, Adey, I didn't have to get up for another two hours!"

    "M'sorry, I'll turn it off now...Ow." she clutched her aching skull as she got to her feet and shuffled off to her room to turn off the alarm.

    She knew Burgerpants well enough to know that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep after being woken up, so she decided to make it up to him by making breakfast for the three of them.  Well, two, because Chad said that he had to leave early and said he would get a breakfast sandwich on his way to work.  So, that only left Burgerpants.  

    Adelle knew that 'Burgerpants' was only a nickname, and an unwanted one at that, but the poor cat was so used to hearing it that he didn't always realize people were talking to him when they used his true name.  So, whether he liked it or not, it seemed the nickname had stuck, permanently.

    Adelle was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, held on by an elastic band because she didn't have any ears to keep them in place.  As she got a carton of eggs and a package of bacon out of the fridge, she was only dimly aware that Chad was speaking to someone at the front door.  "Another Jehovah's Witness?  Just tell 'em we're not interested; lather, rinse, repeat."

    "Nooo," Chad sounded uncertain as he stepped aside to let someone in.  "I think he's a friend of yours."

    "Who?" Adelle asked without turning to look, whisking about half a dozen eggs in a large bowl.

    "GOOD MORNING!"

    Adelle nearly dropped the bowl.  She let go of the whisk and cradled her forehead.  "Not so loud, please!"

    "OH, SORRY," Papyrus sort of whisper-yelled, which wasn't much better, and he seemed oblivious to the look of shock she was giving him.  "LAST NIGHT, YOU SEEMED PRETTY TIRED.  AND I REALIZED, WE FORGOT TO EXCHANGE NUMBERS!"

    Looking him up and down, Adelle could see that he was wearing the same outfit he'd had on the night before.  So was she, really.  Had he been... "Papyrus, were you standing outside of our door all night?"

    He nodded, seeming pleased with himself.  His smile faltered a little when she set aside the bowl of eggs and got in his personal space, looking angry.  Why was she angry?

    "I think we need to have a discussion about boundaries.  I don't know what you want from me, but standing outside of someone's house all night, just to exchange phone numbers, is not okay!  Why would you do that?  That borders on harassment, and besides, don't you need to sleep?"

    Papyrus pressed his index fingers together, looking for all the world like a scolded child.  "I...I'M SORRY.  I JUST THOUGHT...I WON'T DO IT AGAIN.  I'LL GO NOW..."

    A vague memory of the night before caused Adelle to feel guilty.  Papyrus was a bit of an oddball, but he had been nice to her, and had even walked her home when she was too drunk to walk a straight line, just to make sure she was okay.  And now, here she was, giving him a scolding that was way out of proportion to the offense.  She had a feeling that if anyone else had stood outside someone's door all night, they would have some kind of creepy motive to do so, but Papyrus just seemed to want to be her friend.  And she had hurt his feelings.

    As he turned to leave, almost looking like he was going to cry, Adelle reached out and lightly gripped his humerus to stop him.  "Wait a minute..."  She sighed, rubbing her forehead as he halted uncertainly.  "I...I just...it's not that big a deal.  I have a headache, and it's making me a little crabby.  I shouldn't have yelled at you."

    "NO, YOU'RE RIGHT.  I WASN'T THINKING.  I WAS JUST HOPING WE COULD BE FRIENDS.  WE HAVEN'T SEEN ANOTHER SKELETON IN FOREVER.  I JUST THOUGHT..."

    Adelle wanted him to go, but not like this.  What did she want?  She didn't want friends.  She had two roommates, and sometimes even that was suffocating.  She heard the door shut as Chad left for work, and she was mildly embarrassed that he had witnessed this.  She interrupted Papyrus, unconsciously fingering the pendant she was wearing.  "Would you like some breakfast?"

    Papyrus immediately brightened.  "DO YOU HAVE SPAGHETTI?"

    "Spaghetti?" Adelle raised a brow ridge, shaking her head.  "Not for breakfast.  You like bacon and eggs?"

    Papyrus nodded, masking his disappointment.  

    Burgerpants came in, wearing his fast food uniform, and began rifling through the fridge.  He popped open an energy drink and took a long swig, sighing as he felt himself beginning to wake up.  On the side of the can, there was a large green 'M'.  Nodding an acknowledgement to Papyrus, he gripped Adelle's chin between a thumb and forefinger.  "You look like hell, Adey."

    "Likewise.  You should lay off the Monsters," she replied, pouring the eggs into a pan while the bacon cooked on a tray in the oven.

    "WHAT?" Papyrus asked, confused, until he saw the word 'Monster' printed on the can.  "THOSE THINGS ARE SUPER BAD FOR YOU."

    "Yeah, so is being overworked to the point of a nervous breakdown," Burgerpants said, cheerfully enough.  He waved the can in Adelle's face.  "Come on, why don't you have one?"

    "No, thanks.  He's right about those things."

    "Booze isn't much better, girlie.  You can have one of mine, get rid of your hangover." he guzzled more of his energy drink, his hands beginning to jitter and shake as the caffeine kicked in.  "It'll help you through the day," he coaxed before sing-songing, "They're yummy..."

    Adelle shook her head, stirring the eggs as they cooked.  "M'worried about you, Burger."

    "I'm more worried about you, sis," Burgerpants said seriously, all traces of levity gone from his demeanor.

    She stiffened.  "Please, don't call me that."

    The cat looked down, gave her an apologetic pat on the shoulder, and began to insert bread slices into the toaster.

    Papyrus watched them, uncharacteristically quiet.  Something was up with her, and Burgerpants knew what it was.  Unable to simply sit there and do nothing, Papyrus got to his feet and cleared his nonexistent throat.  "I'LL SET THE TABLE, IF YOU TELL ME WHERE THE PLATES ARE."

Chapter Text

     Sans was still asleep when Papyrus got home.  The shorter skeleton's legs hung over the arm of the couch, and he clutched an empty ketchup bottle to his chest like it was a teddy bear.  Papyrus folded his arms and 'tsked' in annoyance, giving a resigned shake of his head.  

    "SANS, WAKE UP.  IT'S ALMOST 8:00!"  

    "ok," Sans mumbled, rolling over and burying his face in the back of the couch.

    "UM.  NOW, PLEASE?"

    "ok."

    Sans didn't move.  Papyrus sighed and marched into the kitchen to cook breakfast.  "LAZYBONES..."

    Sans finally got up when he smelled breakfast cooking.  Since moving to the surface, Papyrus's cooking skills had improved somewhat.  If the aroma was anything to go by, he was doing something interesting with spaghetti and some leftover ham.

    "SANS, IT'S--OH.  THERE YOU ARE."  With all the noise he was making, Papyrus hadn't heard his brother come into the kitchen and sit at the table.  "BREAKFAST IS READY."

    "yeah.  smells great, bro."  Sans gave a jaw-cracking yawn and rubbed his bony fingers down his face.  "when did you get in last night?"

    "ACTUALLY, I JUST GOT HOME A HALF-HOUR AGO," Papyrus admitted, setting a plate down in front of Sans and taking no notice as the smaller skeleton squirted a generous amount of ketchup on his pasta.  "YOU REMEMBER THAT GIRL FROM LAST NIGHT?"

    Sans shrugged, twirling his fork in his spaghetti.  "sure.  bit of a stiff, wasn't she?  and for a skeleton...that's saying something."

    "SAAAANS..." Papyrus groaned, covering his mouth.  "YOU'RE GOING TO PUT ME RIGHT OFF MY BREAKFAST!"  Well, technically, it was his second breakfast.

    Sans winked.  "then why're you smiling?"

    "BECAUSE REASONS." Papyrus started on his food, and for once he didn't rave about his own cooking, which was a bit of a red flag for Sans.

    "somethin' on your mind, papyrus?"

    "THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING ON MY MIND.  THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS A VERY DEEP THINKER!" Papyrus declared with a bright smile before growing serious again.  Something was definitely bothering him.  For once, Sans didn't come out with a cheesy pun, and instead rolled his wrist in a 'please go on' gesture.  Papyrus sighed and put his fork down.  "OKAY...WELL, SHE WAS VERY DRUNK, WHICH I KNOW CAN HAPPEN.  I'VE SEEN YOU DRUNK A FEW TIMES.  REMEMBER WHEN YOU FELL ASLEEP IN THE BATHTUB?"

    Sans rolled his eyes.  Or, rather, the white pinpoints of light in his eye-sockets did an exaggerated loop-de-loop.  "it was one time."

    "WELL, I KNOW IT'S NOT A HABIT WITH YOU, BROTHER, BUT...I THINK IT IS WITH HER."

    "could be." Sans didn't seem to feel any sort of way about this.  "what makes you think that?"

    "JUST SOME THINGS ONE OF HER ROOMMATES SAID.  HE'S WORRIED ABOUT HER."  Papyrus brought a forkful of coiled spaghetti to his jaws, and it disappeared without his having to chew it.  Whatever happened to any food the skeletons ate was immediate.  "AND WHO BETTER THAN THE GREAT PAPYRUS TO HELP HER THROUGH HER TROUBLES?"

    Sans paused with his own forkful of pasta half-way to his mouth.  Dropping his easygoing facade, he placed his fork down and turned to his brother.  The lights in his eye-sockets had dwindled to almost nothing.  "papyrus..."

    "SHE NEEDS HELP.  IT'S TIME FOR AN 'INTERFRIENDTION'!"

    "P A P Y R U S."  Sans immediately had his brother's undivided attention.  He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair.

    "BROTHER, WHAT IS IT?  WHAT'S WRONG?"

    "i'm not saying she doesn't need help.  but.  when people do stuff like this, they have to want to be helped."

    Papyrus cleared his plate and reached for his brother's, thinking he wasn't going to eat anymore, but Sans moved the plate pointedly towards himself.  "WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO BE HELPED?"

    "do you like it when people give you the answer to a puzzle you're trying to solve?"

    "...NO?"

    "why not?"

    "WELL...BECAUSE I WANT TO DO IT MYSELF!"

    "right."

    "SANS, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ADELLE?" Papyrus folded his arms.  He wasn't used to seeing his brother act so serious.  Usually, Sans was the irresponsible one who didn't seem to care about much of anything, save for Papyrus and a small circle of friends.

    "i dunno.  but whatever problems she's tryin' to drown, they're probably bigger than you are."  Sans poked at his cooling plate of food.  "and there's something else..."

    "WHAT?"

    "you know that monster that's been on the news lately?"

    Papyrus rubbed his chin, trying to remember.  "I DON'T WATCH THE NEWS ANYMORE, YOU KNOW THAT.  BUT I REMEMBER HEARING PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT.  WHY?"

    "i'm pretty sure it's her."

    Papyrus immediately got up from the table and went into the kitchen to clean up.  He wasn't angry with Sans for making such wild accusations, but he wasn't taking them seriously either.  "NO ONE KNOWS WHO'S DOING IT.  IT'S A DREADFUL THING, YES, BUT HOW CAN IT BE HER?"

    Sans got up and followed Papyrus, tearing off a sheet of plastic wrap and covering what was left of his food.  "a couple nights ago, they showed some footage on the news.  it was a video someone took with their cell phone, so the quality was pretty bad.  couldn't see much, because it wasn't a close-up, and the picture kept shaking.  i guess it's because their hand was.  anyway...i wasn't too sure what i was looking at, but i thought it kinda looked like a skeleton."

    Papyrus looked troubled now.  How could his new friend be the one who had been attacking humans?  And yet...

    "other than the two of us, i haven't seen any skeletons on the surface until last night.  i knew it couldn't have been you.  'cause, you know, you wouldn't do that."

    "NO," Papyrus shook his head firmly.  "I WOULDN'T.  AND YOU'RE TOO LAZY, SO IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN YOU EITHER."

    "heh, right...anyway, i wasn't sure about her until i bluffed her out and she tried to bolt.  that's when you...um...swept her off her feet." Sans chuckled at his own pun.  Even when things got serious, he just couldn't help himself.

    "SANS..."

    "bro...if it isn't her, then why did she try to run?  i know you wanna be her friend, but she could get you in a lot of trouble if she's been doing these things.  and the fact that she seems to be an unstable alcoholic don't help matters."

    Papyrus shook his head slowly now.  As terrible as this news was, his brother was making a lot of sense.  It wasn't exactly a feeling of betrayal, knowing that his new friend was probably attacking people; he hadn't known her long enough to really get to know her, and they barely had a rapport as it was.  Still, he wondered what had gotten her started on such a path.  "IF YOU'RE RIGHT, BROTHER...THEN THAT'S ALL THE MORE REASON TO TRY AND HELP HER."

    Sans let his eye-sockets drift shut, and he sighed.  Good old Papyrus.  Never seeing the bad in anyone.

    "SANS, LISTEN TO ME." Papyrus leaned over and put his hands on his brother's shoulders.  "IF SHE'S DOING THIS, THEN SOMEONE NEEDS TO TALK HER OUT OF IT, FOR ALL OUR SAKES.  THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN MURDERS...HUMANS KILLING MONSTERS.  IF ONE OF US IS ATTACKING THEM..." Papyrus brightened, smiling again.  "AND THAT'S ANOTHER POINT!  NONE OF THOSE HUMANS HAVE DIED.  SO, IF SHE HASN'T KILLED ANYONE, SHE CAN BE REACHED!  SHE MUST BE REACHED.  MAYBE SHE JUST NEEDS A REALLY COOL FRIEND TO HEAR HER OUT."

    "you said she has roommates," Sans pointed out, but he had already more or less given up on trying to sway his brother.  He knew that when Papyrus got an idea in his skull, there was no changing his mind.

    "SANS...I HAVE TO DO THIS.  WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MAKE HER DO THOSE THINGS, IF IT'S HER, AND I'M STILL NOT CONVINCED...IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN SOMETHING REALLY BAD.  MONSTERS DON'T HURT ANYONE WITHOUT A REASON.  IF SHE'S HURTING PEOPLE, THEN SHE MUST BE IN PAIN HERSELF.  MAYBE SHE'S SCARED OF HUMANS."  

    Papyrus wasn't stupid.  He knew exactly what was at stake, and it wasn't just the wellbeing of a single angry monster.  Yes, he wanted to help her if she was in pain; the thought of anyone being in so much pain that they felt they had to violently lash out made him sad.  But monsters were already personae non gratae as far as many humans were concerned, and any kind of bad press could set them way back.  Something had to be done, and Papyrus intended to do it.  Besides, he kinda liked the little grouch!  At any rate, she made dynamite scrambled eggs.

    Sans nodded, then yawned.  "welp.  i'm gonna go take a nap."

    "SANS!  YOU JUST GOT UP, YOU IDLER!" scolded Papyrus, throwing up his hands in disgust.

    "guess i'm just exhausted." Sans flopped on the couch, one arm thrown over his head.  He ritched around a bit to get comfortable, smirking as his brother gave a resigned growl.

    "REALLY, SANS?  CAR PUNS?  IS NOTHING SACRED?"

    "don't bother trying to steer me in the right direction.  say, um...papyrus?"

    "WHAT?"

    "just...don't go getting yourself hurt, okay?"

    "I WON'T, BROTHER."

Chapter Text

     For Papyrus, the day was a little less productive than usual.  He didn't sleep as much as his older brother, but he did still require a few hours each night, which he'd skipped while standing outside of Adelle's house and waiting for her to wake up again.  In retrospect, he really should have gone home and showed up again the next day.  It wasn't as if he would have forgotten where she lived.  He had always been impulsive, though, and he didn't always think his decisions through.

    After getting a whopping four hours of sleep, Papyrus hopped into the shower--literally hopped, mind you; he'd heard the expression once, and thought it sounded like fun--and made himself presentable.

    After toweling off, he got dressed.  It took him a while to select an appropriate outfit.  He still had his 'battle body', of course.  There was no way he would ever get rid of that!  But after seeing how humans on the surface tended to react to it, he had decided that humanity wasn't yet ready for its greatness, and it held a place of honor at the back of his closet.

    What to wear, what to wear...

    This was quite the conundrum.  He didn't want to show up at Adelle's job overdressed, in case she got the wrong idea.  But he couldn't show up in something that made him look like he didn't care about his appearance, either!  Not that this was a big worry of his, because all of his clothes made him look awesome.

    But what would make him look like 'just a cool friend who wants to set wayward souls back on the straight and narrow'?  Or, at least, like someone who is capable?

    Papyrus rubbed his chin.  "HMMM...AH!  NOW, THIS IS PERFECT!"

    Adelle really didn't mind her cheesy scarecrow costume at first.  Fashion sense in the Underground being what it was, she didn't realize how stupid it looked until she actually had to wear the goofy thing around customers.  It didn't take her long to realize she was being made fun of, and it took even less time for her to hate wearing it.  Still, a job was a job, and it was only eight hours a day.  

    Well...usually.  Sometimes it was ten hours, if her boss, who was an older man by the name of Travis and prone to being absent-minded, forgot she was standing out there among the rhododendrons.  The subject of changing up the costume for Halloween had been broached with her more than once, and she had reluctantly agreed to think about it.  By that time, Adelle had had it with the stares and the whispers, and she dared to ask Travis for a fifty cent raise to come into effect during that time.  The old man had done her one better, and said she could make an extra dollar and fifty cents for the month of October, and keep the fifty cent part of the raise afterwards.  As humans go, she thought, Travis was a rare exception.

    Her job was, in a word, boring.  Her new 'costume' wasn't much different than her old one; instead of being red and blue, it was orange and black.  She still had to wear the same floppy straw hat.  Scaring off the birds wasn't difficult, either; she had permission to use her magic to remotely jiggle any plants they settled on, so she wasn't running around like a lunatic.  The only real problem she had with her job, other than the boredom and the dorky costume, was the customers.

    "Look!  There it is."

    The whisper came from somewhere behind her.  The human probably thought he was being quiet.  Why disillusion him?  Adelle kept her back to him and her attention in front of her.  She was used to being referred to as 'it' and 'he'; apparently, the fleshies had trouble telling a male skeleton from a female.  This only bothered her when they continued to call her 'it' after being informed of her gender, and to avoid getting angry, she had simply stopped correcting people.

    "I told you they had a living scarecrow!"

    "Yeah," said another voice, either a woman or a child; Adelle wasn't paying much attention.  "but it isn't doing much."

    "I'll see if I can get it to do its trick.  Hey!"  The guy called out, "Scarecrow!"

    Adelle closed her eye-sockets briefly, controlling her temper, then turned her head far enough to look over her shoulder.  "Human?"

    "Whoa!"  It was a child.  It was a little girl, and she was grinning.  "Hi!  Are you a lady?"

    Adelle chuckled in spite of herself.  Children didn't usually mean to be rude, and at least this one was friendly.  "I am a female, yes.  What's your name?"

    The little girl opened her mouth to answer, but the man...well, teenager, really...answered the question instead.  "This is my sister, Callie.  Hey, can you do that trick?"

    Frowning a little, Adelle turned to fully face them and cocked her head in confusion.  "I'm not sure what you mean..."

    "You know!  The trick!  Where you make things move!"  

    Comprehension dawned, and Adelle nodded once.  "Ahhh."  She looked at the little girl, who seemed annoyed (rightfully so, in Adelle's opinion) at her brother's talking for her, and she decided to make this child's day.  "Well...as long as you don't tell my boss I did this...We're not supposed to give these away for free, you know..."

    Adelle's eye-sockets began to glow faintly.  The acid green hue appeared somewhat washed-out in the light of day, which was a good thing, because she wasn't trying to frighten anyone at the moment.  She focused her attention on a miniature pumpkin and made a 'come here' motion with her index finger, which had also begun to glow.  The pumpkin slowly lifted into the air and floated towards the child, who looked like she wasn't sure if she should be impressed or spooked by it.  "Don't be afraid.  This is the trick your brother wanted me to show you.  I can move things without touching them.  Would you like to take this home with you?"

    Callie cautiously took the pumpkin, then smiled.  "It's warm!"  

    "Uh-huh," Adelle turned her attention back to her job.  Or, at least, she tried to.  Before she could turn away from the two humans, the little girl had run up to her and seized her in a tight hug.  The sudden embrace startled Adelle so badly that the lights in her eyesockets went out completely, and she froze.  

    "Um...come on, Callie, we better go..." the teenage boy looked unsettled now.  "Leave the monster lady alone..."

    "Oh!  You're a monster?"  The girl looked up at Adelle, noticing as she did that the skeleton actually looked a bit sad.  

    "Callie, come on!"  

    Adelle shook herself out of whatever trance she had been in and forced an apologetic grin.  "She just caught me by surprise, is all."

    There was an undercurrent of 'I won't hurt her' in Adelle's tone and expression, and Callie's brother visibly relaxed as he took the little girl's hand and began to lead her away.  "Okay.  Um...yeah, let's go, Callie."

    "Bye, 'Mrs. Scarecrow'!  Thank you for the pumpkin!"  Callie tried to wave, but her free hand was holding said pumpkin, and she began to lose her grip on it as her brother practically dragged her away.  

    Adelle flicked a finger, and the pumpkin re-settled itself in Callie's palm.  The girl smiled gratefully, and the skeleton tipped her a wink.  Then, alone once more (or so she thought), Adelle let her posture sag.  She heaved a deep sigh and rubbed her face with her bony hands.  That child was so much like...

    "THAT WAS VERY NICE OF YOU!"

    "D'ah!" Adelle's feet, shod in gumboots, actually left the ground as she jumped, one hand flying to her chest and the other smacking down on her head to keep her hat from flying off.  She turned to see the speaker, but she already knew who it was.  There was no mistaking that loud voice.  "Jeez, Papyrus!  When did you get here?"

    "OH, JUST NOW.  TRAVIS THOUGHT WE WERE RELATED AT FIRST!" Papyrus laughed, as if that was the funniest thing he'd heard in a long time.

    Adelle looked at his T-shirt, and blinked.  It was white with a black rectangle across where his pecs would be, if he had any.  In big, blocky white text were the words 'I GOT THIS'.  "Did you find that at 5 Below, or something?"

    "YES!  MY BROTHER BOUGHT IT FOR ME.  THAT'S WHERE HE BUYS HIS WHOOPEE CUSHIONS THESE DAYS, ALONG WITH SOME OTHER THINGS I WISH HE WOULDN'T BUY."  Papyrus looked like he wasn't saying something.

    "For example?"

    "ER...WELL, THERE'S THIS ANNOYING WHITE DOG THAT JUST SHOWS UP FROM TIME TO TIME.  AND SANS FOUND SOME...ER...RUBBER DOG 'LEAVINGS'.  YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD HIM LAUGH WHEN I FOUND ONE OF THEM IN MY SPAGHETTI POT!" Papyrus gave such a prodigious scowl that Adelle actually began to laugh.  "IT ISN'T FUNNY!"

    "I'm sorry.  It really isn't.  Just the look on your face, though...You looked so annoyed!" Adelle shook her head, still smiling.

    "HMPH.  BROTHERS, HUH?" Papyrus gave her a conspiratorial smirk, but lost it immediately when he saw her expression become positively glacial.  

    "Is there a reason why you're here?" she asked him.

    "UM.  YES, ACTUALLY!" Papyrus rubbed his hands together, the metacarpals making a slight click-grind as he did so.  "I TOLD TRAVIS I WAS HERE TO ASK IF YOU WANTED TO HANG OUT AFTER WORK, AND HE SAID YOUR SHIFT WAS ABOUT OVER, SO..."

    Adelle thought it over, then shrugged.  She had no plans for after work, and she did spend quite a lot of her time alone, so she nodded.  "Yeah, okay.  Just let me get out of this silly scarecrow costume first, and we can go."

    Papyrus's eye-sockets widened as she began to remove her clothing, only to reveal a second set underneath.  Oh, no!  Maybe he had given her the wrong impression after all!  "IT'S A CURSE.  IT REALLY IS."

    "Huh?" Adelle draped the black overalls and orange-and-black plaid flannel jacket over her arm.  She stood before him in a pair of bluejeans and a gray T-shirt with the words 'Well, La-De-Frickin' Da!' in pink letters on the front of it.  The gumboots were clasped in her other hand, and her black sneakers were now visible.  She was the very picture of puzzlement.  "What's wrong?"

    "WHILE THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS VERY FLATTERED," he rubbed the back of his head, blushing like a schoolboy, "THIS WASN'T MEANT TO BE A DATE.  YOU CAN, ER, LEAVE YOUR REGULAR CLOTHES ON."

    More confused than ever, Adelle looked down at her outfit, then up at him.  "Papyrus, these are my regular clothes.  What I just took off is my work uniform.  Who said anything about dating?"

    Now he looked horrified.  "YOU...YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT...OH.  OH.  NYEH-HEH-HEH...HOW EMBARRASSING.  I MEAN, ER...NOT THAT YOU'RE NOT WORTH DATING!  I MEAN..."

    Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, or what passed for eyes, she held up a hand.  "Papyrus, it's fine.  I get what you're trying to say, and I agree with you.  I'm not looking to date anyone, either."

    "PHEW!  WELL, THEN...UM...LET'S HANG OUT!  JUST...DON'T TELL MY BROTHER ABOUT THIS, OKAY?"

    "I'd say 'my lips are sealed', if I had any."

    Papyrus laughed and offered her his arm, and as before, without thinking, she took it.

    Adelle's boss, Travis, grinned as they passed him.  "Off to see the Wizard, huh?"

    "SURE, WHY NOT?" Papyrus said brightly before saying to Adelle in a stage-whisper, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT?"

    "Not a clue..."

Chapter Text

"SOMEONE SHOULD INVENT THE 'SPAGHETTI PIZZA'," Papyrus commented as he and Adelle walked along and ate their slices of pizza.  The 'pizza by the slice' restaurant didn't even seem like it was going to serve them at first, but Papyrus had immediately started complimenting their establishment and asking them if they ever planned to add pasta to the menu.  He hardly let the manager get a word in edgewise, and the exasperated human finally rolled his eyes and rang them up for two slices of plain cheese and told them to get out.

    "Someone probably already did," Adelle shrugged, wiping a bit of sauce from her teeth with her thumb.  "Burgerpants likes to crack an egg into his ramen to make it more filling."

    Papyrus made a face, which was quite a sight to behold on a skeleton.  "THAT SOUNDS...PRETTY GROSS, ACTUALLY."

    "Actually..." she almost seemed embarrassed to admit this, "it's not as bad as it sounds!  We kinda have to look for bargains and get creative with our groceries.  We actually do eat a lot of pasta in our house.  It's cheap.  And, better yet, it's good."  She didn't mention that they were actually getting a little bit tired of spaghetti.  Pasta seemed to be a safe topic, and anything that kept him talking about what interested him was something she wanted to encourage.  It took the focus off of her.

    "WELL, THEN!  YOU'LL HAVE TO LET ME COOK FOR YOU ONE OF THESE DAYS.  I GOT MY START WITH UNDYNE HERSELF, AND--"

    "Undyne, the head of the Royal Guard?  You know Undyne?"  Adelle couldn't mask her surprise, and she was a little bit annoyed with herself about that.

    Papyrus effected a deep sigh and dropped his greasy paper plate in a street corner trash can.  "ALAS, THE ROYAL GUARD IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.  UNDYNE WAS TRAINING ME TO BE IN IT, AND I WAS THIS CLOSE!"  He made a pinching motion with his thumb and forefinger, squinting his eye-sockets.  "I TELL YOU, I WAS SO CLOSE I COULD ALMOST TASTE IT!  BUT THEN THE BARRIER WAS DESTROYED, AND ALONG WITH IT WENT THE NEED FOR A ROYAL GUARD."

    "Hm...that really meant a lot to you, huh?"

    Papyrus smiled.  He seemed to have an unnatural ability to cheer himself up.  "WHAT ARE THE DREAMS OF ONE SKELETON WHEN COMPARED WITH OUR FREEDOM?"

    "Mm..." Adelle frowned darkly.  It seemed that they were polar opposites, in a way.  They seemed to be able to meet in the middle, but he was an incurable optimist, and she was either a realist or a pessimist.  She couldn't decide which.  Either way, she wasn't quite sure she agreed with him there.

    "IS SOMETHING WRONG?"

    Well, damn.  He was more perceptive than she thought.  "I just wonder...well, never mind."

    "NO, TELL ME.  WHAT IS IT?"

    In order to not have to answer him right away, Adelle turned her attention back to her pizza, which had been reduced to a gnawed crust.  Since she didn't need to chew, this didn't put him off for long, and she disposed of her own plate.  "There's a lot about the surface that's...The sky is great, and all.  And seeing the stars for the first time!  I stayed up all night that first night because I was afraid that if I slept, I'd wake up back in my bed in the Underground."

    "I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!" Papyrus was beaming.

    She hated to say anything that would wipe that smile off his face.  But he prompted her with a gesture to continue, and she couldn't think of a convincing way to change the subject.  "We have more room to branch out, that's true.  But wasn't it...well...safer underground?"

    Papyrus did lose his smile, but he appeared serious rather than sad.  "YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THE HUMANS WHO DON'T ACCEPT US."  He received a single, terse nod of confirmation, and he echoed it with a slow one of his own.  "IT'S A TERRIBLE THING."

    "Understatement..."

    But he wasn't finished.  "I WASN'T AROUND YET WHEN WE WERE FORCED UNDERGROUND, BUT WE DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE IN THE MATTER.  THE HUMANS OF THAT TIME TOOK IT AWAY FROM US.  WE WERE SAFER UNDERGROUND...MAYBE.  BUT IT WAS THE SAFETY OF A CAGE."

    "That's what I used to think..."

    He nearly continued, but he could almost see her mental walls going up.  She was shutting him out.  He would never be able to help her if she did that.  "I'M SORRY, WE CAN TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE."

    "Thank you," she didn't smile, but she didn't seem as tense now.  "Well...what do you do now?"

    "AH!  I WORK CLOSELY WITH THE MONSTER/HUMAN AMBASSADOR.  WE'RE GOOD FRIENDS, FRISK AND I.  I'M ALSO A FITNESS INSTRUCTOR WITH UNDYNE.  SHE SAYS SHE WORKS WITH ME TO KEEP ME OUT OF TROUBLE, BUT I KNOW BETTER."

    "I remember hearing that the ambassador is a child.  Is that true?"  

    They were nearing Papyrus's convertible now, and his hand disappeared into his pocket in search of his keys.  "YES, FRISK JUST TURNED NINE.  THEY'RE QUITE THE LITTLE SCRAPPER, TOO!  WHOOPS!"

    Papyrus had fumbled and dropped his keys.  Adelle automatically began to lean forward to retrieve them for him, but unfortunately so did he, and they knocked their skulls smartly together with a hollow 'clack'.

    "Ow!"

    "YEOWCH!"

    "Sorry..."

    "MY APOLOGIES!"

    Those last two statements were said at the exact same moment, and they made eye contact for a split second before they both burst out laughing, rubbing at their sore foreheads.

    "Well, someone's been getting his calcium!"

    "ABSOLUTELY!"  He put a hand on her shoulder as she began to lean forward again, and shook his head.  "I'LL GET THEM.  I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU DAMAGED FURTHER."

    "Oh, 'damaged' my eye-socket..." She grumbled, but she was still chuckling.

    Papyrus misunderstood, and quickly straightened after retrieving his keys. "OH NO!  I DID?"

    "Nooo, no, no," she waved her hands in negation, "it's just an expression.  No harm done.  Really."

    Papyrus shook his head and unlocked the car, gesturing for her to get in.  "PLEASE, DON'T JOKE LIKE THAT...I DON'T LIKE HURTING PEOPLE."

    Adelle felt a bit like she had just kicked a puppy.  She shut the car door again and leaned against it.  "I'm sorry.  Please, don't be angry.  I didn't expect you to take it that way."

    He wasn't sure what to make of her behavior, but then again, he hadn't had much contact with other skeletons of either gender, with the exception of his brother Sans.  "I'M NOT ANGRY.  I JUST...WELL, NEVER MIND."

    Adelle cocked her head, waiting for him to continue speaking.  She didn't like to talk about her problems very much, but it seemed like talking was something that Papyrus greatly enjoyed doing, and something seemed to be bothering him all of a sudden.

    "WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?"  He looked down.

    Okay.  Maybe he didn't want to discuss it.  That was fine.  "You just looked like you wanted to say something.  Like something was bothering you.  Maybe I'm wrong.  We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.  I'll just get my uniform out of your car, okay?  I can walk from here."

    "OH, NO!" he protested, sounding a bit panicky.  Was he actually sweating?  "THAT-THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL!  I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO LOWER THE TONE OF OUR EVENING, BUT I'M AFRAID I DID JUST THAT..."

    Adelle waved a hand, leaning against the car again, and he stood beside her and copied her posture.  "No, you're fine.  This is kind of awkward, though..."

    "WHAT?"

    "I don't know...I don't usually do this.  Hang out, I mean.  I was always too busy before.  So, I don't really know what I'm doing."

    Papyrus put his fists on his hips and lifted up his chin.  "YOU'RE HANGING OUT WITH YOUR AWESOME, VERY COOL, NOT IN THE LEAST BIT AWKWARD FRIEND!"

    Folding her arms, Adelle snorted and lightly knocked her elbow against his.  "And modest, too..."

    Just as she thought he would, he took her comment seriously and agreed with her.  Adelle glanced at her watch, and decided that now was a good time to make her exit.  "Listen, I--"

    "IS THAT FRISK AND TORIEL OVER THERE?"  Papyrus suddenly straightened up and shielded his eyesockets from the sun with his hand.

    "Huh?"

    "IT IS!  OH, ADELLE, YOU'VE GOT TO COME AND MEET THEM!"  Papyrus impulsively seized her by the wrist and began to pull her in their direction.

    "Wh...Papyrus, wait!  I can't...I have to...Would you just...let go...?" Adelle tried to dig in her heels, but Papyrus was calling to Toriel and Frisk, and didn't seem to hear her.  All right, then.  Concentrating on her elbow, she willed the radius and ulna of her left arm to detach themselves from her humerus.  There was a brief flare of pain, and a loud 'pop' that reminded her of a champagne cork.

    Papyrus stumbled forward before recovering his balance, staring in disbelief at the disembodied forearm in his hand.  The phalanges of her hand wiggled, giving him a cheeky wave.  "NOW, THAT WAS RUDE."

    "As I was saying..." Adelle was now trying very hard not to laugh.  "I have to get going.  Now, give me back my hand, please."

    Unfortunately, she didn't think that one through.  With a literal piece of her in his grasp, he now had the power, and the grin he gave her was every bit as cheeky as her wave had been.  "COME AND GET IT!  NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!"

    Adelle gaped in disbelief as Papyrus ran off with her detached limb, and she gave her foot a frustrated stamp.  "Papyrus!  You get your sorry sacrum back here, and you give me back my hand this instant!"

    She was laughing by the time she caught up with him.

Chapter Text

     Toriel and Frisk slowed their walk when they heard their names being called, and they turned to see who it was.  Well, actually, there was no mistaking that voice.  Papyrus's voice had a booming quality to it, and even when he tried to speak quietly it was easy to pick his voice out in a crowd.  Toriel could just barely see him from a block and a half away, but she didn't recognize the other skeleton.  "It seems as though Papyrus has made a new friend."

    Frisk nodded, then covered their mouth when Papyrus took off running in their direction with the other skeleton's arm clutched in his hand.  And the other skeleton was not attached to it.

    Toriel gasped, then began to chuckle. "Oh, my goodness gracious!"

    It didn't look like Papyrus had detached the other skeleton's arm on purpose.  Actually, it looked like the other one had voluntarily caused it to happen, and the action had backfired.  Frisk and Toriel watched as the other skeleton chased Papyrus, looking angry at first and shouting what were hopefully empty threats before the humorous (humerus?) nature of the situation hit home.  

    Papyrus's laughter was contagious.  The big stinker actually turned so that he was running backwards for a few steps, and he taunted his friend by waving at her with her own hand.  That got her.  And it was a her, if the higher voice was any indication.  By the time the skeletons reached Toriel and Frisk, they were both laughing so hard they could hardly stand up straight.

    Papyrus weakly offered the other skeleton back her arm, and she used it to give his shoulder a light swat before reattaching it.

    "Papyrus," Toriel put her hands on her hips, still chuckling, "I'm surprised at you!  That was very naughty!"

    "I KNOW!  I'M SORRY!  NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

    "Pff, no you're not," Adelle snorted, flexing her arm a few times to make sure it was connected properly, and looking from Toriel to Frisk.  Her laughter faded almost immediately, and her expression became unreadable.

    Papyrus didn't contradict her; he really wasn't sorry.  Making her laugh was fun, because he got the feeling she didn't do it very much.  Besides, he got what he wanted.  Now he could introduce her to Toriel and Frisk, and he just knew they would get along famously!  Well, he hoped so, at any rate.  He swooped down and hugged Frisk, taking care not to squeeze them too tightly, and asked, "AND HOW IS MY FAVORITE HUMAN TODAY?"

    Frisk gave him a thumbs-up, then gave Adelle a cheerful wave, looking a bit shy now.  The female skeleton nodded back, but said nothing.

    "ADELLE, THIS IS FRISK, THE MONSTER/HUMAN AMBASSADOR."  Papyrus stood beside Frisk, resting his hands on the child's shoulders.  Then, giving Toriel a slight bow, he continued, "AND THIS IS TORIEL, FRISK'S ADOPTIVE MOTHER, AND THE FORMER QUEEN OF THE MONSTERS.  TORIEL, FRISK, THIS IS MY NEW FRIEND, ADELLE."

    "It's lovely to meet you, Adelle," Toriel smiled at her, but her intelligent eyes were taking in Adelle's every movement and expression.  Or, rather, the lack of them, because Adelle was standing very still and looking at Frisk with something that almost looked like fear but wasn't.  She subtly placed herself in front of Frisk, but did not block them completely.  The hint was very clear.  If Adelle had a problem with Frisk, then she had a problem with Toriel.

    Adelle blinked a couple times, snapping out of it.  She managed a smile, but even Papyrus noticed that something was a bit off.  The human term for the look on her face was  'looking like one had seen a ghost', but since there were ghost monsters, this was considered a derogatory remark, and no one made it.  "I'm-I'm sorry, they just reminded me of someone.  It's nice to meet you, too."

    Toriel immediately relaxed, though she continued to stand close to Frisk.  "That's quite all right.  Frisk and I were about to go home for supper.  Would the two of you like to join us?"

    Papyrus looked at Adelle, leaving the decision up to her.  

    "We actually just had some pizza..." Adelle began, but Papyrus's face fell, and she had that 'just kicked a puppy' feeling again.  "but a short visit would be nice."

    "WE ACCEPT!" crowed Papyrus.

    What was meant to be a short visit actually turned out to be closer to three hours.  During that time, Adelle loosened up enough to make conversation, and Toriel introduced her to butterscotch pie.  

    Normally, Papyrus would have dominated the conversation, albeit unintentionally, but tonight he was oddly quiet.  Undyne had told him in the past that a member of the Royal Guard must be more observant than a civilian, because you never knew where or when a threat would come from, and while the Guard had disbanded, old habits died hard.  

    It wasn't a 'threat' Papyrus was on the lookout for, though.  If anyone were to ask him, he couldn't have told them what he was hoping to see.  There was just something about the look on Adelle's face when she first saw Frisk, and Papyrus had had a flash of intuition.  He had seen that look on her face before, when the little girl at her job had rushed in and hugged her.  There was something off with Adelle, and it had something to do with children.  Who had Frisk reminded her of?  And was this why she was attacking humans?

    And there, he had phrased it the same way Sans had.  As Papyrus joined the other three in a game of 'Trouble', he mulled over some troubles of his own.

    The 'mystery monster' had not attacked any children.  The victims were always adults, invariably male, and a little digging on the part of the police had brought up outstanding warrants on those humans as well as records of previous crimes.  Before Adelle (Papyrus was beginning to think that it really was her) had really gotten started, the monster death count was rising more quickly than it was now.  Papyrus was certain that she thought she was doing the right thing, but he knew in his soul that this wasn't the way.  In the long run, it could only make things worse.  And he had no idea how to bring it up with her.

    Then there was the way they had talked earlier.  Discussing spaghetti over their slices of pizza, and the story of her first time seeing the stars... the real stars, not gemstones embedded in the cavern ceiling.  Her experience mirrored his exactly.  He wanted to ask her about her first sunset now.  And knowing what she was probably guilty of, these complex feelings weren't entirely welcome.  Maybe Sans was right.  Maybe he would just complicate things, and--

    "Papyrus?" Adelle nudged him, her head cocked in that questioning tilt he had begun to associate with her.

    "HUH, WHAT?"

    "It's your turn."

    "OH!  WELL, THEN, ARE YOU ALL READY TO LOSE TO THE GREAT PAPYRUS?"

    After coming in last and shrugging it off good-naturedly, Papyrus drove Adelle home.  Toriel and Frisk stood at the big picture window and waved goodbye, and Toriel noticed how subdued Frisk was.  

    "Is something wrong, my child?"

    Frisk shrugged, but didn't deny it.  Toriel got down on one knee and looked them in the eye.  

    "What is it, Frisk?"

    Frisk broke eye contact first, looking down.  "I make her sad..."

    Toriel wrapped her arms around the child and felt them hug back tightly.  "Why would you think that?"

    "Because," Frisk said in the matter-of-fact voice that children were known for, "it's true."

Chapter Text

     Adelle was used to going for hours without saying a single word, but during the ride to her house the silence between her and Papyrus was the first uncomfortable silence she'd experienced in a while.  Out of the corner of her eye-socket, she could see that he occasionally took his eyes off the road for a brief instant to look at her, but he wasn't speaking.  This struck her as being very odd, and finally she looked over at him.  "I haven't known you long enough to be sure, but I think you're being more quiet than usual."

    Crud.  She hadn't meant it the way it had come out.  Had she just implied that he was a loudmouth?  Well, he was, but most people would take that as an insult.

    Papyrus simply grinned and shook his head without taking his eyes off the traffic.  "I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT TODAY.  I WOULDN'T MIND DOING IT AGAIN SOMETIME."

    "Ah..." she nodded, having nothing more to say about it.  To be honest, though, she had enjoyed herself as well.  Even spending time with the human child--Frisk, she reminded herself--had been somewhat pleasant after she managed to shake off the fog.

    "WHAT ABOUT YOU?  YOU HAD FUN, I'M SURE!" Papyrus said confidently before adding in a slightly less-loud voice, "I HOPE?"

    "Yes."

    Papyrus stopped at a red light, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel.  This was always a long red light, and it never failed to make him impatient.  "CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING?"

    Adelle almost said 'you just did', but stopped herself in time.  Her boss, Travis, had gently reprimanded her on her attitude once or twice, telling her that nobody liked a smart-ass.  He was the first (and, until this evening, the only) human whose opinion of her actually mattered to her, and she had taken his advice to heart.  Well, metaphorically speaking.  So, she figuratively bit her tongue and nodded.  "Okay?"

    Papyrus's tapping grew faster as the light stayed red, but it wasn't from impatience.  He wasn't sure how she would take this, and he was sort of trapped in the car with her.  If she got angry, he...well, he didn't intend to run away, but it would be nice to have that option all the same!  "YOU DON'T LIKE THEM VERY MUCH, DO YOU?"

    "Who?  Frisk?  No, they're a nice kid..." Adelle looked away, then added, "The other light just turned yellow.  We'll get the green soon."

    Sure enough, the light turned green just as she said that, and Papyrus scooted the car forward, slamming on the brakes as someone ran their red light, then continuing on with a shake of his head.  "THAT WAS CLOSE...YOU ALL RIGHT?"  When she grunted an affirmative, he sighed.  "GOOD.  I DIDN'T MEAN FRISK, THOUGH.  I WAS ASKING ABOUT HUMANS."

    Adelle didn't answer him right away.  Her natural suspicion was stirring, but she didn't think that Papyrus was very good at keeping secrets, and he seemed to be asking her out of genuine curiosity.  Shrugging her shoulders, she decided to be honest with him.  "I've met hundreds since I've been here.  And I trust..." She paused for effect, but also as if she were ashamed to admit that she trusted any humans at all.  "two.  My boss.  And now, Frisk.  One is so old, I'm wondering if he's going senile.  And the other is a child.  That doesn't say much for the species, does it?"

    Papyrus sighed heavily through his nasal cavity.  His posture, always so straight and perfect, slumped a little.  "HUMANS AND MONSTERS AREN'T MADE THE SAME.  BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THERE AREN'T GOOD HUMANS AS WELL.  YOU SAID SO YOURSELF, YOU TRUST TWO OF THEM.  WHEN WE FIRST MIGRATED TO THE SURFACE, FRISK AND I ENDED UP TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR WITH TWO HUMANS.  ONE WAS...NOT VERY NICE.  AND THE OTHER DEFENDED US.  DEFENDED ME.  SHE AND HER HUSBAND ARE NOW MY GOOD FRIENDS.  MAYBE...YOU WOULD LIKE TO MEET THEM SOMEDAY?"

    "Heh...one step at a time, Papyrus..."  Adelle gave a humorless laugh.  When he didn't say anything more, her guilt began to pick at her.  She was upsetting him.  "I...I'm sorry I'm not telling you what you want to hear."

    He smiled sadly and shrugged as he turned onto her street.  "IT'S HOW YOU FEEL.  I JUST WISH I KNEW WHY..."

    "No, believe me, you don't..." Adelle looked away.  Why did she feel like she was losing something, and why did it bother her so much?  Part of her wanted the ride to go on for a while longer, so that she could dig herself out of the hole she found herself in, and part of her offered up a silent thank-you as she saw the familiar peeling yellow paint and mismatched shingles.

    "MAYBE YOU'LL TELL ME SOMEDAY.  I'M A GREAT LISTENER!" Papyrus brightened as he parallel parked without too much trouble.

    Adelle smiled in spite of herself as she reached into the back seat for her uniform.  For someone who liked to talk so much, she had to admit that he was a good listener.  Such a sweet guy deserved a better friend than she could ever hope to be!  "I'll think about it.  Um...thanks.  For the ride home, I mean.  Maybe next time, you'll let me pay for dinner."

    He winked.  Not a flirty wink, no, certainly not!  But friends could wink at each other, couldn't they?  A platonic wink.  Yes.  Probably?  He told his racing thoughts to give it a rest.  "I'LL THINK ABOUT IT."

    Papyrus walked her to her door, wishing she hadn't gotten out of the car before he could open the door for her like a gentleman, but he supposed it didn't matter.  He didn't have his Hangout Guidebook with him, or his Dating Rulebook, so he was forced to go on memory alone, and he hoped she'd forgive him if he got his information crossed from time to time.  "SO, DOES THIS MEAN THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME?"

    Adelle rubbed her forehead, wishing she could wipe the goofy grin off her face.  This was so stupid!  What were they even doing?  "I don't see why not.  Sorry I kind of ruined it by being a wet blanket back there..."

    "YOU DIDN'T RUIN ANYTHING.  TRUST-BUILDING IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF EARLY FRIENDSHIP, AND THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS UP TO THE TASK!" He struck a pose and 'nyeh-heh-heh'ed'.  Neither of them noticed the drapes parting, nor the snickering as Adelle's roommates eavesdropped on their goodbyes.

    "Well, thanks for the ride.  Well, again; I already thanked you, didn't I?" She rubbed the back of her skull.  

    "I DON'T MIND YOU THANKING ME AGAIN!  SO, I GUESS...I'LL CALL YOU LATER?"  He shifted from foot to foot, seemingly unable to remain still.

    "Sure.  Text me when you get home, so I know you got there okay.  Um...g'night!"  She inserted her key in the lock, but froze when he lightly touched her shoulder.  "Um...hm?"

    "MAY I HUG YOU?  TO SAY GOODNIGHT, I MEAN!" he removed his hand, seeming to regret asking her that.  How awkward!

    Jeez, what a goober...

    Adelle felt a warmth in her rib-cage, but she attributed it to excessive amounts of crushed red peppers on her pizza.  "Sure, why not?"

    The hug was brief, but for some odd reason, the warm feeling was bigger when she stepped back and watched him descend the porch steps.  He raised one hand in a wave when he got in his car, honked twice, and drove off.  She stood there until she heard muffled giggles from inside, and the sound of Burgerpants shushing Chad.  She whipped her head in the direction of the sound, and saw the curtains swiftly close once more.  She groaned softly at the sound of retreating footsteps, and grumbled under her breath.  "Aw, crap..."

    She let herself in and saw her two roommates sitting on the couch with a video game on pause.  One look told her that they were playing 'Super Mario Bros' for the old Nintendo Entertainment System.  Another look told her that they were both red in the face and jiggling with the effort of holding back laughter.  "What are you two chuckle-heads up to?"

    That did it.  They both began to laugh so hard that they had to prop each other up in order to remain on the couch.

    "Are your lives so boring that you have to watch me from the window?"

    Chad's long blue ears perked in her direction, and he was the first to compose himself enough to speak.  "Sooo, how was your date with the bony stud muffin?"

    Adelle felt her magic gathering beneath her cheekbones, and she knew that she was blushing.  She hated it when she did that.  Her blush was green, like her magic, and in the past people had misunderstood and asked her if she was feeling nauseous.  In a way, that wasn't far from the truth.  "Look, don't call him, that, okay?  And it wasn't a 'date', we were just..."

    Burgerpants wiped a laughter tear from his eye, still wearing his shit-eating grin.  "Aw, don't be mad, Adey.  It's actually nice to see you going out for once--"  He stopped himself, but it was too late.  It didn't matter, thankfully, because she was so flustered over the implication that she and Papyrus had been out on a date that she didn't even notice.  

    "Right, so just play your video game and leave me alone..." She crossed the room, stepping over the game system's wires, and sort of draped herself across their salvaged armchair.  Her legs dangled over the arm, and she watched the screen as Burgerpants unpaused the game and resumed.  She couldn't tell if he was playing Mario or Luigi, because the character had picked up a fire flower at some point.

    "Come on, we were just having a few laughs," Burgerpants suppressed another chuckle.  "Besides, the guy's so loud we didn't even have to go to the window to hear ya."

    "Look, Burger, I didn't laugh when you told me that story about how your pants fell down in front of Bratty and Catty." Adelle scowled at him, then immediately regretted her comment when the cat monster flattened his ears.  His whiskers actually drooped.  And his character accidentally fell into a pit.  "...Sorry.  You told me not to mention it, didn't you?  I forgot..."

    "Eh, well, I guess I deserved that."

    It was Chad's turn.  Burgerpants had been playing as Luigi.

    "No, you really didn't.  That was uncalled for," Adelle got up and sat on Chad's other side, since Burgerpants was sitting flush against the arm of the couch and she couldn't sit beside him.

    The cat shrugged, focusing on the screen again.

    "Come on.  Say something mean to me, make it even." she urged.  She could see him fighting a grin.  He wanted to hold on to his low mood, and she took it as a personal challenge.

    "I don't want to."

    "Oh, yes you do.  I was mean first, and I broke a promise.  C'mon.  Say it.  You know you want to.  You know it.  I know it.  Chad knows it."

    Chad lightly elbowed her.  "Come on, guys, I'm trying to concentrate."

    "Okay," Burgerpants rolled his eyes.  He was annoyed, because he had been catching up with Chad, and Chad's turns tended to be long.  "Kiss my ass, Adelle."

    She gave him the widest grin a skeleton monster was capable of, which was actually a little frightening to look at.  "I can't.  I don't have lips.  See?"

    Chad muttered, "You don't even have an ass-"  Mini Mario got too close to a Troopa, and it turned and bit him, sending him flying off the screen. "Oh, come on!"

    The blue rabbit monster flung down his controller and covered his face, his ears drooping as a cackling skeleton and a cheering cat high-fived over the top of his head.

    "Yeah!"  Burgerpants took up his controller again.  "That's what you get!"

    After a few hours of Mario, then Mega Man, Adelle finally grew bored and looked at her closed bedroom door.  There was no way she would be able to sleep after today.  She was too wired, and she had too much on her mind.  She didn't like going in there unless she was exhausted, and she was as far from being tired as a skeleton could possibly be.  

    Chad was now playing on his own.  Burgerpants had fallen asleep with a nearly-empty bag of Doritos on his chest, and occasionally the blue rabbit would reach over and help himself to a chip.

    Adelle got to her feet, arching back in a stretch and grunting softly as her spine made a crackling noise.  "I'm going out."

    Chad paused the game and gave her a look that was almost sad.  "Um..."

    She ignored the stab of guilt at her roommate's obvious worry, and shook her head.  "To a bar, yes, but believe it or not I'm in the mood for a Shirley Temple."

    He nodded and went back to his game.  He did believe it; Adelle had never hidden her drinking habit from them, nor had she ever lied about it.  If she said she wasn't drinking booze, he believed her.  "Which bar?" he asked without real interest.

    "Grillby's.  It's just down the street.  You want anything?"

    "Nope, I filled up on Doritos."

    The moment Adelle stepped into the bar, she felt her nonexistent stomach drop.  A wave of déjà vu crashed into her as the stocky skeleton sitting at the bar turned and raised his ketchup bottle to her in a salute.  

    Joy and rapture, here was big brother.  Had he been watching her during her outing with Papyrus?  

    Nonsense.  She approached the bar with confidence and dignity, sat down on the stool beside Sans, and--

    PPPBBBBBPPHHHTTWEEEET!

    The bar exploded with laughter, and Adelle gave Sans a flat look as she plucked the spent whoopee cushion out from underneath her bottom.  "This yours?"

    "why would you think that?" he grinned.

    Adelle didn't bother to answer him.  She put the whoopee cushion on top of his head like a hat, and ordered herself a Shirley Temple.

    Sans left it where it was for a moment, letting her have her little 'joke', then removed it and stuffed it into his pocket.  "so...me and you.  we need to talk."

Chapter Text

     No pleasant conversation ever started with 'we need to talk'.  Adelle kept her eye-sockets trained on Grillby as he fixed her drink, wishing that she had ordered something a little stronger than a Shirley Temple.  If she did that now, though, Sans would know that he had unsettled her.  "What about?"

    Sans took in her body language.  Completely closed-off.  She either didn't like him or she didn't trust him, and frankly he couldn't blame her.  He hadn't given her the warmest reception, even if his reasons had been good.  He noticed that she began to drum the fingers of her right hand on the bar, but he could barely hear the spidery skittering noise over barroom chatter.  His grin stretched wider; he was amused.  "i'm not gonna bitecha, lady."

    "Good to know..." She said dryly, thanking Grillby when he set the glass of fizzy pink liquid in front of her.  She paid him, took a sip, then looked over at Sans.  "You said you wanted to talk?"

    Sans leaned forward, not wanting their conversation to be overheard, and he was pleased to see that she didn't lean away from him.  This would be easier with her cooperation.  He just hoped Papyrus would be able to forgive him if he found out about this.  "how do you feel about my brother?"

    She had been expecting him to interrogate her about her 'nighttime activities', be it the drinking or the...well, 'human hunting' wasn't the right term for it, not exactly, but she supposed it would have to do.  She relaxed a little, and had another sip of her drink.  Boy, this was good!  Adelle didn't know how the food was here, but Grillby sure knew how to make a mean Shirley Temple!  Oh, yes...she supposed she was avoiding the question.  Well...  "He's nice.  Now...I've got a question for you.  Were you following us today?  The truth, please."

    "heh.  i might get cryptic or keep a few things to myself, but i'm not a liar."

    Adelle heard a slight edge in his voice, and she knew that she had insulted him.  Maybe she should apologize...

    Before she had a chance to do more than open her mouth, Sans shrugged as if dismissing the issue.  "nah, I wasn't following ya.  don't need to.  my bro's a big boy now.  besides, there isn't much he doesn't tell me."  Still leaning forward, he lowered his voice enough so that she had to lean forward as well.  "he really seems to like you.  and it's scarin' him to death."

    She shifted in her seat, stirring her ice cubes around with the little red swizzle stick.  She still hadn't eaten her cherry.  "Why are you telling me this?  Do you think he'd appreciate us talking about him like this?"

    "because," Sans looked as serious as he ever did.  "i told him about you this morning."

    Adelle felt the heat rising in her face as she felt herself grow angry, and it was only when Grillby got in her field of vision and shook his head warningly that she realized her eye-sockets had lit up green.  

    "No magic use in my bar, please."

    Adelle shut her eye-sockets tightly and pressed the heels of her hands against them, willing herself to calm down.  Losing control in a populated area was never a good idea for a monster of her type.  It would never do to have bones begin to form and fly about, smashing bottles and clocking people upside the head.  "I'm sorry."

    "If you cannot control your temper--"

    "No, I..." Adelle lowered her hands, the white pinpoints of light in her otherwise dark eye-sockets proving that she had sufficiently calmed herself.  "It won't happen again, Grillby."

    The bartender nodded and addressed Sans next.  "Behave yourself."

    "moi?"

    Grillby stared at Sans until the skeleton held his hands up in surrender.  Satisfied, Grillby went back to wiping down the bar, still keeping an eye on them.  Or, at least, the tilt of his head seemed to suggest that; he didn't seem to actually possess a face, so it was difficult to tell.

    So, Papyrus had known the whole time.  And Sans, the little snake, had called her on her activities the night before; she remembered it clearly now.  Maybe she should cut back on the drinking, if it was making her careless.  She looked to her right again, and nearly gritted her teeth at the shorter skeleton's mild expression.  "Why?"

    "why'd I tell him?"

    "Yes."

    "because he seems to think he can help you.  for some reason.  but we know better, right?" he winked with his right eye-socket, but the significance of such a gesture was lost on her.

    "...Maybe he can.  The question is, should he?" Adelle wasn't thinking of her own secrecy now; it was a bit late for that.  Right now they were discussing Papyrus.  And, although she was a little bit angry with Papyrus for having an ulterior motive for spending time with her, she had to admit that she enjoyed his company.  And, unfortunately, this was a problem.  She didn't want help, and the thought of either wasting his time, or worse, of hurting him, were very unappealing.  And the thought of letting him get close and then losing him, possibly through her own actions, made her feel ill.

    "why shouldn't he?" Sans asked, almost gently.  "he might be able to help.  ya never know."

    Unable to shake the feeling that she was being quizzed or manipulated somehow, Adelle drank more of her Shirley Temple.  The drink tasted sickeningly sweet now, and she didn't want it anymore.  She drank it anyway.  "You should tell him not to try."

    "i did."

    She took this in stride, but she was surprised that his remark actually stung a little bit.  It must've shown on her face, because Sans sounded kinder when he spoke again.

    "c'mon, don't look like that.  it ain't personal.  it's just...that's my baby brother we're talkin' about here.  i just don't wanna see him get hurt.  you can understand that.  right?"

    Adelle flinched so badly at that remark that Sans actually sat back a little.  There was something about this exchange that he was missing.  Something had upset her, and badly, but she did a good job of covering it up.  "I have no intention of hurting him."

    "i believe ya."

    "No, you don't."

    "i do.  but i don't care about 'intentions'.  i care about the outcome.  look...i suppose you got your reasons for doin' what ya do.  and i'm not gonna judge ya.  but if things blow up with you and the humans, and my brother ends up getting caught in the crossfire..." Sans leaned in again, his eye-sockets dimming completely.  "you're gonna have a bad time."

    Adelle laughed softly, a humorless staccato chuckle that actually sent a chill up her would-be intimidator's spine.  "Nothing you can do to me can even begin to come close to what set me on this path in the first place.  Don't bother trying to threaten me, Sans.  There's only one thing I've ever been afraid of.  It's already happened, and it can never happen again."  She turned away, feeling less alive and more bitter than she had in a while.  "You don't have to worry about your brother.  We won't be seeing each other anymore."

    Sans opened his ketchup bottle.  "or you could just stop this.  right now, you could make the choice to stop."

    "No."

    "...he really does like you, ya know."

    "Yes, you've said that," she bit out savagely, popping an ice cube into her mouth.  Her magic-based body consumed it immediately, as it did with everything food-related that went into her mouth.

    "and you like him, too.  right?"

    "What is this, kindergarten?"  Adelle forgot to lower her voice, and her shoulders hunched as several monsters turned to look at her.  Grillby frowned, or gave the impression of frowning.  She flashed a brief smile, as if to say 'we're still fine', then turned back to Sans and lowered her voice again.  "What do you want from me, Sans?  Do you want me to avoid him?  To not avoid him?  You're sending out mixed signals here.  You don't want him getting hurt, yeah, I got that, but--"

    "for starters, I want you to calm down."

    "Yeah, because telling an angry person to calm down always works so well..." Adelle shut her eye-sockets, forcing back the rising anger once more.  

    "yeah...we learned pretty quick never to say that to undyne."  Sans drank some of his ketchup.  "come to think of it, ya both got anger issues.  you should meet her sometime.  ya probably will, since she works with paps."

    Adelle merely shook her head, her eye-sockets still shut, trying to center herself.  She was shutting out the rest of the bar, but with Sans sitting directly to her right, she couldn't quite shut out his voice.  She would not be meeting Undyne.  She wasn't sure how she could avoid Papyrus now, but she knew that she just couldn't let him get any closer than she already had.  She didn't appreciate his deception--how had he even managed to keep it to himself?--but she understood the reasons behind it.  Papyrus was a good person.  And she wasn't.

    "you still in there?  you've been sitting with your eye-sockets closed for ten minutes now, and it's kinda freaking me out.  usually i'm the one who falls asleep sitting up.  maybe it's a skeleton thing, but papyrus never does it..."

    Adelle looked over at him, and was surprised to see genuine concern on his face.  She looked away, ashamed.  This didn't help, because now she was more-or-less facing Grillby, who was still watching her.  He pointed to her glass and cocked his head, wordlessly asking her if she wanted a refill, and she shook her head.  Turning back to Sans, she asked him, "Would you apologize to Papyrus for me?"

    So, that was her decision, then.  Sans still wore his usual grin, but his flat voice gave away his opinion of her request.  "you seem to be pretty okay with getting your hands dirty.  you're a big girl.  I think you can handle it."

    "Oh, nice.  You butt into my personal business, then you cop an attitude."

    "figured it was my turn."

    She plucked the maraschino cherry out of her cup of melting ice, weighing her options.  Could she get away with lodging it into Sans's eye-socket?  Probably not.  She ate it, leaving the stem on her cocktail napkin.  She could have eaten that too, but why be crass?

    "usually, when people do crazy shit like you've been doing, they've lost something.  or someone."  Sans watched Adelle's face, saw it turning that rather interesting shade of green, and he knew that he'd hit pay-dirt.  "who did you lose, adelle?"

    Adelle didn't bother to shut her eyes now.  Her temper was under control, meaning that her eye-sockets weren't glowing green, and she let the wave of anger wash over her.  Let herself experience it.  It was an odd sensation, to be so angry and yet so calm at the same time.  It was that calmness that she embraced now, and it probably saved Sans from being thrown across the room.  That was what she wanted to do, of course.  How dare he?  Instead, she got slowly to her feet and left a tip on the bar for Grillby.  "Prick."

    Sans watched her leave, wondering if he had gone too far.  He caught Grillby's head-shake of disapproval, but instead of acknowledging it he hopped off of his bar stool and peeked out the window.  Good...Adelle had gone to the left, in the direction of her house.  At last he hadn't sent her over the edge!  "welp," he said to himself, "nobody's perfect."

Chapter Text

     The next three weeks were confusing ones for Papyrus, but he didn't really feel bad about it until the middle of the third week.  Adelle still spoke to him when he approached her, but she was more distant than before, and every time he asked her if she wanted to do something, she said she couldn't.  

    Well, Papyrus could understand being busy!  He was quite a busy skeleton himself.  As a fitness instructor, he knew that his students were counting on him to motivate them towards their goals.  He didn't hold it against her that she sometimes forgot to respond to his texts.  Well...not 'sometimes', more like 'usually', but he couldn't say that she wasn't polite.  He found himself making excuses for her in his head, and he almost believed them.

    That time when she said she wasn't feeling well, and then he had spotted her at the grocery store?  Well, headaches didn't always last all day, right?

    Her refusing to make eye contact with him?  Well, she was usually pretty reserved, so maybe this was just how she was.

    It wasn't until he spotted her in the park the second time she claimed to be feeling under the weather that he realized he was being played.  He called to her, and she had paused just long enough for him to know that she had heard him.  Then she just continued on her way!  Frankly, that one hurt, and he did something he rarely did with anyone other than Sans.  He cupped his hands on either side of his mouth and hollered, "I'M REALLY STARTING TO LOVE THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!!"

    Adelle's shoulders had hunched guiltily, and she turned to face him, looking remorseful.

    He was already turning to walk away, not because he was angry with her, but because he was ashamed of his outburst.  A gentleman did not meet rudeness with more rudeness!  He texted her an apology, but she didn't get back to him that day.

    Or the next.  

    Or the one after that.

    To make matters worse, during those three weeks he heard more news about the monster attacks on humans.  Adelle.  She was escalating.  She seemed to be actively hunting them now, and though none of the humans had died, Papyrus feared that it was only a matter of time at this rate.  

    One time, he thought he saw a tiny ding in her mandible, not far from her teeth, but she insisted that she had come home late one night and tripped over the living room throw rug.  A plausible story, yes, but it could just as easily have been an injury sustained during a fight.  Papyrus actually feared that one day he would hear that the attacks on humans had ceased, and that her dusty clothing had been discovered in the street.  He hadn't known her for very long, but the thought of such a thing happening to her had him in a near-constant state of anxiety.  

    He had to get through to her, he just had to!

    But she wouldn't let him.  And he felt like a failure.  He wasn't used to this feeling, and he hated it!

    It all came to a head on a Tuesday afternoon after his class had ended.  He and Undyne both worked at the same gym, she teaching weight training and self-defense, and he teaching aerobics.  He was even learning yoga, but he had a ways to go before he was qualified to teach it.

    Papyrus was sitting on the floor outside of the locker rooms with his phone in his hand, scrolling through Facebook and 'liking' several posts, when he overheard a conversation from inside the male locker room.  He didn't often go in there, mostly because it was...well...awkward.  Humans didn't seem to like it when monsters saw them naked, and frankly, he didn't really want to see them without their clothes on either!  

    He began to get up to leave, not wanting to eavesdrop, but he froze when he heard his name and the word 'annoying' in the same sentence.  

    "Seriously, anyone who's all 'up' and 'happy' all the time has got to be on something, right?"

    "I know!  And he has no concept of personal space."

    "And running 100 laps?  While singing your own praises?  Who the hell does that?"

    "Well, maybe it's a 'monster' thing..."

    "I don't see Undyne doing that.  She does kinda scare me, though."

    There was a chorus of agreement, and Papyrus trudged away, not wanting to hear anymore.  This brought back memories of Snowdin, and the loneliness of only having Undyne and Sans want to spend any time with him.  Was Adelle annoyed with him, too?  Maybe he had come on a little bit strong...

    He checked his phone for texts again, and sighed as he saw nothing more than several status alerts from Alphys.  That was par for the course, really, but he would never think of unfriending her.  Undyne would kill him, for one thing!  And for another, why throw away a perfectly good friendship just because of one annoying little habit like blowing up a phone?  He was certainly guilty of that often enough!

    Papyrus sighed and put his phone in his back pocket, then he squealed when he found himself in the iron grip of one of Undyne's famous headlocks.  Knuckles roughly dragged themselves back and forth across the top of his skull, and he struggled.  "NO NOOGIES, NO NOOGIES!"

    "Hey, Papyrus!  You look like you could use some cheering up!" Undyne released him, showing a jagged row of teeth in what passed for a smile with her.  He grinned back, but she could see that it was a bit strained.  The corners of his eye-sockets crinkled slightly, and not in the smiley kind of way.

    "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!  I'M DOING JUST GREAT!  TODAY'S CLASS WENT SWIMMINGLY.  UGH...NO PUN INTENDED."  He rubbed the back of his skull as he looked away from the fish monster, and for once he didn't strike a confident pose and laugh it off.

    "Yeah, no."  Undyne wasn't having it.  She folded her arms and adopted a rather hip-shot way of standing.  "We've been friends for a pretty good while now, Papyrus.  Don't you think I can tell when something's eatin' ya?"

    Papyrus heard the group of guys leave the locker room, blissfully unaware that their conversation had been overheard, and he remembered similar overheard conversations back in Snowdin.  People there had thought he was too loud, too bubbly, too...well, too Papyrus.  He had thought that joining the Royal Guard would change people's minds about him and get them to give him a chance.  Maybe even like him.  Surely, their opinions of him--and Adelle's opinions--didn't have any effect on his greatness!  But still...

    Undyne had stood by him back then, during his 'sort of friendless' days.  So did Sans, his wonderful-but-lazy brother.  And now he had Frisk in his life, and many others.  He now had more friends than he knew what to do with, and it was wonderful.  But some memories didn't go away so easily, and there was no way he could get through to Adelle if she wouldn't talk to him long enough for him to get anywhere.  

    Papyrus turned his attention back to Undyne, who was still watching him with that direct, one-eyed gaze of hers.  He smiled, but it wasn't the smile of a guy who's letting the world know he's doing great.  It was the smile of a guy who was holding on to his composure for dear life.  Wobbly.  Uncertain.  "YOU KNOW, UNTIL FRISK CAME ALONG, YOU WERE MY ONLY REAL FRIEND.  WELL, SANS TOO, BUT THAT'S NOT THE SAME THING."

    Color rose in Undyne's cheeks, and she laughed gruffly.  "You're embarrassing me, Papyrus!  Jeez..."

    The skeleton reached up and rubbed his face, trying to force back tears.  He sniffled once, then cleared his throat (or, at least, made a sound like throat-clearing) in an attempt to make it look like he wasn't doing what she probably knew he was doing.  He knew she didn't mean that in a bad way; he was just that upset.

    Undyne immediately lost her smile and got serious, and she put her hand on his back and guided him into their office.  She had to, because he wouldn't lower his hands and he couldn't see where he was going.  The gym was mostly empty, and the people who were there were absorbed in their workouts, but there was still no privacy out there.  Papyrus definitely needed that!

    She sat him down on one of the hard plastic chairs, then turned the second chair around and straddled it.  She touched his humerus, and when she finally spoke her voice was gentler than most people ever got to hear it.  "Talk to me."

    Those three words, so softly spoken, shattered Papyrus's fragile composure.  He doubled over, sobbing into his hands and wishing he could melt into the floor.  Undyne didn't comment on this.  She simply offered him the tissue box, nudging his arm with it to get his attention.  He turned his face away before lowering one hand long enough to grab a wad of tissues, which he promptly buried his face in.  "I'M...I'M N-NOT CRY-CRYING!  SK-SK-SKELETONS GET...VERY BAD F-FALL ALLERGIES!  NYOO-HOO-HOO..."

    "Aww...Look, ya big weenie," Undyne affectionately rubbed his skull (this was not helping him to calm down at all!), "if someone like you is 'having allergies', I know there's gotta be a good reason, right?  C'mere, gimme a hug."

    Papyrus let himself be pulled into a firm, but surprisingly gentle, embrace.  Gradually, Undyne got the story from him, minus the part about Adelle's involvement in the attacks, and Papyrus soon hiccuped to an uncertain stop.  He hadn't cried--um, 'allergied'--like that in a long time, and now he remembered why.  Apart from being embarrassing, it made his head ache.

    Undyne was livid, but she knew that she was likely to set him off again if she let him see it.  "Now, since when do you doubt your own worth, big guy?  Huh?"

    "I DON'T..." Papyrus shrugged, drying his face with another wad of tissues.  "I JUST WISH I KNEW WHAT I DID.  I DON'T UNDERSTAND..."

    "Well...I think things are gonna work out just fine.  Now, you go home and fix yourself a nice plate of spaghetti.  Heh, remember our cooking lessons?" she nudged him.

    "NYEH-HEH-HEH!  HOW MANY TIMES DID WE BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN?"

    "Lost count!" she laughed, standing up, and he automatically stood up too.  "Go home, okay?  I got some things to take care of."

    Papyrus missed the glint in her eye and the way her webbed fingers curled into fists.  As soon as his car left the parking lot, Undyne's war cry brought all workout activity in the gym to a screeching halt.  "NGAAAAAAAAH!  Who does she think she is?!"

Chapter Text

     Truth be told, Adelle wasn't doing any better than Papyrus.  Despite her resolution to cut off contact with him, she wasn't able to avoid him completely.  That would have meant ignoring him when he approached her, which would have been hurtful as well as rude.  He knew where she lived, and he knew where she worked.

    It occurred to her that she was also putting her roommates in danger, but she couldn't leave.  They needed her income, otherwise they would lose the house.  She thought they might have been able to find another roommate, but there was no guarantee, and they had been there for her when she was going through something terrible.  Hell, she was still going through it, and they still put up with her, even during the 'bad' days.  Breaking away from them was tougher than she would have thought.

    Papyrus should have been easier to break away from, right?

    Wrong.  She barely knew him, but he was such a sweetheart!  It should have been easier for her to distance herself from him than from her roommates, but Papyrus made it very difficult by being so accepting and so trusting.  Every time she lied to him or ignored his texts, she felt like absolute crap.  Sure, it was for his own good (and hers, too, she was the first to admit that), but that didn't mean she liked doing it!

    One day she heard him calling to her, and she almost turned around.  She stopped herself in time, or so she thought.  When she started forward again, he had called after her in a voice filled with more hurt than anger, "I'M REALLY STARTING TO LOVE THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!!"

    Ouch.  That one definitely hit her where she lived.  She was hurting him, and she didn't know how to not hurt him.  The look she saw on his face in the split second before his back was to her stayed with her for the next few days.  She didn't answer his apologetic text.  She didn't want to face him.

    She had always shied away from emotional pain; it was a failing of hers.  Now, for the past several months, since long before she even met Papyrus, it followed her everywhere she went.  It made her angry.  Anger was easier to deal with than pain, and she now went out almost nightly in search of human troublemakers to vent that anger.  And lord, did she ever find them.  This species was relentless.  They preyed not only on monsters, but on each other!

 
    And damn that Sans!  Why couldn't he have kept his proverbial nose out of her business and just left her alone?  

    Now, with Halloween over and November just beginning, there was little need for a scarecrow.  Adelle had been kept on at her job, since her boss liked her dry sense of humor, and she now worked in the greenhouse.  She also had fewer hours, so this meant more free time and more money worries.  She considered getting a job in fast food, and Burgerpants had warned her against working for Mettaton.  She might end up having to, though.  

    It would have been nice if a skeleton got hired as easily as a cute feline...

    At least, she supposed Burgerpants was cute.  Humans seemed to really like cats for some reason.  Personally, she thought her 'I'm an old man in a twenty-year-old's body' roommate could be a royal pain in the sacrum sometimes!  He was usually the roommate who forgot to pick his fur out of the drain after having a shower.  And she thought he was the one who kept getting into her mac and cheese, but she couldn't prove it.

    Ah, her thoughts were all over the place.  It had been three weeks, and Papyrus's attempts at getting her to interact with him had at first become almost desperate, approaching stalker territory, and then had tapered off to almost nothing.  She thought that this was what she wanted.  So, why did she feel so bad?

    She decided that practicing some bo staff katas in the park might be a good way to center herself.  She hadn't actually done that in a while, and she knew a few places where humans didn't usually walk. 

    Undyne saw Adelle long before Adelle saw her, and this was just the way the former Captain of the Royal Guard wanted it.  It had been a long time since she had really been able to get the drop on someone!  In fact, the last person she actively pursued with any sort of violent intent was Frisk, but she didn't like to think about that now.  Now, she meant to give this girl an ass-kicking and a piece of her mind, in that order.

    She had to admit, though, the bony skank had some moves.  Undyne watched as a long bone, probably a representation of a femur, was being used in the manner of a bo staff.  With the bony knobs on either end of it, the staff should have had poor balance, but magic was second nature for monsters.  Adelle could make her weapon as light or as heavy as she wanted to, within reason.  The staff moved in a blur, slowed, then sped up again, resembling the spinning blades of a fan.  At one point, Adelle made a butterfly kick before tossing the staff into the air, making a perfect catch when it came back down again.

    Undyne's wide mouth stretched even wider in a wicked grin.  Little show-off, eh?  She would soon cure her of that!  Raising one hand, Undyne pointed at the ground near Adelle's feet.

    Sensing an unfamiliar magic, Adelle instantly froze.  A circle of blue-green light appeared directly underneath her feet, and she jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being skewered.

    Well, not really.  Undyne's intentions weren't to kill, but to intimidate.  More circles appeared around Adelle, and Undyne chuckled maliciously as the skeleton dodged and jumped to avoid the magic spears that emerged from the ground.  

    Adelle's eye-sockets lit up green, as if someone had stuck a glow stick inside her skull, and her head immediately oriented on the chuckle.  She was startled, but more to the point, she was pissed.  Here she was, minding her own business, and some joker decided to lob spears at her!  Bones appeared in the air around her, hovering as if waiting for orders.  She pointed a bony finger in Undyne's direction, though she still couldn't see the fish monster, and growled, "Come out of there before I flush you out!"

    Undyne obligingly stepped into view, and the recognition she saw on Adelle's face pleased her.  Undyne's reputation was well known, and the skeleton seemed to have figured out what she was in for.  "I really don't like it when people hurt my friends."

    "What?"

    Instead of explaining, Undyne summoned a spear and leveled it at Adelle.  "Defend yourself."

    "Crap..."

    Adelle sent every bone except for her staff hurtling towards Undyne, but Undyne deflected them easily.

    The fight didn't last long at all.  Adelle held her own well enough to impress her attacker a little, but even if Undyne hadn't caught her by surprise, the fight was unmatched.  Adelle's attack points tended to fluctuate between 5 and 6, and her defense was only at 1.  She was skilled, yes, but she hadn't been formally trained as Undyne had, and before a full minute had passed she was flat on the ground.  Her weapon lay ten feet away from her, and she was now at Undyne's mercy.

    Undyne advanced.  Adelle frowned and held up one hand in a 'stop' gesture, indicating that she didn't want to fight anymore (not that she'd wanted to fight in the first place).  Her expression told Undyne that she certainly would fight if she was forced to, but she was submitting to a stronger opponent.  Grinning smugly, Undyne took one step back and beckoned.  "Get up."

    Adelle got up, then lifted her chin defiantly and folded her arms.  "You win, I guess..."

    "Damn right!" Undyne guffawed, dismissing her spear and putting her hands on her hips.  "Huh!  All things considered, you did pretty good, punk!  But I have a bone to pick with you."

    Now Adelle made an approximation of raising an eyebrow.  "Really?  You're gonna go there?  I don't suppose you've met Sans, by any chance?"

    "Yup.  I see a lot of him.  But I'm here to talk to you about Papyrus."  Undyne was glaring now, seeming to remember that she was supposed to be angry.  Adelle didn't say anything, but she seemed to know what Undyne was talking about.

    "Look...I can explain."

    "No, first you're gonna listen!  It took me a while to track you down, but do you know what I spent twenty minutes doing before that?"  Adelle shook her head, and Undyne went on, "Listening to Papyrus cry his eye-sockets out because he thinks his so-called friend hates him!"

    "Wha--"

    "No, it's my turn to talk!  If you don't want to have anything to do with him, that's your business.  But you tell him that!  You don't let him sit there and think, 'oh, maybe if I just do this, or act like that, she'll like me better', no!  You cut him off, and you let him move on!  But if you do, that's your loss, because he's the nicest guy I know, and he deserves better than a cowardly...whatever, who doesn't even have the guts to tell him she's not feelin' it!"  Undyne paused for breath, and she was actually a little surprised to see Adelle looking so horrified.

    "I...I made him cry?"

    "Hell yeah, you made him cry!  Do you know what his friends mean to him?"

    Adelle groaned and covered her face, and for an awful instant Undyne thought she would see a repeat of that afternoon, but Adelle wasn't anywhere close to crying.  

    "Look, I'm really not the type of person someone like him should associate with.  I'm...involved with some things, and I don't want him to get in trouble.  That's why I've been avoiding him.  But making him cry, I never wanted that!"

    "Well, it still happened." Undyne didn't look very sympathetic, but she didn't seem as angry now.  "You could always stop whatever it is you're doing."

    Adelle cocked her head now, squinting.  "You really have spent a lot of time with Sans, haven't you?"

    "Huh?"

    "Never mind..." Adelle sighed, and spotting her staff lying in the grass, she dismissed it with a gesture.  "I really didn't know.  Is...is he okay?"

    Undyne inhaled deeply, and let out the breath in almost a sigh.  "He's better than he was, I guess, but he's really upset.  Look, don't go telling him I told you he cried, okay?  He's...kinda sensitive about that.  Sensitive in general, really.  That's why I got so pissed when I heard about how you were treating him.  Sorry I kinda roughed you up, I guess."

    Adelle snorted.  "You didn't, and you know it.  You overpowered me, which isn't the same thing.  But you're right...I screwed up."

    "Yeah, you did.  So, what're you gonna do now?"

    The skeleton pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and turned it on, and she was relieved that it hadn't been damaged in the fight.  "Apologize."

    Undyne still kind of wanted to hate this person who had hurt someone who was like a brother to her, but she had to respect her integrity.  It would have been ideal if Adelle hadn't hurt Papyrus in the first place, or if she had explained herself right from the get-go, but better late than never, right?  "Make it good, and I'll forgive ya."

    Adelle waited for Undyne to leave, and when she didn't, the skeleton sighed pointedly.  "In private, if you don't mind."

    "Fine," Undyne shrugged, and left her with a parting threat.  "but if anything like this ever happens again, I'm usin' your ribs for toothpicks."

    This would be impossible, because unlike her arms (and possibly her legs, but she'd never tried), her ribs were decidedly not detachable, and it would be kind of hard to pick one's teeth with dust.  Shuddering at the morbid direction her mind had decided to go, Adelle sent Papyrus a text.

    [Hey, Papyrus.]

    It was less than twenty seconds later that she received a barrage of texts from Papyrus.

    [!!!]

    [OH MY GOD!]

    [HI, ADELLE!!!]

    [IT'S GREAT TO HEAR FROM YOU!  NOT THAT I THOUGHT YOU WERE MAD AT ME, OR ANYTHING.]

    Adelle winced at this, and put her thumbs to work.  She felt like she'd just called over a neglected dog for petting, and he was practically turning himself inside out with excitement.  This mental comparison made her feel even worse, because Papyrus was not a dog, and he didn't deserve to be treated like one.

    [No, I'm not mad at you.  You didn't do anything wrong.  I do need to talk to you, though.  Can you meet me at the entrance of the park?]

    Again, his response was quick and full of enthusiasm.

    [OF COURSE!!  I CAN BE THERE IN 2 MINUTES!]

    Adelle began to walk as she texted him back.  

    [No rush.  I'm actually IN the park itself, so you'll probably get there before I will.]

    Her phone alerted her just as she put it in her pocket, and she took it out again to read the text.

    [I'LL COME IN AND WALK YOU OUT, THEN.]

    Frowning, she fired off another text.

    [No, it's getting dark.  The park isn't safe at night.]

    His answer was a single word.

    [EXACTLY.]

    She looked sad as she pocketed her cell, knowing that it would be useless to try to talk him out of it.  Why did he have to be so nice?  Her phone beeped again, and she checked it.  He had messaged her again, sending her a bunch of happy emojis.  She snorted, turning off her phone.  "Goofball..."

    As promised, Papyrus came jogging into view when she was about a five-minute's walk from the park entrance, and Adelle smiled in spite of how guilty she felt.  He looked like he'd just received the best news ever, and as he stopped in front of her it was obvious that he wanted to hug her but was holding back.

    "HI!"

    She folded her arms, cupping her elbows in her palms, and looked down.  "Hi..."

    Papyrus leaned forward so that he could look her in the face, then he sighed when she looked away.  "...SORRY.  I DON'T MEAN TO BE SO ANNOYING."

    "No," Adelle took his hands in her own, still not looking at him, and he gasped.  "You're not the one who should be apologizing.  I've...been lying to you.  Avoiding you."

    Papyrus lightly squeezed her hands, looking down as well.  "I KNOW."

    "But you don't know why."  She let go of his hands and looked up at him, finally.  "Hurting you was the very last thing I ever wanted to do.  That's actually why I've been distancing myself, so that I wouldn't hurt you.  But I guess I did anyway...and I'm sorry for that."

    "YOU DIDN'T..." Papyrus began, but his voice faltered, and he stopped.  He had never been good at lying.  He thought back to something Undyne had said earlier, something about having 'things to take care of', and he frowned suspiciously.  "HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THAT?"

    "Oh, your friend Undyne went all 'big sister' on me, and knocked some sense into me," Adelle smirked.

    "OHH, NO..." Papyrus groaned, face-palming rather dramatically. "DID SHE HURT YOU?"

    "Nah.  She did get her point across, though.  She told me some things I needed to hear...and it wasn't easy to hear them.  But she's right.  You deserve a better friend than how I've been to you."

    "UM...WHAT ELSE...DID SHE TELL YOU?" Papyrus was the one who was avoiding eye contact now.  He remembered his 'allergy attack' from earlier, and he prayed to whatever god might be listening that Undyne hadn't told her about that!

    One more lie couldn't hurt, right?  "Pretty much what you'd expect.  'If this happens again, I'm gonna kick your butt!'  Someone should give her a list of things that skeletons don't have..."

    "NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!  YEAH, THAT SOUNDS LIKE HER.  COME ON, LET'S GET OUT OF HERE.  THIS PARK REALLY ISN'T SAFE AT NIGHT."  He offered her his arm, and she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.  

    "There are some other things we should talk about...but this really isn't the right time or place."

    "I KNOW.  YOU'RE MADLY IN LOVE WITH ME."  Papyrus grinned, then giggled when she turned bright green.  "OH MY GOD, ADELLE!  I WAS KIDDING!  YOUR FACE!"

    "Hey, just because you have a crush on me, that doesn't mean you get to project your feelings onto me!" She shot back, grinning as his face lit up bright orange.  She'd never noticed the color of his blush before.  "Oh my God, you blush orange!"

    "I DIDN'T BLUSH!  I DON'T BLUSH!"

    "Heh, it's okay.  I think it's kinda cute!"

    "WHY ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT CRUSHES ANYWAY?"

    "I don't know, you started it!"

    Papyrus threw up his free hand in mock exasperation.  "IT WAS MEANT TO BE AN ICE-BREAKER!"

    They were both giggling pretty hard by the time they left the park, still arm-in-arm.  Serious discussions could wait for another day.

Chapter Text

"So, Burger, tell me again why this is a bad idea?"

Adelle was filling out an online application for MTT-Brand Burger Emporium, which was where Burgerpants had worked in the Underground. A new one had opened on the surface, and even though Burgerpants no longer worked there, she had asked to use him as a reference. As she filled out her personal information and work history, the cat hovered over her shoulder and tried to dissuade her.

"Ohhh, Adelle...dear, sweet, naive little Adelle..." he sighed, hanging his head and shaking it slowly as he rested his hands on the back of her chair. "The tortures that robot put me through! I could have been an actor! Instead, I had to paste on a fake smile every day, and God forbid that I should ever show a negative emotion! Suuure, I loved searing a Mettaton impression on those damn steaks that nobody even bought because they were too friggin' expensive, and not to mention--"

"N'awww, poor puddy tat..." Adelle reached up and scratched underneath his chin without turning, still typing with one hand, until a low, rhythmic rumble sounded near where her ear should be. "Burgerpants, did you just purr?"

Snapping out of his blissful 'skritches' trance, Burgerpants slapped her hand away. "No!"

"Can you do it again?" she grinned, bolting out of her chair and trying to scratch him between the ears now.

"No--would you just--hey, quit it!" He twisted to avoid her hands, and she backed off.

"I'm getting you a catnip mouse for Gyftmas!" she announced as she sat back down.

"Sometimes you're really a turd, Adey..." Burgerpants sulked, folding his arms. "Fine, go ruin your life with my blessing."

"Ya love me."

This was a typical interaction for them. Was it any wonder that Burgerpants sometimes slipped up and called her 'sis'?

The thought of Gyftmas, or 'Christmas', as they called it on the surface, caused Adelle's smile to dwindle back to her skeleton 'resting face'. It still sort of resembled a grin, truth be told. This year would be especially hard.

Burgerpants noticed her change in mood, and misunderstood. "Hey...I didn't really mean that, you know."

"Nah, you're fine. I'm just concentrating. Seriously, though, does catnip effect you?"

"I never tried it." He looked affronted when she turned and fixed him with a look. "Hey, you'd know if I did, trust me."

"I just assumed, since my last box of mac and cheese just magically disappeared..."

"I told you, that wasn't me."

As most of her dreams did, this one started innocently enough. It as Gyftmas morning, and she, Burgerpants, Chad, and a little ten-year-old skeleton boy sat around their tree to open their presents. Their first Gyftmas on the surface! When she tried to pass her little brother his first present, it fell to the floor. She thought at first that he had lost his grip on it, but when she went to return it to him, she saw that his hands were gone. Slowly, from the carpals-up, the child's arms began to turn to dust.

No. No! NO! NONONONONO!

Her little brother crumbled to dust before her eye-sockets, pleading with her to help him. He was crying. He was in pain! And then he wasn't. Dust could not feel pain. Dust couldn't feel anything at all. The lights dimmed, and Burgerpants and Chad were gone. She and her brother's dust were no longer in their home, but in a dark alley. Adelle knelt with her hands buried up to the wrists in what used to be her very purpose, screaming her pain to the cold, unfeeling stars, screaming for help.

But nobody came.

She pulled a pendant from the dust...

And then she'd woken up. She wasn't screaming like she had been in her nightmare, and she clamped her hands tightly over her mouth to keep from doing so, breathing rapidly through where her nose should be as she rocked back and forth. It took her a moment to even realize where she was, and when she did, she lowered her hands and curled her fingers around the pendant she wore around her neck. It was a simple metal washer, threaded onto a piece of twine, and she never took it off.

A quick look at her clock told her that it was almost midnight. She'd gone to bed early, having been awake for nearly sixty hours, and she had only gotten three hours of sleep. Well...no way was she going back to sleep after that! Getting out of bed, she went into the bathroom and splashed some water on her face before stuffing her house key into her pocket.

She needed a drink.

As she saw Sans sitting at the bar with his usual bottle of ketchup, Adelle realized that this just wasn't her night. She scanned the room for an empty seat. Really, anything other than the stool right next to Sans would be perfect! Seeing none, she turned on her heel and walked out.

Why did the closest fucking bar have to be Sans's chosen waterhole? At least, she assumed it was, because every time she'd gone in there he'd been sitting at the bar. And, as if this night couldn't get any worse, when she rounded the corner she walked right into him.

"whoa. careful, i don't have my bro's strength."

"Wh...how...huh?"

"don't say it," he winked, with his left eye this time. "i left ya speechless."

Adelle was in no mood for this. She put her fists on her hips and glared down at him. "One, how the hell did you get there? And two, what do you want?"

Sans held up his hands, not in surrender, but in a shrug. "same way you did. i walked. and i thought you wanted a drink. you gonna let li'l ol' me stop ya?"

"What do you want?"

"hm." Sans studied her face, seemingly without much interest, but his voice was concerned when he spoke. "guess i just wanted to apologize for bein' an ass. you been getting any sleep?"

"I..." Adelle knew he'd see right through her if she lied; she'd gotten a glimpse of her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and she knew she looked as exhausted as she felt. If she wasn't too much of a coward to go back to sleep again, she wouldn't even be having this conversation. She folded her arms and shrugged. "Not much...Why?"

"meh. look, we kinda got off on the wrong foot."

"Well, that was your fault."

"yup. mostly. i got my reasons for being overprotective. same as you've got your reasons for...well, i don't have to tell you. you know what's up. but other than that one thing, i really don't have a problem with you. and my brother really seems to like ya. he's back to his usual happy self, now that you're talking to him again." Sans smiled reassuringly when she flinched at that. "not a shot, or anything, just sayin'."

"No, you...you have a point. But what are you getting at, exactly?"

"i'm sayin' that if you're gonna be friends with my brother, you and i should at least try to get along. you tolerate me, and i'll try not to be such a 'prick'. deal?" He held out his hand.

After checking to make sure he wasn't palming a whoopee cushion and seeing that he wasn't, she nodded and shook his hand. "Deal. For Papyrus's sake."

"cool. so, we good?"

"Mm..." Adelle made a rocking motion with one hand and squinted one eye-socket. "We're better."

"i can live with that. c'mon, let's go back to Grillby's. you can buy me a drink." he winked again.

"I only have enough for myself." It was true. She didn't even have the money to buy herself a proper buzz.

"i'm just kiddin'. i'll put 'em both on my tab."

"No thanks."

Sans didn't pressure her. He had mostly apologized for his brother's sake, but that look in her eye-sockets was very familiar. He had seen it himself in the mirror so many times that he gave up counting. Something really had her rattled.

As they re-entered Grillby's, they saw that the same two bar stools were still vacant. Sans didn't seem surprised by this, but Adelle didn't think it was likely that two seats should remain empty when there were people standing around, seemingly with nowhere to sit. Well...maybe they just wanted to mingle.

Sans took his usual seat, and Adelle sat down beside him...

PPPBBBBPPTTTH!

Laughter.

"whoops! watch where ya sit down." Sans chuckled.

Rolling the white points of light that passed for eyes, she pulled the whoopee cushion out from under herself and placed it decisively on top of his skull. "From my butt to your head."

Sans grinned up at her, the opening flap of the whoopee cushion dangling between his eye-sockets. "you're a skeleton. you don't have a butt."

"No, but the principle remains the same. Put the fart-bag away, or I'm taking it." She sort of hated herself for it, but her mouth was twitching into a smirk.

Sans put the whoopee cushion in his pocket, and nursed his ketchup as Adelle ordered herself a whiskey sour. "not as strong as the last stuff i saw you drink," he observed.

"The last thing you saw me drink was a Shirley Temple." she informed him.

"you know what I mean."

Adelle thanked Grillby and paid for her drink, taking a sip. She was already looking a bit blinky. "Well...I actually hadn't had that other stuff before, and I underestimated how strong it was. Drinking is a habit, but getting that drunk isn't."

"huh. your hands are shaking. it can't be the cold; grillby's standing right here."

Grillby looked over from wiping a glass, and his posture almost seemed to convey a warning. He didn't usually get in the middle of his customers' disputes, but he had seen Sans outright harass this other skeleton before, and had been about to get involved for a second time when she got up and left. Sans was a favorite customer, but even so!

But Adelle just rested her chin in her hand and traced the wooden grain of the bar. "Insomnia plus nightmares equals a bad night. I don't really feel like elaborating, though."

Sans nodded thoughtfully, polishing off his ketchup and ordering himself a beer. "say no more; i get 'em, too."

"Not like these..." she fingered her brother's pendant.

Sans's eye-sockets went completely dark for a moment, but he didn't contradict her. At least, not directly. He sipped his beer and said, "ya never know. a person could be dealing with anything at all. unless they told you, you'd never even know it. they could just...fake a smile and act like they usually do. nobody suspects a thing. until ya slip up somehow and let 'em catch a glimpse..."

Adelle sighed and rested her head on her arms, shutting her eye-sockets. She would only rest them for a minute. "The worst thing of all..." she mumbled, "is not getting a good look...Coulda had 'em by now..."

"hm?" Sans looked sharply at her, waiting for her to continue, but the only reply he got was a soft snore. Damn it. He'd almost had something there!

The door to the bar opened and Papyrus strode up to the counter, intent on getting his brother to come home, but he halted as soon as he spotted Adelle. He looked dismayed when he saw her sleeping at the bar with a drink at her elbow. "I WAS HOPING YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT THE DRINKING HABIT, BROTHER..."

"she only had one sip. she's not drunk. she's exhausted." Sans polished off his beer as Papyrus gently shook her.

Adelle moved her head and mumbled a little, but that was it. This was the longest she'd gone without sleep, and it had finally caught up with her.

"BUT WHY WOULD SHE WANT TO SLEEP HERE, OF ALL PLACES?" Papyrus tried not to sound disgusted; Grillby's bar was not his cup of tea due to the grease content of the food, but he didn't want to be impolite. Seeing the bartender glance at him, he backpedaled. "BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY BEDS! THAT POSITION CAN'T POSSIBLY BE COMFORTABLE!"

Grillby waved a hand. "No offense taken. However...this really isn't a place for sleeping."

"OH, WELL, WE'LL TAKE HER HOME, THEN!" Papyrus tried once more to wake her, but he only half-succeeded. She lifted her head and blinked owlishly up at him before her eye-sockets closed of their own accord. Before she could put her head back down again, Papyrus gently gripped her shoulders and eased her slight weight back against his chest before slipping his other arm under her legs. He lifted her, bridal-style, and looked pointedly at his brother. Adelle sighed in her sleep and nestled her head against Papyrus's chest, and his cheekbones began to turn orange.

"heh, you're blushing, pap." Sans winked, looking very amused by this.

Papyrus adjusted his grip on Adelle, frowning as his face heated up. "THIS ISN'T A BLUSH! IT'S HOT IN HERE! LET'S GO."

Papyrus debated with Sans whether they should knock at this late hour or search her pockets for a house key, but Chad opened the door while they were talking and ushered them in.

The blue rabbit was understandably worried when he saw that Adelle was seemingly passed out, but Sans assured him that he'd only seen her have a sip, and that she just seemed really tired. Chad nodded, gesturing for the two skeletons to follow him. "Her room's back here. This house has kind of a weird layout. I don't think we've met. I'm Chad."

"sans. you don't seem too surprised about all this." Sans stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

"No," Chad sighed, opening Adelle's bedroom door. "She likes to go on walks when she can't sleep. Sometimes she'll drink, others she'll just...walk. It's kind of been a rough few months. You can just set her down on her bed, Papyrus."

The taller skeleton had been glancing around the room, taking in how tidy it was, save for the unmade bed. It looked like it had recently been slept in. At Chad's prompting, he gently laid her down on the bed and removed her shoes, taking care not to sneak a peek at her socks. Sans and Chad had their backs turned, both for decency purposes and to discuss something that Sans had just picked up. Papyrus was only half listening as he tucked Adelle in.

Sans was holding a strip of photo booth pictures and staring intently at it. It was Adelle and another skeleton. A little boy, by the looks of it. The child in the picture was wearing the pendant Adelle wore now, and they both looked happy. In the first picture, they were giving each other bunny ears. In the second, Adelle was crossing her eye-lights, and the child was pretending to pick his nose. In the last two pictures, they were simply smiling.

"I see you found Tahoma..."

Papyrus quickly looked over his shoulder at the unfamiliar name, sensing that they were about to learn something huge. "WHO IS TAHOMA?" he whisper-yelled.

Chad checked to make sure Adelle was sleeping soundly, then whispered back. "He was her brother." His blue ears drooped, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Come on out to the kitchen, and I'll explain."

Sans put down the strip of pictures and immediately followed Chad, but neither of them prodded Papyrus to hurry.

Papyrus picked up the strip of pictures, and he felt a lump rising in his nonexistent throat. Chad had used the word 'was'. This little boy was dead! Putting the strip back where Sans had left it, and hoping that this was where it had originally been, Papyrus tip-toed out and softly shut the door.

Chapter Text

Papyrus went out to the kitchen, steeling himself for what he was about to hear.  He saw Sans and Chad waiting for him, Sans sitting at the kitchen table and Chad leaning against the kitchen counter.  Nothing about this situation felt good.  He had connected some of the dots already, and he definitely wanted the full story, but this didn't feel right.  "IS THIS SOMETHING SHE WOULDN'T WANT US TO KNOW?"

    Chad looked guilty, and Papyrus had his answer.  The rabbit sounded tired when he answered the skeleton.  "Probably, yeah.  I'm not telling you everything, just..."

    "the 'bare bones'?" Sans quipped.  Papyrus fixed him with a withering look, which he pretended not to see.

    "Right.  Why don't you sit down, Papyrus?" Chad sat at the table himself, and Papyrus joined them.  "Well...normally I wouldn't be doing this, but Burgerpants and I...we're running out of ideas, and she's really not getting any better.  We really don't know what to do."

    They were silent for a bit, which was out of character for Papyrus, then Chad launched into his story.

    "So, this happened back in August.  Burger was still at work.  I was out shopping when I got a call from Adelle, and she was frantic.  She couldn't find her brother anywhere, and she wanted to know if he was with me.  I told her he wasn't, and asked her what was going on.  The 'Reader's Digest' version is, he slipped out of the house when she wasn't looking and got lost."  Chad cleared his throat and got up.  "I need some water.  You guys thirsty?"

    Both skeletons shook their heads.  Papyrus looked incredibly sad, and Sans looked the way he always did.  The shorter skeleton rarely gave any clues as to what he was really thinking.

    Chad got his water, took long drink, and sat down again.  "Burger's shift was nearly over, so his boss let him leave early to help us look.  We were out for hours, and it started getting dark.  Then we got a text from Adelle.  She...she found him.  He was still alive when she got there, but...he turned to dust in her arms."

    Chad rubbed his face; evidently, this was hard for him to talk about.  Papyrus abruptly got up from the table and aimlessly paced the kitchen, still listening, but unable to remain still.  "HOW DID IT HAPPEN?"  He thought he knew the answer.

    Clearing his throat, Chad replied with a single word.  "Humans."

    "shit..." Sans rubbed his skull, the lights in his eye-sockets completely dark.  Papyrus didn't even scold him for swearing.

    "Yeah...we all loved the kid, but we hadn't known him or Adey for very long before this happened.  Maybe four months?  I don't know for sure.  It hit us pretty hard, but...she basically raised him.  She didn't come out of her room for two days afterwards, and didn't speak for another five.  All we were able to get out of her was that there were two men, that they were wearing dark clothing, and that she hadn't gotten a good look at them."

    Papyrus said nothing, not trusting his voice.  He was having a terrible job not to cry.  Now he could understand why she was attacking humans, even if he couldn't condone it.  She wanted to find the men who'd killed her brother, and she probably wanted to keep this from happening to anyone else.  All while grieving her loss and going into an alcoholic tailspin.  He didn't know what he'd do if he ever lost Sans!  Oh, his poor friend...

    Sans seemed to just be taking this all in, his hands folded on the table.  "how's she dealing with it now?"

    "She isn't," Chad drank some more of his water.  "She refuses to talk about it.  Gets angry and changes the subject when we try to bring it up.  She blames herself for it, I know that much.  I never saw her with so much as a beer before then, but now..."

    Sans nodded, but his mind was far away, not on another time, but on another timeline.  Several of them, actually.  Timelines in which he saw his friends die over and over again.  After seeing it happen so many times, after losing Papyrus so many times, he had almost become totally numb to it.  Knowing that none of this was permanent, the bad as well as the good, had robbed him of his will to make any kind of effort.  There was a time, though, way at the start of all these resets, that he had reacted very much as Adelle had.  He finally thought he understood her.  And, he thought to himself, if she didn't get herself out of this hole she was digging, she would soon be buried in it.

    Unless, of course, Frisk reset for some reason.  This was the longest they had been topside, and part of him would always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  He wouldn't remember things if Frisk eventually did reset, but the dreams would always bring it all back to him.  Little notes he'd left for himself back in his lab, safe from time manipulation, would remind him.  This was how his current self had learned about Chara, the spirit that had possessed Frisk on all of their...no-mercy runs, for lack of a better term.

    And then he realized that Papyrus and Chad had begun speaking to each other.

    "MAYBE WE SHOULDN'T BE HEARING THIS." he continued to pace, rubbing his arms almost in a self-soothing manner.  "WON'T SHE BE MAD?"

    "Not if she doesn't find out," Chad shrugged.  

    "YOU MEAN YOU WANT ME TO LIE TO HER?" Papyrus drew himself up to his full height, righteously insulted.  "I CAN'T DO THAT!"

    "No, not lie, just...don't go out of your way to mention it.  Or...maybe, somehow, get her to talk about it?  Or she might tell you herself.  She talks about you a lot, you know," Chad smiled shrewdly.

    "REALLY?" Papyrus looked flattered in spite of himself, then tried to play it cool.  "WELL, NATURALLY!  THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS SUCH A COOL FRIEND, HOW CAN SHE NOT?"

    "I know, right?  I think she looks forward to hanging out with you after work and on her days off, too.  And--"  

    Sans interrupted him, not liking where this was going.  He got that Chad was worried about her, but using flattery to get Papyrus to do his dirty work?  Nuh-uh.  Nope.  Not happening.  "look, we better get goin'.  if she overhears us talking, there'll be hell to pay."

    Papyrus gave his brother a dirty look, but his heart wasn't in it.  Sans was right; it was time for them to go home.  Chad had dropped one heck of a bombshell, and Papyrus needed time to process it and come up with a plan of action!  "I'LL SWING BY TOMORROW!  WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD TIME?"

    "Anytime after eight would be good.  But if she's been awake for as long as I think she has, she probably won't be up until after noon.  You could try texting or calling, though."  Chad put his fist to his mouth and stifled a yawn.  "I better head off to bed myself.  Thanks for bringing her home.  You guys really are good friends."

    "papyrus is," Sans corrected him mildly.  "i don't know her that well."

    "Well, still, thanks."

    "yep."

    Sans and Papyrus left, with Papyrus throwing one more glance over his shoulder at Adelle's bedroom door.  As they walked out into the night, Papyrus snapped his fingers.

    "SANS, I'VE GOT IT!"

    "hm?"

    "TOMORROW, I'M TAKING HER JOGGING!"

    "say, that's a good idea.  maybe she'll even give you a 'run' for your money!"

    "SANS, I SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU AT GRILLBY'S!"

    "yes, please."

    "GAHHH!"

Chapter Text

     The afternoon of jogging didn't exactly go as planned.

    Papyrus texted Adelle at around noon the next day, but received no answer.  He tried her house at around 4 PM, but either she wasn't up or nobody was home.  He decided to go on an evening jog, through the park for a change, confident that she wasn't avoiding him again.  She must really be tired, if she was still asleep!  Then again, Sans could literally fall asleep standing up, so maybe she was...

    No, of course she wasn't lazy!  And Sans had improved somewhat since coming up to the surface.  Papyrus suspected that it was because there were so many new things to see up here.

    He eventually did find Adelle, though, and it was completely by accident.  She was practicing katas in a clearing and he stopped to watch, leaning his back against a willow tree.  Papyrus had seen similar routines many times while wistfully watching the Royal Guard train and wishing he could be a part of that.  He'd never seen her among the trainees, so where did she learn?

    There was another difference, Papyrus thought, as he stood entranced by the show she was unknowingly giving him.  Aside from when he saw her asleep last night, she looked more at peace than he'd ever seen her.  The Royal Guard had trained for combat, and it was all so fierce.  She seemed almost relaxed, and she was definitely more graceful than she had been that first night, when she had tripped over her shoelace and...

    "What the hell?!"

    Ah, she had finally spotted him!  "WHERE DID YOU LEARN HOW TO DO THAT?"

    Adelle quickly dismissed her staff, and he seemed a bit disappointed by that.  "A set of training DVDs I found in the junkyard a few years back.  When did you get here?  It's kinda rude to spy on people."

    "OH, I WASN'T SPYING ON YOU!"  He approached her, looking bashful, as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Technically, he had been spying on her, but he hadn't done it on purpose!  "I JUST GOT HERE A FEW MINUTES AGO.  WOWIE, YOU'RE PRETTY GOOD!"

    "Yeah, well..."  She could never take a compliment!  She shrugged, averting her gaze.  "Undyne's better.  I wonder what it would have been like to learn from her..."

    "EXCRUCIATING!" Papyrus promptly informed her before they dissolved into snickers.  Then he asked, "SERIOUSLY, WHAT STOPPED YOU FROM TRYING?"

    "I had other responsibilities..." Adelle said, evasively.

    "I SEE..."  Papyrus had a pretty good idea what those responsibilities were, and he tried not to look as sorry for her as he felt.  "I'VE BEEN TRYING TO CALL YOU.  I WAS CONCERNED."

    Adelle knew that he and Sans had brought her home, and she turned green with embarrassment.  Someone, she wasn't sure who, had removed her shoes when they put her in her bed.  She hoped that they hadn't looked at her socks!  That would be like the human equivalent of sneaking a peek at someone's underwear!  Also, she was confused.  When did he try to call?  She took her cell out of her pocket and tried to turn it on.  Nothing.  "Huh...I must've forgotten to charge it!  I'm sorry."

    "HEY, THESE THINGS HAPPEN!"  He couldn't help but feel relieved that she really hadn't been ditching him, because maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny bit of doubt in the back of his mind.  However, he did not approve of doubts, and had refused to acknowledge its existence.

    "Well, not just about the phone..." She looked sheepish.  "About last night...that's really embarrassing.  Can we just forget it ever happened?"

    Subtlety was never Papyrus's strength.  Kindness, yes.  Enthusiasm, absolutely.  But he was as subtle as a bull in a china shop.  "IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU WANT TO TELL ME, I'M THE BEST LISTENER THERE IS!  IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT?  BECAUSE I'M NOT GOING TO JUDGE YOU, AND IF THERE'S ANYONE YOU CAN TRUST, IT'S--"

    "Papyrus--"

    "YES!  EXACTLY!"

    "No, Papyrus, just...wait a minute."  Adelle studied his face, and decided that he wasn't the type of guy who should play poker.  Her eyes glowed faintly green, completely independent of her will, fueled by her dawning anger.  One of her roommates had blabbed about Tahoma, she was sure of it.  "Was it Burgerpants, or Chad?"

    "UHH..." Papyrus began to sweat.  Something had just happened, and he had missed it completely, but he had a feeling he was either in trouble or about to be.

    "You know about him, don't you?  So, who told you?  Burger or Chad?"  She hadn't raised her voice, but magic crackled in the air around her.

    "I...LOOK, ADELLE, PLEASE DON'T BE ANGRY."

    "Too late.  It's not you I'm mad at.  Just tell me who told you."  She closed the distance between them, scowling when Papyrus lowered his head.  He wouldn't look at her, and she knew that this was because he couldn't look at her and lie at the same time.  She took his face between her hands, deceptively gentle, considering how angry she obviously was.  "Look at me, Papyrus.  Tell me who told you."

    But he didn't try to lie.  He removed her hands from his face, keeping his grip on them, and shook his head.  "I WON'T TELL YOU THAT YET.  I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU PLAN TO DO TO HIM.  BUT...ADELLE, YOU KNOW WHY, DON'T YOU?  THEY'RE WORRIED ABOUT YOU.  THEY CARE ABOUT YOU!  I CARE ABOUT YOU!"

    Adelle snorted and snatched her hands back, and before he could stop her she turned and ran deeper into the park.

    "WH--ADELLE, WAIT!  PLEASE, DON'T RUN AWAY!  I JUST WANT TO HELP YOU!"  He began to run after her, but to his surprise, she did stop.  She kept her back to him, and he kept a respectful distance.  "PLEASE..."

    "Do you really?  Or do you just want to keep me from attacking humans?" she asked, her voice low as she fought to control her emotions and her magic.

    "WH...YOU..."

    "I know," Adelle said dully, turning to face him.  There were tears on her cheekbones, but her face was oddly composed.  "You've known about me for a while, haven't you?"

    "HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?" Papyrus sounded shaken.  As far as he knew the only other person who knew about her was...  "SANS...HE TOLD YOU."

    "It doesn't matter who told me.  And I guess it doesn't matter who told you, either.  Seems I can't trust anyone anymore.  Those two have no concept of privacy.  And you!  You're so much worse than they are!  Always trying to convince me that humans aren't so bad, and all the while, you knew!"  Bones began to materialize around her, and she wasn't in control of it.  

    "ADELLE...ADEY, WATCH WHAT YOU'RE DOING!" Papyrus's eye-sockets widened.  Then he ducked as the bones oriented on him and flew at him like darts.  

    "Don't call me that!" Adelle shrieked, simultaneously furious with him and horrified at what her magic was doing.  She hadn't meant to attack him!  Even worse, she was backed up against the edge of the lake, and in order to escape him she would have to go back the way she came.  "Let me pass!"

    Papyrus rose from his crouching position, spreading his arms wide, though whether it was to block her or to offer her a hug even he wasn't entirely sure.  "I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT YOUR BROTHER UNTIL LAST NIGHT, ADELLE.  I JUST KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG, BECAUSE MONSTERS DON'T BEHAVE THAT WAY UNLESS THEY'VE REALLY BEEN HURT BY SOMETHING.  IT ISN'T ABOUT PROTECTING HUMANS.  IT ISN'T EVEN ABOUT KEEPING THINGS STABLE BETWEEN HUMANS AND MONSTERS ANYMORE.  I WANT TO HELP YOU."

    "Get out of my fucking way!" More bones were summoned, purposely this time.  She wouldn't hurt him, not really, but she wanted to ensure that he would never come near her again.  She'd thought that she could trust him!  She knew that he knew about her, and she'd known about that for a while now, but until now she'd been able to bury it and just enjoy his company.  It didn't matter that he was playing her.  She'd never confess, and so far, he hadn't asked.  It wasn't until he brought her brother into it that she began to see red.  Or, more literally, green.

    Before she could send her second bone attack, she felt herself suddenly grow very heavy.  Oh.  Papyrus had just taken his turn.  Gravity magic.  Peachy.  Well, if he wanted her to stay put and hear him out, she wouldn't make it easy!  She was done being messed with!  As soon as she was able, she summoned her staff once more and advanced.

    Papyrus only 'fought' in the sense that he warded off her attacks.  He felt nothing but pity, and a great sadness for this monster who was so hurt and angry that she would turn on one of her own.  On her own friend!  He forgave her, even as she attacked him.  He knew she didn't truly mean what she was saying and doing, or if she did, that she would be sorry later.  To lose a brother...how terrible!

    "Fight back, damn you!"

    "YOU WON'T HURT ME, ADELLE," Papyrus smiled, but there were tears in his eye-sockets.  "YOUR ATTACKS HAVE NO REAL FORCE BEHIND THEM--" he broke off to block another volley of bones, then caught her staff in mid-swing.  His hand stung, but he barely reacted to it.  "--BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MUSTER UP THE WILL TO CAUSE ME ANY TRUE HARM."

    "Oh, can't I?"  The next volley of attacks drove him back several paces, and she swept his feet out from under him before stumbling to one knee, the stronger gravity making her clumsy.

    Papyrus rolled away and got quickly to his feet.  "WHO DID THIS TO YOU, ADELLE?  WHO HURT YOU?  WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?"

    Adelle struggled back into a standing position, and the air around them grew very thick and heavy.  Hundreds of bones, from tiny finger bones to full-sized femurs, materialized and began to orbit around Papyrus.  "What always happens."  

    The bones began to circle faster and faster.  Papyrus stood perfectly still in the eye of a bone tornado.  Even then, he wasn't afraid.  If Adelle had really wanted to hurt him, the few bones that had made contact with him before would have left marks, but they didn't.  They'd barely even hurt.  The slight sting was nothing compared to the sadness he felt for her, and it couldn't hold a candle to how much pain she was in.  She was angry, grieving, and scared.  She wouldn't hurt him.  She wouldn't.  Though he certainly hurt for her.

    "You know our history.  You know who imprisoned us underground.  We may be out, but we're sure as hell not safe."

    Papyrus was barely visible now, and in spite of his assertions that she wouldn't hurt him, he was beginning to sweat again.  Most unbecoming!

    "I sent a few humans to the hospital, but they..."  She was practically screaming the words now as she took a leaden step forward.  He must have increased the gravity again.  Either that, or she didn't want to attack him as badly as she thought she did.  "They've killed so many of us!  And one of them was my baby brother, so don't you dare tell me what to do!  He...he just wanted to go to the park, and I...I told him I was too tired...I...I..."

    The bones slowed their revolution around the taller skeleton, who still stood with his arms open wide.  What she saw in his face wrenched a low moan from her, and she took a step back.  The bones disappeared without ever even touching him.  She didn't notice that he had retracted his gravity magic, and she could move easily again.  "IT'S OKAY, ADELLE...IT'S GOING TO BE OKAY."

    Papyrus took a single step towards her, paused, then took another.  He was speaking gently, as if to a cornered animal.  Which, at this moment, was essentially what she was.  Even though he didn't blame her for her reaction (in retrospect, he should have seen it coming!), he couldn't predict what she would do next.  "IT'S OKAY..."

    "No, no, it's not okay, nothing about this is okay!"  Adelle backed away from him, then stopped when she felt the ground behind her begin to incline downwards.  She had reached the edge of the lake.  "You don't understand!  It's my fault he snuck out of the house.  If I'd been watching, if I wasn't too damn lazy to do something with him, then..."

    "NO...NO, IT WASN'T--"

    "Don't say it wasn't my fault!  I was responsible for him, and because I didn't do my job, he...I k-killed..."

    The hell with caution!  Papyrus rapidly closed the distance between them and wrapped her in his arms, holding her tightly to his chest as she struggled to get away, then rubbing her back as she sagged weakly against him, sobbing and exhausted.  "NO, DON'T SAY THAT...YOU WERE DOING THE BEST YOU COULD!  IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT."

    After a moment, Adelle felt his rib-cage shudder underneath her cheekbone, and she realized he was crying too.  God, why did she have to ruin everything?  Her arms found their way around him, and they stood and cried together.  "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry!  Are...are you...Did I hurt..."

    "NO," Papyrus sounded congested; he was keeping most of his tears back, and no way would he ever admit to them later.  "I'M NOT HURT.  I TOLD YOU, YOU WOULDN'T HURT ME.  THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NEVER WRONG!"

    No, she thought.  He was just a sucker for lost causes.

Chapter Text

Adelle wasn't sure how long she stood there, crying into the front of Papyrus's shirt while his cheek rested on top of her head, but by the time she had calmed down it was beginning to get dark.  She could feel where his tears had fallen on her skull, and she loathed herself, knowing that she was responsible for them.  

    She recalled how easily he had fended off her attacks, and how she had been unable to break his grip when he wouldn't let her go.  She wondered how strong he really was.  She was good at being stealthy, and she was quick, but it occurred to her that if he had actually fought back she probably would have lost.  It should have made her feel weak and insignificant, knowing that he could have bested her if he'd really wanted to.  Instead, she felt ashamed.  She didn't deserve his mercy.  She didn't deserve to be comforted.  How could she have attacked him like that?

    And yet, here he was, refusing to let her go through this alone, despite how she'd treated him.  She'd needed a target to lash out at, and he'd stood there with open arms.  He held her when she would have run from him, and he grieved with her when it was over.  It was...humbling.  And, for the first time in a very long while, Adelle actually felt safe.

    Clearing her throat, Adelle stepped back.  

    Papyrus quickly wiped his face.  "AHEM...RAINWATER, DRIPPING FROM THE TREES..."

    "Yeah..." Adelle agreed.  She didn't have the heart to tell him that it hadn't rained all week, and that the nearest tree was about twenty feet away.  She saw the size of the tear stain she had left on the front of his shirt, and she reflexively brushed at it.  "Oh, jeez...sorry about that..."

    He looked uncomfortable as her phalanges brushed along his rib-cage, though he couldn't have explained why.  He quickly covered the spot with his own hand, chuckling nervously.  "IT'S OKAY.  I WON'T MELT!"

    "I...Papyrus, I'm sorry.  I'm so, so sorry for...for the things I said to you.  And attacking you like that.  I've never done anything like that before, and I promise, it'll never happen again." She began to turn her head to look away, but he put his hand to her cheekbone to prevent it.  

    "EVERYTHING YOU SAID TO ME IN ANGER IS INVALID, BECAUSE I KNOW YOU DON'T REALLY FEEL THAT WAY.  I KNOW YOU'RE IN PAIN.  BUT HEY!  IF YOU CAN'T VENT TO YOUR FRIENDS, WHO CAN YOU VENT TO?" Papyrus lowered his hand, wondering exactly why he had put it there in the first place.

    "Well, I went way overboard."  Adelle sniffed, but she was done crying.  She was too tired.  "You didn't deserve any of it..."

    "FINE," Papyrus said airily, shrugging, "THEN I FORGIVE YOU.  BUT WE SHOULD GO.  IT'S ALREADY DARK, AND WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN HERE AT NIGHT.  NOT TO MENTION, IT'S NOT SAFE.  I, UM...THINK YOU COULD HOLD YOUR OWN, THOUGH.  THAT WAS QUITE A DISPLAY!"

    Adelle gave a snort of mingled amusement and shame.  "Sure, make me feel worse."

    "NONSENSE.  THE GREAT PAPYRUS BRINGS PEOPLE UP, NOT DOWN."  He offered her his arm, but this time she gently put a hand to his humerus and shook her head.  Well, that made sense!  She really seemed to feel guilty, and when people felt guilty they didn't like to accept friendly gestures.  Papyrus didn't really understand it himself, but he respected her wish and simply walked beside her.  "SO...WOULD THIS BE THE RIGHT TIME AND PLACE TO TALK ABOUT THOSE 'OTHER THINGS' YOU MENTIONED LAST TIME WE WERE HERE?"

    "Well, I don't think it matters much anymore," she tucked her hands into the pockets of her bluejeans.  "You pretty much know it all now.  Look, I...I really think you're wasting your time, Papyrus."

    "WHY?"

    "Well, for one thing, after this, I don't deserve it..."

    "SELF-PITY ISN'T VERY ATTRACTIVE..." he gave her a side-long look, but he meant it kindly.

    "It isn't self-pity, it's a fact.  Plus, you have your own life to live, things to do.  Problems to deal with.  I don't need to be one of them.  I'm pretty much a lost cause."

    Well, okay, maybe there was a little bit of self-pity in there.

    "I DON'T BELIEVE IN LOST CAUSES," Papyrus promptly argued, also tucking his hands into his pockets, unconsciously mirroring her gesture.  "THEY DON'T EXIST."

    "Seriously?" Adelle squinted incredulously before her eyebrows, or what passed as eyebrows, raised in surprise.  "You are serious.  Not everything is in a person's control, Papyrus."

    "I BELIEVE IN A LOT OF THINGS, ADELLE.  I BELIEVE IN SANTA.  I BELIEVE THAT METTATON WILL BECOME AS FAMOUS ON THE SURFACE AS HE WAS IN THE UNDERGROUND."

    Adelle blinked once.  Did he really still believe in Santa at his age?  She thought everyone knew that 'Santa' was just King Asgore in a red suit and a fake beard!  Well, former King Asgore.  Now it seemed like he more or less led the monsters without the official title.  Probably because the humans refused to recognize his royal status.  How typical of them.  Well, Adelle wouldn't be the one to break the news to Papyrus!  As far as beliefs went, this was a relatively harmless one.

    "AND I BELIEVE IN YOU,"  Papyrus continued, smiling at her as they exited the park and continued on along the sidewalk.  "I THINK YOU CAN DO A LOT BETTER.  IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO STOP.  DOING THIS...YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN...IT WON'T CHANGE WHAT HAPPENED."

    Okay, maybe Adelle did have a couple tears left.  She brushed them angrily away, but she didn't object when Papyrus put his arm around her shoulders.

    "I'M SORRY.  IT'S JUST...SOONER OR LATER, YOU'LL EITHER BE ARRESTED OR..." He trailed off, shuddering at the vivid mental picture of her body crumbling to dust.  "THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER TAHOMA.  BUT THERE WON'T BE ANOTHER ADELLE, EITHER.  I'LL TELL YOU A SECRET...JUST BETWEEN US.  YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE, OKAY?"

    "Hm?" She looked up at him.  He wasn't that much taller than she was, but the top of her head didn't quite clear his chin.  

    "THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ONLY AFRAID OF ONE THING!  AND THAT'S LOSING THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABOUT."  He avoided her eyes, uncharacteristically shy.  Normally he would shout it from the rooftops when he thought someone (himself included) was great.  Well, more accurately, he would shout it while running laps, using it as motivation.  But he half-suspected that he didn't just like her platonically, and frankly, he didn't know what to do with that!  "I DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU.  AS A FRIEND, I MEAN.  BUT EVEN IF YOU GOT MAD AND NEVER TALKED TO ME AGAIN, I'D PREFER IT OVER HAVING SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO YOU.  WHICH IS WHAT I THINK MIGHT HAPPEN IF YOU KEEP GOING OUT, LOOKING FOR TROUBLE."

    Adelle got that 'warm feeling' in her chest again, and chalked it up to being touched by his kindness.  His hands were back in his pockets, so she couldn't take one of them, but she did take his arm.  Better late than never, right?  She didn't comment on his blush, or the way his smile widened.  "It didn't start out that way, you know..."

    "REALLY?"

    "Yeah.  See, I had a lot of trouble sleeping after...well...after it happened.  There were times when I felt trapped, like I couldn't breathe.  Not that we need to breathe anyway, but that's not the point.  So, I started walking at night if sleep wouldn't come, or if the dreams were bad." She paused as they passed some humans on the sidewalk.  The humans didn't pay them any mind, other than to do a double-take at the sight of two animated skeletons walking arm-in-arm through town.  

    "MM-HMM..."

    "Well, one night, I was in the park.  It wasn't late, or anything.  I just didn't want to leave yet.  And I saw a little dragon running along the path.  I found out later that she fell asleep past her curfew, and was hurrying home.  Two men started following her, and I thought, well, that didn't look right.  So, I decided to follow them and see what they did." Adelle felt her eye-sockets light up green, but she had used a lot of magic before, and the light was faint.  "One of the men grabbed her.  The other one had a roll of duct tape.  I don't even want to know what they had in mind.  Anyway, I knocked them out and walked her home."

    "WERE THEY THE SAME--"

    "No, I'm sure of it.  I didn't get a good look at those others, but these men were too tall.  But it got me thinking...If I'd stayed home that night, her family wouldn't have gotten their daughter back.  I couldn't save my brother, but I could save her.  I...I lost my purpose.  And then I found another one.  I mean...I guess I understand what I'm doing.  In a way, it's almost like I'm trying to get a 'do-over'.  I know I can't really have that.  He's...he's gone.  But monsters are being killed.  And if I'm able to do something to stop it, shouldn't I?"

    "HMM...HIS EX-MAJESTY MIGHT BE ABLE TO OFFER SOME GOOD ADVICE.  HE'S THE ONE WHO'S IN CHARGE OF OUR HALF OF THE MONSTER/HUMAN RELATIONS THING.  FRISK IS THE AMBASSADOR, BUT THEY'RE PRETTY YOUNG, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE VERY GREAT.  DID YOU KNOW THEY WERE MY FIRST HUMAN FRIEND?" Papyrus wasn't trying to change the subject; he just had a habit of talking about whatever came to mind.

    "You might have mentioned that, yes..." She frowned thoughtfully.  What was Asgore doing about the killings?  She couldn't say he was doing nothing.  She usually ignored the news broadcasts in favor of the daily paper.  She hadn't seen him mentioned in that very often.

    "YOU DO KNOW THAT I'M JUST GONNA TRY HARDER TO GET YOU TO STOP, RIGHT?" Papyrus asked in a forced playful tone that fell a little bit flat, even to his ear-holes.

    Adelle didn't look very impressed, but she didn't look angry either.  "And how are you going to do that?"

    "SIMPLE!  I'LL KEEP YOU SO BUSY THAT YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO GO OUT AND HAVE FISTICUFFS WITH RANDOM HUMANS!  IN FACT, YOU MIGHT EVEN BE ABLE TO FALL ASLEEP WITHOUT GOING TO THE BAR FIRST.  STARTING TOMORROW--" Papyrus paused for breath, but Adelle took the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

    "I have to work for the next three days."

    "WELL, ON YOUR NEXT DAY OFF, THEN!  ON THAT DAY, WE'RE GOING JOGGING!"  He held up his index finger, managing to sort of strike a heroic pose without breaking his stride.

    "Jogging?" Adelle asked flatly.

    "YES!  I SAW YOU PRACTICING EARLIER, REMEMBER?  EXERCISE IS THE PERFECT STRESS-BUSTER, AND UNTIL WE COME UP WITH A SOLUTION TO THIS MESS, WE'RE GOING TO JOG THOSE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AWAY!"  

    "You're...serious, aren't you?" Adelle cocked her head, fighting the urge to laugh.  Papyrus got positively bouncy when he was excited about something, and even in her current mood, it was fun to watch.

    "THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS SERIOUS!  EXCEPT WHEN HE ISN'T...NYEH-HEH..." Papyrus began to look sheepish at having contradicted himself, but at that moment, Adelle chuckled.  This egged him on, and he decided that he was going to get a belly laugh out of her before they reached her house.  "IN FACT, LET'S PRACTICE NOW!"

    To her disbelief, he began jogging in place.  "Um..."  She let go of his arm and glanced around to see if anyone was watching.  Thankfully, it was just them, as far as she could tell.

    Thankfully, because Papyrus began jogging around her while she stood frozen on the sidewalk.  "JOG WITH ME!!"

    "Um, could you not?"

    "NOPE!  WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?"  He was still jogging around her, but he had reversed directions and was now jogging backwards.

    Adelle had one hand over her mouth, and above her hand her face was turning green.  Her shoulders jiggled.  "Oh my God, Papyrus..."

    "NOW, I KNOW KEEPING UP WITH ME WILL BE DIFFICULT, BUT I THINK YOU'RE UP TO THE TASK!  I HAVE FAITH IN YOU!  WE SHALL JOG ALL THE WAY TO YOUR FRONT PORCH, HOOTING ABOUT HOW GREAT WE ARE!"

    Okay, that did it.  Adelle had to lean on a building for support, laughing hard and trying not to fall over, and Papyrus stopped clowning around and joined in.  They stayed like that for a few minutes until their laughter subsided, and then he received a surprise; she hugged him.  They had only hugged a few times, but he had always been the one to initiate it.  He gladly returned the hug, most of his prior sadness forgotten.  It must have been the jogging.

    "I don't know about that last part, but yeah, I'll jog with you."

    "I'LL TAKE IT!"

    "Hey, Papyrus?"

    "YES?"

    "...Thanks."

    "ANYTIME."

    As the two skeletons jogged away, a third stepped out of the shadows of an alley.  Sans dropped his cigarette and crushed it out underfoot, tucking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie as he watched his brother and Adelle jog off into the night.  "welp...that happened."

Chapter Text

"Why did I agree to this?" Adelle grumbled to herself as she rifled through her dresser and closet.  "I don't even own jogging clothes."

    She had gotten rid of her green tracksuit a while ago after a human had bled on it, and she had waited too long to throw it in the wash.  Apparently, the cold water trick didn't do much good when blood was given time to set.  That suit had been her only one, and she hadn't gotten around to buying another.  Oh, well...time to go to Goodwill, she supposed.

    "Getting spruced up for your big date?" sang Chad from the doorway.

    Adelle whirled around to see the blue rabbit leaning against the doorjamb.  His arms crossed, and he was grinning like a teenager.  "Do you mind?  Get out!"

    "You know, you could pretty much wear anything, and he wouldn't care," Chad continued, coming in and sitting on her bed without being invited.  "I don't see what the big deal is.  You're just 'hangin' with a friend', right?"

    "I'm warning you, Chad...Get out of my room, or I'll pull your ears down and tie 'em underneath your chin!"  Adelle pointed aggressively at the doorway, visibly fighting a smirk.  She was angry, and yet he had her on the verge of laughing.  The nerve of him!

    "What, again?"

    She had never actually done that, but right now she was tempted.  She threw down the T-shirt she was holding, dragged him off the bed, and propelled him out of her room before closing the door and locking it behind him.  "And stay out!"

    When Chad's chuckling and receding footsteps had faded, Adelle sifted through the pile of clothes on her bed and came up with a red T-shirt with the words 'Run Like You Stole Something' printed in yellow letters on the front.  Well...she was going jogging.  She emerged from her room wearing the T-shirt, forgetting all about Chad until he gleefully pointed to her shirt.  "What?"

    "Does this mean you stole his heart?"  Chad clasped his hands underneath his chin and made delicate smooching noises at her.

    Adelle stared in absolute shock, her mouth opening and closing as she struggled to think of something bad enough to call him.

    "Maybe he'll even take you to the bone zone!"

    Why that little...

    "Oh, that's it!"  Adelle only had the faintest idea of what he was referring to, but she did not appreciate the implication at all, and the next thing Chad knew she was tackling him to the floor.  The two of them rolled around for a bit, she trying to pin him and make him say 'Uncle', and he trying desperately to grab one of the couch cushions to hit her with.

    Burgerpants peeked out of the bathroom with his toothbrush poking out of his mouth and a blasé expression on his face before retreating back into the bathroom to spit out a mouthful of foam.  "Wrestling on the floor.  It must be Tuesday."

    When Adelle met Papyrus at the park, she was privately amused at the fact that his shirt said 'Jogboy' on the front of it, and he was wearing a running headband.  He looked like he had something on his mind, but she wasn't sure what.  "I like your shirt."

    "NYEH-HEH-HEH!  BUT OF COURSE!  HMM...'RUN LIKE YOU STOLE SOMETHING'?" Papyrus read her shirt's caption aloud to himself and grinned.  

    "Well, it's the closest thing I have to a jogging outfit.  I had a tracksuit, but...well, I had to toss it." she said evasively, and he didn't ask.  Instead, he dug around in his pocket before handing her something.  

    A green running headband?

    "I HAD EXTRAS.  IT'S ALL PART OF THE LOOK, AND I NOTICED THAT YOU WEAR A LOT OF GREEN!"  

    "Thanks.  Do you want it back afterwards?" Adelle slipped it on, feeling kind of silly to be wearing the thing, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings.  Besides, what did she care about what a few humans thought?  They already thought she looked weird.

    "NO, YOU CAN KEEP IT.  SHALL WE?" He jerked his chin at the park gate, and she nodded.

    While they stretched in preparation for their workout, Adelle noticed that Papyrus would frown when he thought she wasn't looking.  He almost seemed to be worried about something.  Did it have to do with her, or was it something else?  She didn't want to pry into his business if it was something private, but he usually wasn't the type to make that face.  "Something on your mind?"

    Papyrus straightened up from a side stretch, placing his hands on his hips.  Finally, he sighed and admitted, "YEAH.  BUT I DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THE DAY."

    Adelle rose from a walking lunge and faced him, quite serious now.  "We can do this another day, if you're not feeling up to it..."

    "NO, I HAVE SOME ENERGY TO BURN OFF," he replied, though the word he probably meant was 'anxiety'.  "LET'S GO.  I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S GOING ON WHILE WE JOG."

    She fell into step beside him as he set the pace.  "Did I do something?"

    "NO, IT ISN'T YOU.  IT'S FRISK..." He glanced at her, then looked straight ahead at the winding path before them.  "THEY'VE HAD A STOMACH ACHE FOR THE PAST FEW DAYS, AND TODAY IT'S REALLY BAD.  TORIEL WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE THEM TO THE DOCTOR TODAY.  SHE TOLD SANS, AND SANS TOLD ME."

    Not knowing what else to say, Adelle just nodded and let him talk.

    "FRISK IS A TOUGH LITTLE KID!  TO DO WHAT THEY DID, THEY HAD TO BE.  IT'S RARE FOR THEM TO COMPLAIN.  BUT THEY'RE VERY DETERMINED!  THEY'LL GET THROUGH THIS, I JUST KNOW IT!" He grinned, but she was beginning to learn his different smiles.  This was his 'I'm upset and trying not to be' smile.

    "Hey, they probably just ate something that didn't agree with them.  I'm sure they're fine," She smiled thinly.  The pang of worry she felt for a kid she only met once took her by surprise.

    "YEAH, YOU'RE RIGHT.  TORIEL IS KIND OF...'SMOTHERY'.  SHE PROBABLY JUST WANTS TO BE SAFE!"

    Adelle nodded, remembering all too well what it was like to have to function as both sister and parent, and how overprotective it had made her.  Not that it made a difference in the end... "That's understandable."

    Conversation was a bit lighter after that, and they spent the rest of their jog grouching about their roommates' habits.  And Sans was both brother and roommate, so there was also that history.  No, he still hadn't picked up his sock.  No, Adelle still hadn't gotten one of her roommates to admit to repeatedly taking her mac and cheese, and she jokingly told him that she had thought about taping a set mouse trap to one of the boxes.

    "THAT WOULD WORK.  YOU'LL CATCH HIM IN A 'SNAP'!  NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!"

    Funny...Papyrus didn't seem to mind puns very much when he was the one making them!

    "You really have spent too much time around your brother!" Adelle feigned disgust, and Papyrus began to loudly deny it when his phone made a trilling chime, letting him know he'd just received a text.  This happened two more times immediately afterwards, and Papyrus had his phone out in about three seconds.

    They slowed to a walk as Papyrus checked the messages, and after taking five more steps Adelle realized that Papyrus wasn't right next to her.  She turned to look at him, and an internal wave of cold swept over her.  His face had lost all expression, and he actually seemed to grow pale, the bones of his face taking on a slightly bleached look.  She didn't even know that was possible for their kind.  "Papyrus?  What's wrong?"

   
    "FRISK IS IN THE HOSPITAL.  UM...SANS SAID THEY--THE DOCTOR, OR NURSE, OR WHATEVER, THEY THINK IT'S THEIR APPENDIX.  WHAT'S AN APPENDIX?"

    Adelle didn't know, and she shook her head as she approached him.  "I'm not sure.  It must have something to do with stomachs, right?"

    He was already looking it up on his phone, and if he had lips he would have been biting his lower one.  "OH, HERE IT IS.  IT'S AN ORGAN IN THE HUMAN BODY.  WAIT...THEY DON'T EVEN NEED IT?"

    More confused than she wanted to admit, Adelle sidled up to him so that she could see his phone's screen.  Neither of them seemed to notice that their arms were touching.  There were more important matters at hand.  "If they don't need it, why do they have it?"

    "I DON'T KNOW.  HM...APPENDICITIS...OPERATION..." Papyrus was accessing YouTube now, and they both cringed slightly at the thumbnail image.  On a phone, though, it didn't look too awful.

    Adelle was too late to warn him.  As his finger hovered over the link, she only got half of her warning out before he accessed it.  "Maybe you shouldn't--Oh, dear GOD!"  She quickly turned her face away.

    "HURK!" Papyrus covered his mouth and quickly handed her the phone, staggering off the path to heave into the bushes.

    One might question how a skeleton could be sick at all, but if it came to that, how did they eat?  Or move, talk, reproduce, and conjure bone weapons?  They simply could.  And at that moment, Papyrus's body magically rejected everything he'd eaten that day.  Without a stomach, where he kept it was a mystery, but they way it came out was more or less the same as it would have been for a human.  In short, it was unpleasant and embarrassing.

    Adelle didn't feel much better, but she laid a comforting hand on the back of Papyrus's neck, closing out of the YouTube video and looking politely away from his puddle of sick.  "I know.  Shocked me too.  You'll be all right in a minute."

    He straightened, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.  His hands were shaking.  He seemed too shocked to be embarrassed. "THEY'RE...REALLY GONNA DO THAT TO FRISK?"

    She gave his back a little pat, still trying to do the mental equivalent of a data wipe.  "Oh, they...they have them go to sleep for that."

    "WHO COULD SLEEP THROUGH THAT?" Papyrus half-shrieked, gesturing at the phone without looking at it.

    Boy, he was really upset!  "No, sweetie, they give them something to..."  She almost said 'knock them out', but he was already freaking out, so she put it another way.  "They'll go to sleep, and they won't feel anything during the operation.  But you said the doctors only think that's what it is, right?  It could just be a regular old stomach ache."

    "NO...THEY'RE PRETTY SURE THAT'S WHAT IT IS."  He took a few deep breaths before something dawned on him.  "DID...YOU JUST CALL ME 'SWEETIE'?"

    Oh, piss...

    "Er...yeah.  Sorry, it's habit..."  She didn't explain how, though.  She used to call her brother that when he got upset, and she sometimes called her roommates that, albeit facetiously.  With Papyrus, though, it...well, it was different.  She had slipped up.  "I won't do it again."

    "N-NO, IT'S FINE!  I DON'T MIND.  BUT...DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT..."  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and she didn't have to look to know what he was referring to.

    "I won't."

    "I'M SORRY TO CUT OUR RUN SHORT, BUT I HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.  I WANT TO GET THE FULL STORY.  SANS WAS FRUSTRATINGLY VAGUE."  He took back his phone, then hesitated before asking in a voice that was almost meek, "...COME WITH ME?"

    She removed her headband, stuffed it into her pocket, and nodded.  "Sure.  But first, I think you need one of these."

    Papyrus sighed gratefully as she wrapped her arms around him, and he hugged back tightly.  "I'LL NEVER TURN THOSE DOWN!"

Chapter Text

Papyrus was not at all happy to learn that Frisk had been taken back for surgery not ten minutes before he and Adelle arrived at the hospital, and that the texts he had received from Sans were sent a few hours before he got them.  If it wasn't for some sort of glitch with his phone, he would have been able to see Frisk before they were taken to the operating room!

    "sorry, bro.  don't take this out of conTEXT, but the kid's a little trooper.  gave us a thumbs-up as they were wheeling them back."

    Papyrus didn't even notice the pun.  He took out his phone, checked to see if he'd missed anymore messages, then fiddled around on the internet.  He didn't know that they weren't supposed to have their phones turned on in the hospital, but no one told him to turn it off again.

    Adelle saw some people she recognized, and one she didn't.  Toriel was there, of course, and Sans stuck close to her side, telling her jokes to lift her spirits.  The former king, Asgore, was also there.  The seats were too narrow for him, save for the two uncomfortable vinyl couches, but he didn't trust them with his weight and simply stood where he wouldn't be in anybody's way.  Adelle knew him, of course; there was hardly a man, woman, non-binary being or child from the Underground who didn't know him.  He greeted Adelle warmly, but it was unclear if he remembered her or not.

    Undyne was there as well, and so was a short, overweight female triceratops-like monster with glasses.  This was the person Adelle didn't recognize.  Undyne introduced her as her girlfriend, Alphys.

    "Nice to meet you," Adelle said, amiably enough, though this building made her very nervous and she didn't smile.  "I'm Adelle."

    "Y-yeah, Undyne said Papyrus h-had a new friend," Alphys gave the two tall skeletons a knowing smile, and that was the end of that interaction.  No one was feeling especially chatty, other than Papyrus.  Mettaton was also there, apparently, but with nothing else to do he had decided to give the patients a thrill and hand out autographs.

    If Adelle had known what a huge Mettaton fan Papyrus was, she would have taken his disinterest in tracking down his idol as a warning sign.

    As Adelle shared one of the couches with Papyrus, with an elderly female human crammed against her other side, she listened to Papyrus prattle and tried to keep herself calm.  She was used to crowds.  It had practically been standing room only when she and Tahoma still lived in the Capital.  Even above ground, Adelle lived in the outskirts of Ebott City, so there was rarely a time when she wasn't within spitting distance of a human (and she had been spat on once or twice).  

    What she was not used to was being in a building full of humans in various stages of medical distress.  The waiting room was packed.  A few human children fidgeted and tried to wander away from their parents, but they were just as trapped in this room as she was.  For the children, their parents restricted their movement.  For her, she was held there by a self-imposed obligation.

    She felt the old woman pluck at her sleeve before firmly gripping her arm.  Turning her head to look at the lady incredulously, Adelle leaned away.

    "Are you real?"

    Ugh.  

    "I'm as real as you are," Adelle realized she was leaning on Papyrus, who had stopped talking to give her a puzzled look, and she straightened up again.

    "I just thought someone set one of the medical dummies here.  You were sitting so still." The woman replied, completely serious, as if she saw nothing wrong with that remark.

    Adelle just shook her head and kept her thoughts to herself.  She wasn't in the mood to have an altercation with a geriatric human today, and it didn't seem like the woman had been intentionally rude.

    Papyrus got up and began to pace, and the woman nudged Adelle with her handbag, urging her to move over a bit.  Adelle moved over one inch, placing her hand on Papyrus's spot so that people would know it was still taken.  The woman huffed, but didn't do anything else.  Adelle thought that the woman's lap would do just fine as a place to put her handbag, thank you very much.

    Nearly an hour passed.  Papyrus was out of his seat as much as he was in it, and even Undyne was losing patience with him.  Finally, when Undyne threatened to suplex him if he didn't sit down and the person at the desk told him that he would be escorted out if he couldn't stop annoying the other people in the waiting room, Papyrus trudged sadly to the couch and sat down, resting his chin in his hands.  Undyne looked guilty, and when she made eye contact with Adelle, she nodded in Papyrus's direction.

    Adelle understood the message well enough.  She was supposed to be there to support Papyrus, right?  Maybe just sitting beside him wasn't enough, especially if he wouldn't stay in his seat for more than two minutes at a time.

    She nudged his elbow with her own, and he looked over at her.  "C'mon, let's go check out the gift shop."

    "WHAT IF IT'S OVER, AND I'M NOT HERE?" he protested, forgetting that he was supposed to be confident and strong.  This had really shaken him up!

    "It'll still take them a while to wake up from the anesthesia.  You won't miss anything."

    Papyrus looked down again and sighed.

    Wow.

    Adelle put her arm around him, looking surprised when he rested his head on her shoulder.  A dusting of green appeared on her cheekbones, and it grew brighter when Alphys made a little 'squee' noise.  "Hey...come on, they'll be okay."

    "I KNOW," he sat up straight and forced a smile.  "DO YOU THINK THE GIFT SHOP HAS PUZZLES?"

    "Probably.  We won't know until we check it out."

    Papyrus got up and headed out, walking in the wrong direction, and Adelle hurried after him to correct him.  The old lady promptly put her handbag on the couch beside her and branched out.  The couch was now Granny's!

    Alphys grinned and whispered in Undyne's fin-like ear.  "I ship it!"

    Undyne rolled her eyes (well, her eye), unsure whether she approved of this or not, but at least the other skeleton provided Papyrus with a distraction.  

    Sans watched Papyrus and Adelle leave, his face pinched in a thoughtful little frown.  Adelle was just a friend...right?

    Papyrus and Adelle perused the tiny shop's wares, and Papyrus picked out a pink and purple teddy bear for Frisk.  "I WONDER WHAT THEIR FAVORITE COLOR IS..." he mused.

    "You can ask them when they wake up," Adelle replied, standing in front of the magazine rack.  'Cosmopolitan Magazine'?  Pff, no.  'Good Housekeeping'?  Ew.  Well, the recipes were good, but other than that?  Snoozeville.  Oh, here they were.  "I found the puzzle books."

    Papyrus came over to investigate, and he visibly deflated.  "THEY'RE ALL CROSSWORDS...WELL...I'LL GRAB ONE FOR SANS, I GUESS."  He leaned forward and took one.  Then, as an afterthought, he took a second one.  "I THINK FRISK LIKES THESE.  AT LEAST, THEY NEVER SAID THEY DIDN'T LIKE THEM.  PERSONALLY, I PREFER A NICE JUNIOR JUMBLE."  He was trying very hard to sound normal, like nothing was wrong, but he was beginning to breathe a little too quickly.  His hands were shaking, and the text on the magazines was blurring in and out.

    The male cashier looked annoyed at Papyrus's volume, but he didn't say anything.  

    "There's a drug store that's not too far from here.  I think they have jumbles as well as word searches." Adelle suggested.

    "NO.  I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE, IN CASE FRISK WAKES UP."

    "Well, that's okay, I'll go--"

    "NO!" he cried, suddenly looking very close to panic.  

    The cashier gave a loud 'shhh', which earned him a withering glare from Adelle.  

    She led Papyrus to the far end of the tiny space where they were partially hidden from view by a standing shelf, and cocked her head.  "Hey...what's the deal?"

    "I'M SORRY.  I'M SORRY I'M ANNOYING PEOPLE!  I REALLY DON'T MEAN TO BE THAT WAY, AND THE CROSSWORDS ARE FINE, JUST PLEASE DON'T LEAVE, BECAUSE EVEN UNDYNE IS GETTING MAD AT ME, AND FRISK MIGHT DIE, AND--"  The puzzle books audibly crinkled as he gripped them too tightly, and Adelle quickly covered his mouth, her eye-sockets growing huge.  No...oh no, now she was mad at him, too!  His eye-sockets morphed into his 'sad' look as he gazed at her over the top of her hand. "MMPH..."

    Adelle took the teddy bear and the puzzle books from his shaking hands and set the objects between them and the wall, ensuring that no one coming in would be able to take them without her seeing, and wrapped her arms around him.  "Shhh..."  She held him lightly enough that he could pull away if he wanted to, but instead of doing that he buried his face in her shoulder, trying to catch his breath.  He was breathing way too quickly, as if he had just been running, and she recognized this for what it was; a mild panic attack.  "It's okay.  I'm not going anywhere.  Look, they have paper and crayons here.  If they don't have Jumbles, we'll just make our own."

    "IT'S NOT THE LACK OF JUMBLES." he wheezed.

    "I know it isn't."

    The cashier, who had been annoyed before, now looked concerned as he called to them, "Excuse me, does he need a doctor or something?"

    "No, I got it.  Thanks." Adelle called back before lowering her voice to a gentle whisper.  "Where on Earth did you get the idea that Frisk might die?"

    Papyrus gulped, struggling to pull himself together.  Come on!  He was stronger than this!  Even though he wasn't crying, this was still embarrassing, and he hated it!  Was this what Adelle had meant when she told him about sometimes feeling like she couldn't breathe?  It sucked!  "I...I LOOKED IT UP.  ON MY PHONE.  HUMANS CAN DIE FROM IT.  WHAT IF FRISK D...DIES?"

    In a rush, a part of their conversation from a few nights ago came back to Adelle.  The only thing he was afraid of, he had said, was losing the people he cared about.  And he cared about Frisk.  The thought of something going wrong with the operation had him terrified.  And 'terrified' most certainly did not look right on Papyrus!  

    Adelle shook her head and stepped back, holding his face between her hands to make sure she had his full attention.  He was breathing a little bit better, but it still wasn't back to normal.  "You listen to me, Papyrus.  They're not going to die.  They're strong, they're determined, and they're having an operation that humans have every day.  They've also got 'The Great Papyrus' rooting for them.  Right?"

    "Y-YES.  OF COURSE THEY DO."

    He took a few more deep, measured breaths, resting his forehead against hers without even thinking about how it might look.  

    "You believe in so many things.  You can believe this, too.  Right?"

    He nodded, stepping back and taking another deep breath.  Whatever this was, it had almost passed, and even though his hands felt clammy they weren't shaking anymore.  He managed a smile, looking more like himself now.  "YES.  I CAN."

    He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but at that moment his phone began to go off.  He had it out of his pocket in a flash, and he answered it on the second ring.  "SANS?"

    Adelle waited, hoping that whatever Sans had to say wouldn't make her into a liar.  When Papyrus's face lit up with a 100-Watt grin, she sighed.  It was good news.  Thank God!

    "Y-YEAH, WE'RE COMING UP NOW!  OH...THEY'RE NOT AWAKE YET?  WELL...YEAH, OKAY.  HEY, DOES--OH.  HE HUNG UP."  Papyrus put his phone away, beaming now as he seized Adelle in a rough hug.  In his enthusiasm, he nearly knocked over a display.  "FRISK IS OUT OF SURGERY!  SANS TOLD ME IT WENT WELL, AND THEY'RE FINE!"

    "D'oof!  That...that's great, Papyrus.  But you're crushing me."

Chapter Text

    Even after the surgery was over and Frisk was in recovery, the monsters still weren't allowed in, save for Toriel.  After learning that it could still take Frisk quite a while to wake up, and even longer to be up to having visitors, everyone debated with themselves and with each other whether they would go or stay.  

    In the end they all stayed, but waiting patiently was never Papyrus's strong suit.  Adelle could just sit quietly and entertain herself with her own thoughts, but Papyrus needed more visual stimulation, otherwise he got extremely antsy.  

    After frowning at a human who wondered out loud whether or not Papyrus had ADHD, whatever the hell that was, Adelle got out the legal pad and one of the boxes of crayons she had bought at the gift shop.  "I don't know about ADHD, but someone has a case of 'rude human-itis'..." she muttered, earning a snicker from Undyne.

    "WHAT ARE YOU WRITING?" Papyrus leaned over to look, and saw that she was filling up the page with rows of dots.

    "You've heard of the game 'Dots and Boxes', haven't you?"

    It turned out that he had, and he happily accepted her offer to play.  They took turns connecting two adjacent dots with a horizontal or vertical line, and when one of them managed to close off a box they wrote their initial inside it to keep track of the points.  They chatted among themselves, oblivious to the stares they were getting.

    "So, Sans still reads you bedtime stories?" Adelle asked, drawing a line with her green crayon and writing an 'A' in the box she'd just made.

    "IT'S A TRADITION!" Papyrus replied, not at all self-conscious about it.  "WE'VE BEEN DOING IT SINCE WE WERE BABY BONES.  BACK THEN, HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY READ IT, YOU KNOW.  HE JUST...SORT OF MADE UP THE STORY HIMSELF, DID THE VOICES.  ACTUALLY, HE STILL KIND OF DOES THAT.  SOMETIMES, I READ TO HIM INSTEAD.  IT'S SOMETHING WE'VE ALWAYS DONE."

    "Ah..." Adelle nodded thoughtfully as they quickly filled up the page.  

    "I GUESS IT IS KIND OF SILLY, HUH?"

    Adelle seemed to have forgotten that Sans was even in the room.  "Mm...maybe a little, but so what?  If it makes you both happy, I don't see the problem."

    Undyne, who had been eavesdropping along with everyone else, threw back her head and burst out laughing.  "Oh my God, that's so cute!  Lemme guess; Fluffy Bunny?"

    "YES!  IT'S MY BIG FAVORITE!" grinned Papyrus, filling in the last box.  "I WIN!  ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS!  NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

    A few of the humans in the waiting room groaned, and one of them snapped at him to shut up, and he made an effort to lower his voice.  

    "LET'S PLAY AGAIN!"

    "Sure, why not?"

    Alphys had been watching the two skeletons very intently, and at this point she could no longer contain herself.  "So, how long have you two been dating?"

    Adelle accidentally drew a dash when she meant to draw a dot, and she fumbled the crayon before dropping it.  She busied herself with retrieving it while Papyrus stared at Alphys in a comical mixture of horror and astonishment.

    "W-WE'RE NOT DATING!  I MEAN, NOT THAT SHE ISN'T WORTH DATING, BECAUSE...I MEAN...N-NEITHER OF US IS REALLY LOOKING FOR ANYTHING LIKE THAT RIGHT NOW, BUT IF WE WERE, UM...UH...ADELLE, HELP ME OUT HERE..." This last he sort of hissed out of the corner of his mouth, his face so orange it was practically glowing.

    Hearing him vehemently deny the suggestion that they were dating, even though they weren't, caused Adelle's face to burn green with her own blush, and she tried to break the tension with a joke.  "Pardon me,  that's my ego you're stepping on!"  She grinned to show that she wasn't actually upset (although part of her was just a tiny bit disappointed), and she shook her head at Alphys.  "We're not dating.  More like 'hanging out'.  I, uh...just remembered.  I have to...er...go to the bathroom.  Excuse me."

    She got up and walked out, and as soon as she was out of their line of vision she slapped the side of her skull.  Go to the bathroom?  Of all the lame excuses!  Well...actually, she might as well go in there anyway and splash some water on her face.  

    Papyrus watched her go, wondering if he had hurt her feelings.  And, if he had, did that mean she actually wanted to date him?  This was a catastrophe!  The last time he'd dated someone (which was, coincidentally, the first time), it had ended with him being unable to feel any sort of romantic attachment to them, making him wonder if he was even capable of such a feeling.  In retrospect, it was actually a good thing that things had worked out the way they did  The last person he'd 'dated' was Frisk, and having never seen a human before, he hadn't realized at the time that Frisk was still a child.  That definitely would have been weird!  Not to mention ten kinds of wrong.  He tried not to think about that!

    But Adelle wasn't a child.  She was a skeleton, like him.  She was about his age.  She liked puzzles and spaghetti, and she put up with his quirky behavior when many others were annoyed by it.  That wasn't to say she never got annoyed with him, but like Undyne she didn't stay annoyed for long.  But...he didn't like her the way he liked Undyne.  He didn't look at Adelle like a sister, and...oh, no...he thought she was cute!  Oh, this was a disaster!

    Also, when had it started?  Surely, not when she had tripped and fallen into his arms that first night!  

    "you okay, bro?"

    Papyrus jumped and looked down, realizing that Sans had come over and was now sitting in Adelle's chair.  He was actually sitting on the legal pad, staring up at his younger, taller brother.  Papyrus also noticed that Alphys was no longer in the room.

    "YEAH...WHERE'S ALPHYS?"

    "got me," Sans shrugged his shoulders.  "she left after your friend did."

    Papyrus had an inkling as to why Alphys had left; probably to get 'the deets' from Adelle.  Well, he was too late to stop her, then.  "SANS...I THINK I HAVE A PROBLEM."

    Sans thought back over the past two months or so, especially the last two weeks.  Adelle definitely had her share of problems, and she could be quite a grouch when she wanted to be.  Still, she had gone out of her way to avoid hurting his brother.  She'd loused up her effort pretty good, but Sans had to give the girl her props for trying to do what she thought was the right thing.  When she learned that she'd hurt Papyrus, she corrected her mistake.  She was good to him.  And now she was making an effort to behave herself with that other thing.  All of this was for Papyrus.  She and Sans didn't quite mesh, but he didn't dislike her either.  If it wasn't for Alphys's misguided attempt at playing 'love doctor', this conversation could have waited for a better time.  Like, say, when they were in the privacy of their own home.  "the only problem i see is you two not knowing what you want yet."

    "I WANT TO NOT BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION." Papyrus looked down at his hands.

    "yeah.  hey, bro?"

    "HM?"

    "if you ever did wanna date her," Sans fought back a snicker when Papyrus squirmed in his seat as if his shirt tag was tickling his neck.  "i'm cool with it."

    "MNGH..." Papyrus buried his face in his hands, too embarrassed to speak.

    Alphys found Adelle leaning over the sink, water dripping from her bony face as she braced her hands on the counter.  "H-hey..."

    Adelle jumped, unintentionally flinging a few droplets of water on the shorter female.  "Uh, hi...Listen, Papyrus and I, we..."

    "I'm sorry about b-back there," Alphys interrupted her, and she seemed to mean it.  "I know you're not r-really dating.  But you two really seem to like each other, and I thought I'd just give you a little 'push'.  Y-you're so cute together!"

    Just shoot me, Adelle thought to herself.

    "I do like him.  That's the problem.  Look, he...he can't find out, okay?"  The skeleton grabbed a paper towel and wiped the remaining water from her face.

    Alphys folded her arms and leaned against the wall.  "You know, for the longest time I was afraid to tell Undyne how much I liked her," she said without a trace of her usual stutter; it seemed to fade in and out.

    "Why?" Adelle asked without much interest.

    "Because I'm kind of a nerd.  And...because I did some things I'm not proud of.  I was afraid that if she knew about it, she'd never want to talk to me again."  Alphys inspected her claws, picking off a dead scale or two.  "She didn't care about the nerd thing.  As for the other...when she heard the full story, the first thing she did was hug me.  You've heard of the...the Amalgamates?"

    Adelle lightly rubbed her pointed chin, trying to remember, but one could not remember what they never knew about in the first place.  "Umm...I don't think so, but I know what the word means.  Combining two or more things, right?"

    "Y-yes..."  The stutter was back.  "I don't l-like to talk about it.  But it still worked out with the two of us.  Maybe...maybe you should ask Papyrus out.  What do you think?"

    This bathroom was feeling more and more cramped.  Adelle shook her head, looking away.  "Papyrus has definitely seen me at my worst...but I'm no good for him.  I've done some things, too.  He knows about them.  He wouldn't like me that way after that.  Besides, you heard what he said.  He's not interested."

    Now Alphys looked sheepish.  "He said what he said because I put the two of you on the spot.  You denied it, too, if I recall."

    "Okay, why am I even talking about this with you?" Adelle wadded up her paper towel and threw it into the trash.  "Look, I get that you were trying to help, but if anything is going to happen, it'll happen on its own.  Right?"

    "Well, I don't kn-know...Frisk sort of gave me a push, and if it wasn't for that--"  But Adelle had already left the bathroom.  "Oh well..."

    Up until Frisk was ready for visitors, Adelle was quiet, as usual, and Papyrus was unusually silent.  Visiting hours were from 11AM to 8PM, and only two people were allowed in the room at a time.  

    Sans and Papyrus were having their turn, and Papyrus's voice could be heard clearly from where they were.  Adelle hung back because she had only met Frisk once, and to be honest, she didn't really feel like she was a part of this.  She admitted as much to Asgore when he asked.

    "Ah...but you're still here," the former king smiled down at her.  

    "I was out jogging with Papyrus when he got Sans's texts.  I'm friends with Papyrus, and he's friends with Frisk, so..." Adelle rubbed her upper arms as if chilled, but her face was turning bright green.  

    "You're a part of this.  You're here, and that's all that matters."

    Sans and Papyrus trooped out of the room, and Papyrus was grinning as wide as she'd ever seen him.  "FRISK IS ASKING FOR YOU, ADELLE!"

    Her eye-sockets widened and she pointed to herself.  Papyrus nodded, and Toriel motioned for her to come forward.  "I don't know..."

    "Go on, child," Asgore gently nudged her to get her moving, which she reluctantly did.

    Why would Frisk want to see her?

    She entered the room behind Toriel, and Frisk smiled groggily up at her.  Adelle return the smile and asked, "How're you feeling, Frisk?"

    "I'm okay," Frisk replied hoarsely.  "Papyrus said the construction paper and crayons were your idea.  Thanks."

    It was at that moment that Adelle slipped up in a really big way.  "Well...I didn't know what to get you.  My little brother liked to color, so I thought--"  She abruptly stopped speaking, and she didn't miss Toriel's soft gasp. 

    Frisk gave a slow nod and whispered, "So, that's  why.  M'sorry."

    "Doesn't matter," Adelle said a little too brightly, her smile too big and plastic to be real.

    "Yes, it does..." Frisk mumbled, still hazy from the pain meds, but completely lucid.  "That's why I make you sad."

    Toriel smoothed back their hair.  "Frisk..."

    Adelle hadn't meant to bring it up.  Seeing that the child felt responsible in some way for bringing up painful memories, she felt an immediate urge to put them at ease.  She hesitantly gripped Frisk's hand.  "You don't make me sad, Frisk.  I'm glad I met you.  And I want you to do something for me, okay?"

    "Mwhat?"

    "I want you to rest and get better.  And don't worry about me.  Can you do that?"

    Frisk nodded their head, then gave a wide yawn without covering their mouth.  

    Adelle was briefly surprised at the sudden glimpse of the inside of a human mouth, but she didn't mention it.  She said her goodbyes and left, trying to ignore the look of pity she was getting from Toriel.  Papyrus got her attention, and she forced herself to meet his eye-sockets.

    "IF YOU'RE READY, I'LL DRIVE YOU HOME."

    "Um...actually, it's not that far.  I can walk."

    Papyrus rubbed the back of his skull, then gestured for her to follow him into the hallway.  "ACTUALLY, I WAS HOPING WE COULD...UM...TALK."

    Oh, crap.

    And everyone was watching them, too!  Adelle looked right back at them, but she held back from giving them the finger.  That wouldn't have been at all polite, and there were children present.  If Sans would just wipe that shit-eating grin from his face, that would have been fantastic!

    "Yeah, okay."

Chapter Text

     The drive home, or what started out as the drive home, was completely silent at first.  It had begun to rain, so Papyrus drove his red convertible with the top up.  Adelle watched the back-and-forth swipe of the windshield wipers, wondering when Papyrus was going to speak.  Hadn't he wanted to talk to her about something?

    What was that 'click-click, click-click' sound?  Even though she herself didn't drive a car, it only took her a second or two to figure it out.  "Something wrong?"

    "UM, NO!  WHY DO YOU ASK?"

    "Well, for one thing, you haven't said a word after telling me you wanted to talk.  Second, you're driving with your blinker on."  Adelle pointed at the blinking green arrow on the dashboard.

    "OH," Papyrus turned it off, flushing with embarrassment.  The silence stretched on for another two minutes before he spoke again.  "I WAS THINKING ABOUT WHAT ALPHYS SAID.  AND ABOUT WHAT WE SAID."

    "Yeah, well...we were both kind of called out in public, so I think whatever we said was more reflex than anything else," she returned, dreading what might (or might not!) come next.

    "YES, THAT'S TRUE.  BUT NOW, I WONDER...HAVE WE BEEN FLIRTING?"

    "Ehh...Papyrus, I don't even know how to flirt.  And I never had time to date before.  Sure, I've had a couple crushes, but nothing ever came of it.  I was always too busy with...too busy to date.  Or flirt.  Or do any of that stuff, so I might or might not have flirted by accident."  She was playing with her shirttail.

    "OH...ADELLE?" Papyrus's voice shook a little now.  His legendary confidence was nowhere to be seen.  

    "Yeah?"

    "WHAT ARE WE, EXACTLY?" He risked a glance at her to gauge her expression, but she was looking out the window.

    "Well...you said before that you didn't want to date.  So did I, really...so, I guess that makes us friends."

    "AH," Papyrus tried not to sound as disappointed as he felt.  He nearly forgot to signal as he made a left-hand turn.  "FRIENDSHIP IS VERY GREAT.  LIKE YOU."

    Adelle made a small, frustrated sound as she continued to look out the window.  Headlights from the vehicle behind them flashed twice in the rear-view mirror.  "I know what we are, but I don't know what I want us to be.  I just know that I like you a hell of a lot."

    "I FEEL THE SAME WAY!  THEREFORE, I WILL OVERLOOK THE SWEARING.  JUST THIS ONCE!" He nudged her, and after a brief, nervous chuckle, he continued, "OH, WHAT THE HECK, LET'S TRY IT!"

    "'What the heck'?  I'm shocked."  Adelle deadpanned, then cocked her head.  "Try what, exactly?"

    "ADELLE!  I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GO ON A DATE WITH YOU!"

    She very nearly laughed, but managed to keep it back in case he took it as her laughing at him.  What a lovable doofus!  "Are you sure you're not just doing this because Alphys couldn't keep her yap shut?"

    Papyrus frowned as he tried to remember what he had read in the Dating Rulebook.  The correct response, according to the book, was to say 'yes' or 'no', but she hadn't said either.  She wasn't sticking to the script!  Could it be that the Dating Rulebook didn't have all the answers?  He gulped, trying to play it cool.  "I JUST THINK THAT, WHATEVER OUR ULTIMATE FEELINGS ARE, WE SHOULD BE UNAFRAID TO EXPLORE THEM."

    Adelle knew that she should turn him down.  It would be the kindest thing she could do, cutting him loose and letting him go on with his life.  She couldn't remain on the fence about something like this.  Hadn't she learned her lesson before?  It wasn't Undyne's warning that had stuck with her; it was the knowledge that she had made him cry in the past, because she was too cowardly to tell him to stay away from her.  But did she really want him to stay away from her?

    No.  No, she didn't.  She had no idea where things would go if they dated, but now that the subject had really been brought up, she was presented with a choice.  And she was leaning heavily towards yes.

    Before she could say anything, however, the van behind them lightly tapped against Papyrus's back bumper.

    "WHAT IN THE WORLD?" Papyrus began to slow down, but Adelle grabbed his arm.

    "No, just keep going."  There was an edge in her voice, and Papyrus automatically complied, bending to the voice of authority.

 
    "WHAT'S WRONG?  SHOULDN'T WE EXCHANGE INSURANCE INFORMATION?"

    "I think that truck has been following us for a while, but it didn't really click until now.  They did that on purpose."  She turned in her seat, as much as her seat-belt would allow, and tried to count how many people were in the van.  Four silhouettes, maybe five.  

    "BUT WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?"

    "I don't--" Adelle began, but the van tapped them again, harder this time.  Papyrus's little sports car began to fishtail, and she yelped.

    "DON'T...DON'T WORRY, I'LL GET YOU HOME IN ONCE PIECE!" Papyrus armed the sweat from his forehead as he straightened the car out and hit the accelerator, mentally agonizing over whatever damage had been be done to his paint job.

    "No!  Whatever you do, do not lead them to the house!"  

    "WHAT, THEN?" He yelled back.  He wasn't yelling at her, but the time for pleasantries had passed.  The seriousness of their situation had begun to hit home.

    "We'll have to lose them.  If we can just reach a more populated--Papyrus, you just merged onto the freeway!"

    "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!"

    "Okay...okay, it's okay, we'll just...There's an exit coming up.  If we take it, we can loop back into town.  I'll tell you when."

    The van was trying to come up beside them now, and Papyrus floored it.  This wasn't anything like his battle with Frisk, where he sent bones their way and they dodged them!  Nor was it anything like his training sessions with Undyne.  This wasn't combat, and it wasn't a fair fight.  However, they wouldn't do very well if they panicked, and his jaw set resolutely as he weaved in and out of traffic in an attempt to lose their pursuers.  Adelle had also managed to calm herself after the initial fright, and he was proud of how bravely she was dealing with this.

    "WE'LL BE OKAY."

    "Yeah," she said woodenly, alternating between keeping an eye-socket on the van and looking for the exit.  Then, unable to suppress a relieved sigh, she pointed.  "There's the exit.  You'll want to merge right.  This should actually take us pretty close to the park.  If we pass that, we'll eventually come to a police station..."

    "OKEY-DOKE!"

    Papyrus took the exit, frowning as the van followed them.  Adelle hadn't been the only one who was keeping tabs on their surroundings, and he realized that another van had joined the first.  The drivers were both on their cell phones, and he had an awful suspicion that they were talking to each other.  "ADELLE?"

    "Yeah?"

    She wasn't looking at him.  She had noticed the other van, too.  Her eye-sockets had begun to throw off an acid-green glow.  Aside from when she used her magic, this tended to happen when she was extremely angry or scared.  At the moment she was both, but that green glow was the only outward sign.

    "I DON'T THINK WE'RE GOING TO MAKE IT TO THE POLICE STATION."  

    "Nope."

    "WE MAY HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO STAND OUR GROUND AND FIGHT THEM...PERHAPS THEY CAN BE REASONED WITH."

    "Papyrus...you're a good person.  Maybe too good.  These...people...don't play by the rules.  They don't care about what's right, or what's fair.  If we stand our ground, we'll have to fight to kill.  And we'll die.  Do you hear me?  Our only choice is to run."

    "DEFEATIST..." he muttered.

    "There are at least four humans in each van, and we haven't been able to lose them.  Even if they obeyed combat etiquette, we're grossly outmatched."  She gritted her teeth as he took a turn sharply, and she saw the park gates in the distance.  This might be a good thing.  She knew the park like the back of her hand!  If she could get Papyrus to cooperate with her, they might be able to lose them in there!

    "I HATE THIS."

    "I hate it, too..." She agreed before going rigid in her seat.  Several loud popping noises echoed impossibly loud in the night, accompanied by metallic clangs, and both windshields became a spiderweb network of cracks.

    "OH MY GOD, THEY'RE SHOOTING AT US!"

    Unable to see where he was going, Papyrus lost control of his car.  It spun around twice; the car alarm went bonkers, and the shooting continued.  With no time to think, Papyrus grabbed Adelle and forced her down, covering her body with his own as bullets whizzed within a hair's breadth of his head.

    The shooting abruptly stopped.  Perhaps the humans had paused to reload.  Adelle struggled loose of his grip, fumbling her seat-belt loose and turning to kneel on her seat and peek over the top of it.  Her eyes shone like green lanterns, and on her face was a glare of determination.  

    Papyrus followed her line of sight, and saw that his rear windshield was completely gone.  The humans, eight of them--no, ten--had piled out of their vans and were approaching them at a leisurely pace.  Seeing the cold anger in her face, for a moment he wasn't sure if he should try to protect her, or the humans.  

    Adelle raised one hand to chin-level, green magic dancing up her metacarpals and sparking on the tips of her phalanges.  

    Hadn't she said that they would have to run or kill?  But...No!  She couldn't be planning to...

    She wasn't, though.  Bones materialized, as Papyrus had expected, but instead of skewering the humans with them Adelle propelled most of them into the vans.  The rest she used to keep the humans on the defensive.  She was distracting the humans from shooting them!

    If their situation wasn't so dire, Papyrus would have enjoyed watching her at work.  She wasn't as strong as he was, but she could still do some things he couldn't.  Not to be outdone, Papyrus summoned a wall of bones between them and the humans.  There was more gunfire, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off the bones, and he couldn't hold back a somewhat premature victorious laugh.  "NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

    As a final touch, Adelle used her magic to remotely set off every car alarm on the block before nudging Papyrus.  "Go!  Into the park."

    "BUT--"

    "Don't ask questions, just do as I say!  Please!"

    The edge of fear and desperation was back in her voice, and Papyrus knew what he had to do.  She had a plan, and he didn't.  There wasn't time for him to think of one.  And surely, hers was a good plan.  After all, she knew the park very well.  He quickly seized her hand, pressed it briefly to his teeth, and ducked out of the car.  

    Did he just...kiss her hand?

    A bullet managed to 'thread the needle' through a gap in the bone wall, hitting one of the tires.  The tire quickly deflated, 'Fwsssshhh!', and the car listed to the right.  Linking hands, the two skeletons disappeared into the park, spurred on by the exhilaration of terror. 

Chapter Text

     Adelle led Papyrus off the path and into a more wooded area of the park.  She couldn't hear the humans, but she had no doubt whatsoever that they hadn't given up the chase.  The storm was both good and bad; good, because it was raining hard enough to obscure their muddy footprints, as well as providing good sound cover for them; and bad, because it also masked any sounds of pursuit.

    It was also a mercy that they were both impervious to cold weather, though the feeling of their soaked clothing sticking to their bones was a bit unpleasant.  

    "HAVE THE--"

    "Shhh!"  Adelle gritted her teeth, throwing a quick look over her shoulder as they ran.  "Not yet."

    Papyrus quickly covered his mouth.  He had always had trouble with regulating his voice!  He could speak in a normal voice when he really tried, but it took a lot of concentration, and his voice would slowly rise to its normal volume (loud) after a few minutes.  The ability that most other people seemed to have would come in very handy right about now!

    No.  He could do it.  This was life or death, and he wanted the two of them to live.  He would not fail at this!  Although, maybe incorporating some hand signals would help.  Did she know sign language?  Not that it would matter if she did, because he didn't know much more than the sign for the word 'sorry'.

    They were now in an unkept area of the park, where the black raspberry bushes had been allowed to flourish.  The brambles tore relentlessly at their clothing, causing Papyrus some mental distress, but their bones came to no harm.  Yet another advantage of being a skeleton.  Papyrus frowned at her, then pointed to her and himself, pointed to the briers, then spread his arms wide in a shrug.

    "Why are we going through here?" Adelle whispered back.  He nodded as they continued to the move, and she replied, "Two reasons.  One, the vines just snap back again, so you'd have to really look to find our trail.  And two, if they come through here, they'll probably start cussing up a storm because of the thorns.  We'll be able to hear them coming."

    Papyrus nodded again, then halted when she froze at his side.  The rain had let up a little, and now he could hear what had provoked her reaction.  The sounds were distant, but they were unmistakable.  The humans were charging through the woods, their feet splashing loudly in the puddles that had formed so quickly.  They probably thought they were being quiet.

    Adelle's eye-sockets were glowing brightly, and she shut and covered them before whispering, "Down!"

    Papyrus obeyed her without question, crouching down among the thorny vines and disliking the memories those thorns brought up.  He would not think about Flowey now; instead, he would focus on the present.  It only took him a second to figure out another reason why Adelle had called a halt.  She couldn't seem to control the way her eye-sockets glowed when she was upset, and with the humans this close she would only end up acting as an involuntary beacon.  Plus, unless and until the rain picked up, the humans would be able to hear them.

    He put his arms around her, hunkering down even further so that he couldn't even see through the thicket, and being as quiet as he could be.  Which, surprisingly was very.  The rain did not make him shiver, and he didn't even need air, so the two skeletons were absolutely silent when the first human came close enough to be heard when he spoke.

    "Well, I can't see the bitch's lights anymore...I don't know where they went."

    Papyrus scowled at the use of such a word being used to describe his friend.  

    From the sound of it, only a few of the humans had followed them this far.  Maybe the rest had broken off to circle around them, but they would have had to know the park extremely well to do it in the dark.

    Another man (Papyrus dubbed him 'Human #2') snorted.  "She's here somewhere.  Keep looking."

    A third human ('Human #3') asked in a nasally voice, as if fighting a cold, "What about the boyfriend?"

    B-b-boyfriend?  Papyrus felt his face growing hot, and tried to ignore it.  This was not the time or place to act bashful!  The humans couldn't possibly know that they were still trying to sort things out for themselves, and it wasn't their business anyway!

    Human #2, who seemed to be the leader, said in a voice that was colder than that November storm.  "Dust him.  Get her alive."

    "I'm almost out of bullets."

    "Then make 'em count."

    The humans moved off again, and Papyrus became aware of the fact that Adelle had begun to tremble violently.  He was sure it had nothing to do with the cold.  He listened for a few more minutes, debating whether he should take a peek or not.  He couldn't tell how many pairs of feet had walked away.  What if one of the men had stayed behind to see if they were hiding in the bushes like mice?

    Hiding like this!  It went against everything Papyrus stood for.  If it was just him, he would have...

    Well, he probably would have been shot and killed, actually.  And where would Sans be without Papyrus to cook for him and pick up his empty ketchup bottles?

    Adelle slowly opened her eye-sockets, and they were both relieved that the green glow was gone.  "They're gone..." She wiped rainwater from her face and sighed.  She was confident that the humans wouldn't find them, but she didn't want to leave the thicket just yet.  Maybe they should just wait out the night, hoping that the commotion they had made would bring the police.

    Papyrus couldn't get over how badly she was shaking!  He lowered his voice to a whisper, something that only happened once in a blue moon, and asked her, "Have the humans ever chased you like this before?"

    She was so surprised at hearing him whisper that her shakes greatly lessened, and she shook her head.  "Never this many.  And I've never been shot at before.  But yes...this has happened before."

    He nodded, thinking he understood why she was shaking.  He kept one arm around her and rubbed her shoulder.  Again, he concentrated on whispering, though it was difficult to maintain.  "You don't have to be afraid.  I, The Great Papyrus, shall not let anything happen to you."

    Adelle gave him a rather incredulous look before cocking her head to listen.  Nothing.  They were still alone.  For however long that would last.  "I'm not afraid, Papyrus.  I'm angry.  You know how I didn't talk to you for a few weeks?"

    Papyrus looked down and nodded unhappily.  Why did she have to bring that up?  Of course, he didn't blame her for it, but he had actually cried in front of Undyne, of all people!  Yes, he could now admit to himself that such a thing had happened, and it wasn't hay-fever after all.  This was a chapter of his life that he liked to pretend didn't exist.

    Adelle could see that the memory of it hurt him, but she went on anyway.  She had to make him see!  Even if it brought him pain, he deserved to know.  "I'm sorry.  But this is exactly what I was afraid of.  You told me before that you didn't want anything to happen to me.  Well...I don't want anything to happen to you, either!  Now, here we are, dripping-wet and squatting in the bushes, and we're still far from being in the clear."

    "WE'LL--" Papyrus covered his mouth a split-second before Adelle did, and they shared a horrified look.  Curse his strident voice, why wouldn't it obey him?!  He nodded, she raised a brow ridge, and he nodded again.  They lowered their hands from his mouth, and he whispered, "We'll make it.  And then, when we do, I think we'll have a few things to talk about."

    Unsure whether he was holding this against her or if he meant that he'd want her to elaborate later on, she looked away.  

    They were silent for another half-hour, just in case Papyrus's slip had been overheard, but nothing happened.  Papyrus checked his pockets for his cell phone, which he still had, but the battery had run down.  Adelle checked her own pockets, and realized that she had forgotten her cell phone altogether.  

    Instead of a phone, she pulled out a green headband.  It was the same headband Papyrus had given her earlier that day to wear on their jog.  That already felt like it happened a lifetime ago!  

    Papyrus squinted in the dark, then smiled and brought out his own headband.  He put it on, and without a word, she did the same.  Neither of them was sure why they did this, but this act of solidarity, as tiny as it was, seemed to give them courage.

    Not that Papyrus actually needed courage; he had more than enough to spare.  But their inability to do much more than hide just didn't sit well with him, and he reminded himself that it would be wise to follow the lead of someone who knew this park inside and out.  He depended on her to get them both out safely, and he would do anything she needed him to do in order to accomplish this.

    Finally, she spoke again.  "There are hate groups."

    "What?" Papyrus was confused; her remark had seemingly come apropos of nothing

    "Do you watch the news?  Read the paper?"  When he shook his head, she nodded as if he had just confirmed a suspicion of hers.  "Maybe you should.  Human-on-monster hate crimes are on the rise.  They've started forming groups.  The majority of it is...mostly obnoxious, really.  Taunting, destruction of property, spitting on us, and so on.  But some of these humans are killing monsters, and they're doing it for fun."

    Papyrus slowly shook his head.  Killing for fun?  How could taking another person's life possibly be fun?  He himself had run into a fair amount of hatred, but it had all been the 'obnoxious' kind.  Would he feel the way she did about humans if he had been the one to lose a brother?  He didn't want to think about that.

    Adelle was nodding.  "Yes.  It's true.  Before we even came up to the surface, humans had hate groups.  They would hate anyone who didn't look like they did, or believed in a different god than they did, or didn't believe in a god at all.  And now that we're here, they have something new to focus on.  This...isn't our world anymore.  Before, we shared it with the humans.  Now there's no record of that war up here at all, and we don't really have a place in this world..."

    "Then we must make one," Papyrus whispered back, giving her hand a firm squeeze.  "We must show them that we are here to stay."

    "Weren't you listening earlier?  They were looking for me, specifically.  They...they recognized me, somehow.  You could have been killed, just for being near me!"  Adelle tried to turn away, but there really wasn't any room to move, and Papyrus only tightened his side-hug.

    "But I wasn't.  I just wish we didn't have to hide from them.  This...is kind of embarrassing."

    "Well...we haven't heard anything for a long time.  Maybe--"

    Adelle should have obeyed her misgivings and not only insisted that they stay put, but also that they stay quiet; the sound of a gunshot nearly deafened them.  

    Papyrus managed to keep from crying out as the bullet grazed his humerus, leaving behind a deep gouge in the bone and leaving him momentarily dizzy.

    Time seemed to slow for Adelle.  As Papyrus held his injured arm and tried to struggle to his feet, wanting to protect her even now, Adelle knew that she couldn't let this happen.  She held him down with a hand on his shoulder and half-rose from her crouch, her eye-sockets ablaze, and locked onto the beady-eyed gaze of a lone human.  

    The man tried to fire again, but either the gun jammed or he was out of bullets.  He tried again, and again; 'click', 'click'!

    "You little stain..." growled Adelle, raising one hand and extending it.

    Papyrus shook his head.  "DON'T...KILL HIM!"

    "You hear that, you son of a bitch?  The man you just shot is asking me not to kill you.  A monster is asking me to spare you.  I want you to remember that."  Her hand began to glow, and the human yelped as his gun flew from his hand to hers.  "This is mine now.  Run."

    The human didn't argue.  He whipped around, slipped in the mud, and went sprawling.  He whimpered as he scrambled to his feet, then pelted away as fast as he could go.

    Adelle made no move to attack him.  She was preoccupied with Papyrus; he tried not to grimace, but he was in obvious pain.  "Oh my God, Papyrus...Let me see!"

    "I'M F-FINE."

    He wasn't, and they both knew it.  The wound wasn't life-threatening, but it hurt like hell and left him feeling weak.  

    "We gotta move.  C-can you walk?"

    "HE SHOT ME IN THE ARM, NOT THE LEG," Papyrus forced a smile.  "LEAD THE WAY."

    Adelle remembered the direction the human ran in, and realized that he was running away from the park's gates.  This meant that the others, or at least some of them, were probably deeper into the park.  If she went much further, she would be leading Papyrus right to them.  But if any of them were camped out by the gates?

    The odds weren't great either way, but one way led out and one didn't.  She left the gun in the thicket; she didn't need it, and the human wouldn't look for it there, thinking she had taken it.  Keeping to the woods, she led Papyrus back the way they had come, wishing that they could afford to go slowly.  She dug through her pockets, hoping that she had a piece of monster food on her.  Unlike human food, monster food could heal physical damage.  Anything would do, even some monster candy!  She usually kept some of that in her pockets, just in case.  

    And she found a piece.  Just one.  It wouldn't completely heal him, but it was still something.  She unwrapped it, nearly dropping it, and put it to his teeth.  "Eat this.  Quickly!"

    Papyrus's jaws parted, and he accepted the little round ball of candy.  Immediately, it dissolved into pure magic, and the pain in his arm began to lessen.  It was still there, but it was bearable.  "THANKS."

    There were humans at the gate, but Adelle was actually glad to see them.  Red and blue flashing lights told her exactly who they were, and she was never so relieved to see the police.  At least, that was until the cops spotted them and drew their weapons.

    "Freeze!  Get down on the ground!  Now!"

    Papyrus glanced at her and nodded, and they did as they were told.  He knew that the policemen had no way of knowing the truth of what happened, and the only hope they had of telling their side of the story was to cooperate.  Getting put in handcuffs wasn't pleasant, though.  "AAH!"

    "Watch his arm!  He's hurt!" cried Adelle.

    "Which arm?" asked the one who put the cuffs on her and helped her to her feet.  

    "His right one.  A bullet grazed him."

    The other cop inspected Papyrus's arm and nodded to confirm it.  "Sorry, I didn't see it.  Do you have any weapons on you, sir?"

    "QUITE ALL RIGHT, OFFICER.  NO, I DON'T HAVE ANY..."  Papyrus remembered the gun Adelle took from the man who shot him, and quickly looked in her direction.

    "There is a gun in one of the thickets back there," Adelle volunteered, scowling as the officer patted her down.  "Are we under arrest?"

    "Not at the moment.  You will be detained for questioning, and if your stories check out, we will release you."

    "Why the cuffs, then?"

    "They're for our safety."

    Adelle hated the handcuffs, but she understood how all of this must look, and she felt a grudging respect for these humans.  Whether they had intended to or not, they had saved the lives of two skeletons, and she at least owed it to them to be on her best behavior.  "Ten humans shot at us and chased us through the park.  You could have shot us on sight, but didn't.  I'll cooperate with you."

Chapter Text

Adelle and Papyrus were both questioned separately at the scene, but there wasn't much point to this.  Papyrus's voice carried so well that Adelle and the officer questioning her (Officer Bill Jenson, she reminded herself; humans had strange names!) could hear him perfectly well.  The humans soon brought them together again, and continued to ask about the events of that evening.  They asked about the bones, ranging from the normal-sized ones to the massive bone wall that Papyrus had made, and the subject of property damage came up.

    "The main concern is that bone wall there.  You really did a number on the blacktop." Jenson stared up at the wall with some degree of awe, reaching out as if to touch it, then letting his hand drop again.  "I wouldn't even know how to begin processing the paperwork on this one."

    "OH, THAT WAS ME," Papyrus admitted, "I WAS TRYING TO BLOCK THE BULLETS."

    "We can dismiss those bones at any time," Adelle explained, squirming a bit in her handcuffs.  "We just haven't had a chance to yet.  Is this still a crime scene?"

    "I'm sorry; dismiss?" Jenson squinted in confusion.

    "Yes...make them disappear.  They're really just...sort of extensions of our energy.  They're no longer a part of us, but they'll just sort of disappear when we tell them to." She frowned, hoping that her next words wouldn't be taken as a threat.  "Are the cuffs really necessary?  They won't actually prevent magic use, you know."

    "Wait, back up a second.  Not you, fella," Jenson nearly laughed as Papyrus took a step back.  "You mean, you can still use magic with the handcuffs on?"

    Adelle knew she was taking a huge risk in trusting these men.  More cops had shown up, as well as a news van, but the two skeletons were being kept apart from them.  Jenson, at least, seemed reasonable.  He was pretty young, but he seemed to be a fairly good judge of a person's intentions.  "It would be difficult to focus it, but yeah.  Look, I'm not trying to threaten you.  I know there's a procedure here.  But if you can't take them off, could you at least loosen them a bit?  They're very tight."

    Jenson shared a look with the officer who stood with Papyrus (Eric something, she forgot his last name), and finally he nodded.  "If you can conjure up a bone right here, I'll believe you."

    Hmph, rude...

    Adelle sighed, her eyes beginning to glow a soft, muted green as she concentrated on making something small.  A tiny green-glowing bone, about the size of a baby's humerus, appeared in the air between them, revolving slowly like an oddly-shaped glow stick on a string.  It hung suspended between them for a few seconds before disappearing, and there was a barely audible 'poof' as the air rushed in to fill the space the bone once occupied.  She leaned back against the patrol car, exhausted.  How much magic had she used earlier?  "That's...actually the best I can do for now."

    "WE NEED TO WORK ON YOUR ENDURANCE, ADEY!" Papyrus nudged his uninjured elbow against hers.  How could he know that most of her fatigue was emotional?  Other than his agonized shout of 'OH NO, MY CAR!' from earlier, he seemed downright pleased with how things had turned out.  Yes, they were in handcuffs, but they were alive.

    "My endurance is fine, Papyrus," she nudged back, "It's just been a long day, and I, for one, could use a nice hot shower!"

    Jenson gave a low whistle before taking his handcuff key and undoing Adelle's cuffs.  "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make me regret doing this."

    "Thanks.  I won't," She sighed as the cuffs came off, and gratefully rubbed at her chafed wrists.  She saw Papyrus doing the same, and her eyes fell on the gash in his arm.  It was a pretty large divot, there was an orange stain around it from where the mixture of magic and marrow had leaked.  The piece of candy she gave him stopped the 'bleeding' and closed it somewhat, but broken bones were extremely painful.  

    Those humans were after her.  This was her fault.

    Papyrus saw her gaze stray to his arm, and he covered the cut when he saw the guilt in her eye-sockets.  Recalling a line from some movie Sans had been watching the other day, Papyrus put on a British accent (stronger than the accent he usually spoke in, which wasn't exactly British; Adelle thought of it as 'Papyrus-speak').  "IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!"

    As he'd hoped, she grinned at the reference.  It was a sad grin, but it was still something.

    Adelle reached up and buffed his skull with her palm, sort of a skeleton's equivalent to ruffling someone's hair.  "You don't even have flesh, you nerd."

    "HEY, I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK!"

    "Ahem." Jenson cleared his throat, and the skeletons immediately grew serious once more.  "Now, here's the thing.  I believe your story, but I don't think you're telling me everything.  If there's anything you're not telling me, now would be the time."

    Papyrus scratched the space above his nasal cavity with his index finger and became very interested in staring at his jogging sneakers.  He wouldn't lie; even if he wanted to, he was terrible at it!  But if he told them about Adelle, what would happen to her?

    "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me?"

    Adelle found Papyrus's hand and gave it a light squeeze, keeping eye contact with Jenson.  Papyrus shouldn't have to go through this, and she wouldn't let him get in trouble because of her.  "They were after me.  Papyrus was...just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

    Papyrus looked at Adelle and shook his head, trying to signal for her to be quiet.  Adelle seemed to miss the gesture, but Jenson picked up on it immediately and filed it away for later.

    Jenson's notebook was out, and his pencil was a blur as he scribbled down everything she said.  "Well, now, that's interesting.  The hate groups don't tend to go after specific monsters.  Did you recognize these men?  Maybe you saw each other on the street and answered back when one of them gave you some shit?"

    "No, I have no idea who they were, but obviously they recognized me."  Adelle winced as Papyrus's grip on her hand became painful.  "Papyrus, do you mind?"

    "OH, SORRY."  He let go, wishing he could just go home and eat a cinnamon bunny.  Then his arm would heal, and he would be able to think clearly again.  Like Adelle, he wanted to shower.  Hopefully, she wouldn't get herself arrested right here!

    "And how do you know they recognized you?  Did you speak with them at some point?"

    "Papyrus and I were hiding in a thicket, and we heard them talking."

    "What did they say?"

    "Um...I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something like, 'I can't see the bitch's lights anymore'.  They meant my eye-sockets."

    Papyrus frowned again.  "YOU'RE NOT A...THAT WORD; I DON'T WANT TO SAY IT.  I HATED HAVING TO HIDE, THOUGH!"

    "For all the good it did..."  Adelle noticed that Jenson was still writing, probably recording their conversation, but she couldn't find it in herself to care anymore.  Her friend had gotten hurt because of her, and she was just so tired.  

    "IF YOU SAY MY GETTING SHOT WAS YOUR FAULT, I SWEAR..." Papyrus gripped her shoulders so that she couldn't turn away from him.  He heard Jenson's pen scratching away, and he wished the man would learn a privacy!  "WHY THEY WERE FOLLOWING US DOESN'T MATTER.  IT HAPPENED.  IT'S DONE.  WE'RE ALIVE.  WE GOT OUT OF THERE ALIVE BECAUSE YOU KNOW THIS PARK SO WELL.  AND YOU DIDN'T DO A VIOLENCE!  I'M SO PROUD OF YOU FOR THAT."

    "Ahem," Jenson cleared his throat again.  "Sorry, 'do a violence'?  What does that mean?"

    "He talks that way sometimes," Adelle said quickly, wondering if she was blushing.  This was hardly the time or place!  "We weren't sure if we'd have to fight our way out."

    This wasn't precisely true, but Jenson just nodded and closed his notebook.  "I have your contact information, Papyrus.  You're free to go.  Adelle, I have a few more questions for you, and I'd like to ask them back at the station."

    Adelle's face immediately grew blank.  "Am I under arrest?"  she asked for the second time that night.

    "SHE CAN'T BE UNDER ARREST!  SHE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING!"

    "No.  But this place is too public for the questions I want to ask." Jenson put away his pen and his little notebook.  

    "Then I would like to go home now.  I'm tired and I'm dirty, and I can't think straight.  You know how and where to reach me.  I'll be happy to answer your questions later.  Tomorrow, if you want.  Just let us both go home.  Please."

    Jenson chewed at the inside of his cheek as he thought this over.  He had to admit that she looked like she was ready to fall apart like a Castlevania skeleton.  He extended a finger, pointing at her face, and the white points of light in her eye-sockets crossed to focus on it.  "Tomorrow.  And please, don't make me look like an ass by not showing up.  Okay?"

    "Thanks."

    "Don't thank me," Jenson smiled wryly.  "It would be easier to do it now and get it over with.  In any case, I actually can't arrest you."

    "...Wait, what?"

    "Humans are subject to human laws, but we're still hammering out the inter-species legal bullshit.  I can detain you for questioning, but I can't force you to go anywhere."

    "So, basically, I just spilled my guts for nothing?  Well, so to speak.  I don't actually have...guts...yeah."

    "Yup, pretty much."

    "THAT WAS SNEAKY!"

    "We're going to get to the bottom of what happened here tonight.  Sometimes we have to be sneaky to get the job done.  Do either of you need a ride home?  Your transportation is shot."

    "REALLY, OFFICER JENSON?  I JUST LOST MY DREAM CAR, AND YOU'RE MAKING PUNS?  YOU'RE AS BAD AS MY BROTHER!"

    Officer Jenson shrugged, a gesture also reminiscent of Sans, though the human wasn't aware of it.

    Adelle wasn't sure, but she thought Papyrus was fighting back tears.  Poor guy, he really loved that car!  Or maybe his arm was hurting him.  Or that all of this was happening on top of a really crappy day.  "With all due respect, I'd rather not get in your patrol car.  My place is pretty close.  We can walk there, and call someone to give him a ride home."

    "Okay, suit yourselves.  But they're still out there, you know.  You're taking a huge risk."

    Not as big of a risk as getting in the back of a patrol car, thought Adelle.

    Jenson watched the two skeletons walk off, smiling as Adelle put a comforting arm around Papyrus, who wiped at his eye-sockets when she wasn't looking.  As soon as they were out of earshot, Jenson got out his notebook again.  "Hey, Eric?"

    "Yeah, Bill?"

    "What was Asgore's phone number again?  I have a few things to discuss with him."

    "I'm really sorry about your car, Papyrus..."

    "YEAH...ME TOO.  BUT HEY, I CAN GET ANOTHER ONE.  IT WON'T BE LIKE THAT ONE, BUT..." he shrugged, then hissed as his sleeve rubbed against his arm.  "OW.  MUST REMEMBER NOT TO DO THAT."

    "Sorry..."

    "FOR WHAT?  YOU DIDN'T PULL THE TRIGGER.  I'M FINE, REALLY."  

    Adelle kept looking over her shoulder, peering down every alley they passed, and more than once she did a double take, her eye-sockets flashing.  It always turned out to be nothing, and the glow would fade.  The final time this happened, she gave a shudder that rattled her bones like a wooden wind chime.  

    "YOU'RE...REALLY SCARED, AREN'T YOU?"

    "I prefer the term 'on edge'.  How are you so calm after all that?  I almost envy you."

    Papyrus almost shrugged, but thought better of it.  "HAVING SOMEONE TO LOOK OUT FOR HELPS," he replied, and he was pleased to see her finally crack a smile.  "AHA, I SAW THAT!"

    "Heh..."  She tilted her head, looking up at him as they neared her house.  "And do I look like I need looking out for?"

    "YEAH," Papyrus's candid answer was almost quiet.  "YOU DO.  AND YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE DONE THAT FOR YOURSELF FOR SO LONG THAT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO ACCEPT IT."

    "Wh..." She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd slapped her.  "I don't...wh..."

    "NEVER MIND, IT'S OKAY."  He sighed.  Did she just flirt with him, and did he just take what she said literally, spoiling the moment?  Yeah, he probably did.  At least she didn't seem angry.

    Adelle shook herself and unlocked the door, letting him in (he paused on the mat to wipe his feet) and locking it behind them.  She flipped on the light, and called out, "Chad?  Burger?  Anybody home?"  There was no answer, much to her relief.  They wouldn't have to explain why they looked like they'd both been mud wrestling.  "Come on, I'll find you something to eat."

    Papyrus nearly said that he wasn't hungry before realizing what she meant.  He followed her into the tiny kitchen and accepted the crab apple she gave him.  He didn't know much about them, only that Gerson used to sell them in Waterfall.  Nor did he know how she had gotten her hands on one up on the surface, but then again, monster food didn't spoil.  It could have been sitting in her pantry for years, and it would still be fine.

    Before he could ask, Adelle explained, "I have a stash, just in case one of us hurts ourselves.  It's kind of running low, but I think I know where I can get more.  It should get rid of the..."

    Papyrus bit into it, and the relief was immediate.  The gash grew warm before sealing over, leaving a thin, barely visible seam on his humerus.  "THAT'S MUCH BETTER!  THANK YOU."  

    Adelle nodded, then reached out and traced the scar with a fingertip.  He nearly dropped his apple, and if he'd had skin he would have broken out in goosebumps.

    "I, um..." She halted, knowing that he would just contradict her if she apologized again.  "You can use our shower, if you want.  Most of my clothes are unisex, so I'll find you something of mine to wear.  My pants will be kinda short on you, but other than that, they should fit.  Is that okay?"

    Papyrus felt, rather than heard, a low thrumming as his soul resonated at her feather-light touch.  He nodded mutely and ate the rest of his crab apple.  The faint scar disappeared altogether, and he waited outside her bedroom door as she got him some clothes.  A few minutes later, he stood alone in her bathroom, wondering what the heck that was all about.

    She didn't lend him a pair of socks (frankly, that would have been weird!), but she did lend him one of her pairs of jeans and a white T-shirt with the slogan, 'My Other T-Shirt Is Hilarious" in plain black letters.  Papyrus decided that they would do just fine, and he draped the clean clothes over a towel rack before disrobing and balling up his socks inside his 'Jogboy' shirt and his blue running shorts.

    Showering in someone else's bathroom.  This was weird!  He blushed and reflexively covered his rib-cage when Adelle's voice filtered through the closed door.  

    "I have a plastic bag for your clothes.  Should I just hang it on the doorknob?" Adelle winced after she said that.  What the hell else was she planning on doing?  She wasn't about to just walk in on him!  And why was she so nervous?

    "OH, UH, YEAH, THAT'S GREAT, THANKS!"  Oh, good grief, his voice just cracked!  Maybe he should have waited until he got home to shower.  It wasn't as if Sans would care about a little mud getting tracked on the carpet.  Of course, he would have wiped his feet, so there would be no mud, but still!  

    Oh, this was ridiculous!  Play it cool, Papyrus, he told himself.  He was supposed to be an adult, right?  Never mind the racecar bed and the action figures; they were collector's items!

    Papyrus turned on the water, and sighed as ugly brown water swirled lazily down the drain.  He really should call Sans soon.

Chapter Text

    By the time Adelle had finished her shower and thrown on a pair of gray sweatpants and a green tank top, Papyrus was sitting on the couch with an annoyed look on his face.  "Couldn't get ahold of him, huh?"

    "NO.  IT KEEPS GOING TO VOICEMAIL.  KNOWING MY BROTHER, HE'S PROBABLY ASLEEP," sighed Papyrus, moving over a little bit so that she could sit down.  "COME TO THINK OF IT, HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE A CAR.  IS IT ILLEGAL FOR TWO PEOPLE TO RIDE A MOPED?"

    A moped?  Somehow, Adelle wasn't surprised.  "Probably.  In any case, I don't imagine it would be very comfortable."

    "UNDYNE ISN'T ANSWERING EITHER..." he tossed Adelle's cordless phone from hand to hand, nervously eyeing his muddy shoes and his bag of dirty clothes, both of which sat by the front door.  

    "They wouldn't recognize our number.  They're probably just screening their calls."  She tensed as a car drove past the window, but the car moved on without stopping.  The beige curtains were closed, so at least no one could see inside, but after what had happened before, every sound was a possible threat.

    Papyrus listened as well, and even though he didn't stiffen as she did, he sighed as the sound of the car's engine faded.  "PROBABLY."

    I can't take this, thought Adelle as she stood and made a beeline for the liquor cabinet.  "I'm having a whiskey.  Do you want one?"

    "NO," Papyrus put the portable phone back into its cradle.  "I ACTUALLY DON'T DRINK."

    "Oh," Adelle frowned, the bottle in one hand and her shot glass in the other.  Normally she would just do her own thing and not worry about what other people thought of her.  Was he judging her for it?  This new hesitation caught her by surprise.  "Does it bother you?"

    "WELL, AFTER TONIGHT--"

    Headlights lit up the tiny front yard, and whatever Papyrus was going to say was immediately forgotten.  The two skeletons, one sitting and one standing, became as still as statues.  Someone knocked on the door, a polite triple-tap that might just as well have been a pounding fist.  Adelle silently put down the bottle and the glass and tip-toed over to the window, staying close to the wall so as not to make a silhouette.  She hooked a finger on the edge of the curtain and pulled it aside just enough to allow her to peek through.  

    She cursed under her breath, creeping away from the window and motioning for Papyrus to follow her.  He was full of questions, but he kept his mouth absolutely shut as she led him to her bedroom to hide from whoever it was.  Under normal circumstances, this would have flustered him, but not now.  

    "That damn news van is parked right out front!" she whispered angrily, taking her phone from the night stand and firing off a group text to Burgerpants and Chad.  "They must have followed us."

    "OH, IS THAT ALL?" Papyrus smiled, relieved.  "THEY CAN'T COME IN WITHOUT PERMISSION.  WHY DOES THEIR PRESENCE TROUBLE YOU SO?"

    "Because it means that they know where I live, which means other people will, too, and it's not just about me!  My roommates didn't do anything!  You didn't do anything!  Like a moron, I led them right to my home!"  Her voice cracked and she sat on her bed, burying her head in her hands.  "God...it never stops..."

    Papyrus's face fell as she began to sob quietly, and he hurried over, sitting beside her and gathering her into his arms.  "SHHH... NO, DON'T CRY!  I KNOW TODAY HASN'T BEEN THE GREATEST, AND WE BOTH HAVE A LOT TO BE UPSET ABOUT, BUT WE ALSO HAVE A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR.  IT'S JUST CATCHING UP TO YOU ALL AT ONCE, THAT'S ALL."

    Adelle fought for control of herself, embarrassed, but she had to admit that being held like this felt pretty nice.  "I just keep screwing everything up!  You got hurt because you were with me, and I have no idea what's gonna happen now..."

    "NO...YOU SAVED US BOTH TONIGHT.  YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHAT OTHER PEOPLE CHOOSE TO DO.  THOSE MEN CHOSE TO ATTACK US, AND THOSE PEOPLE OUTSIDE CHOSE TO BE THERE.  I KNOW IT SEEMS LIKE YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER ANYTHING, BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE."  He sat back and handed her a tissue from her night stand.  "YOU CAN DECIDE TO JUST ACCEPT IT, AND SAY 'EVERYTHING SUCKS', OR YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT."

    She sniffled, wiping her eye-sockets and scooting back to sit cross-legged on the bed.  "Such as?"

    "ER...WELL...I HAVEN'T THOUGHT THAT FAR AHEAD, ACTUALLY!" he admitted, copying her posture and turning to face her.  They were both barefoot, so there was no danger of dirt getting on the blankets.  "BUT I WILL!  THIS IS QUITE THE CONUNDRUM, IT'S TRUE, BUT THINGS ARE NEVER AS HOPELESS AS THEY SEEM."

    Adelle wiped her face again, and she made a noise that was half-way between a sob and a chuckle.  "You're something else, you know that?"

    "I KNOW." he basked in the compliment and reached out to wipe her cheekbone with his thumb.  The tears glowed faintly green, the same color as her magic, but the hue quickly faded as they began to dry.  

    "Still want to date this trouble magnet?" She stared at the tissue in her hand, reluctant to look at him.  There was no way he would want to after tonight!  But his thumb brushed against her cheekbone in what was almost a caress before he tilted her chin up so that she had to look at him.

    He leaned in close and whispered, "THAT DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH YOU LIKE SPAGHETTI."  He wiggled his 'eyebrows' up and down, and he was finally rewarded with a laugh.  "THERE IT IS!  SMILES SUIT YOU BETTER, I THINK.  BUT YEAH...ALTHOUGH YOU DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO ANSWER ME BEFORE WHEN I ASKED YOU OUT."

    Adelle scooted a bit closer and switched to a kneeling position, and she was surprised at her own daring as she leaned in close as he had done, stopping just short of pressing her teeth against his.  The white points of light in her eye-sockets flicked downwards at his mouth before looking up again.  She wasn't sure if she was asking permission or communicating her intentions, but before she could be certain his eye-sockets drifted shut and he  angled his head, closing the gap.  Green and orange magic tingled and briefly merged as their teeth touched, and Papyrus gently cradled her face between his hands.

    Skeletons couldn't kiss the same way humans could (or monsters with lips, for that matter), but they could show their affection in a similar way, and a skeleton monster's teeth had roughly the same sensitivity as human lips.  Far from being an awkward 'clack', a skeleton kiss was gentle and intimate, and it wasn't something that was taken lightly.  Similar to this, but not quite as intimate, was a 'forehead bump', which meant more or less the same thing, but it was reserved for close friends and family members.

    Adelle broke the kiss first, the news van quite forgotten.

    "WOWIE..." sighed Papyrus, his cheeks glowing a bright orange and his eye-sockets giving off an odd sparkle.  "WAS THAT A YES?"

    "What do you think?"

    Papyrus suddenly seemed to come to his senses as he realized what they had just done, and where they were.  He wasn't really sure what the significance of their sitting on her bed might be, but he was pretty sure that they were taking several steps from the Dating Rulebook out of order!  "I...THINK WE SHOULD GO BACK INTO THE LIVING ROOM.  THEY AREN'T KNOCKING ANYMORE.  UNLESS YOU FEEL SAFER IN HERE?"

    She nodded, also blushing.  "Yeah...I guess I just panicked.  Did you want to use my charger for your phone?  Maybe Sans will pick up if he sees that it's you."

    A voice from the other side of her closed bedroom door made them both yelp.  "maybe sans saw the news on the tv at grillby's and put two and two together."

    What the hell?!

    Adelle was off the bed and at the door in a single stride, and she yanked it open to glare down at the shorter skeleton in astonished anger.  "How did you get in my house?"

    "BROTHER, I'M SURPRISED AT YOU!  ACTUALLY, NO I'M NOT.  YOU NEED TO LEARN A PRIVACY!"

    Sans's veneer of calm never cracked, and he held up a hand.  "normally i wouldn't do this, but you've got the press camped right outside.  i'll just cut to the 'chase' here.  you need to warn your roomies somehow, tell 'em to find a place to stay for the night.  tell them not to come here for so much as a toothbrush am i clear?  the three of you need to find another place to live for a little while."

    "What?  Why?"

    "this place isn't safe for you anymore.  those guys who chased you?  the reporter was speculating that they belong to the fastest-growing hate group, and they've targeted you.  everyone you know, from your roommates to your boss, is now in danger.  ya get me?"  

    Sans's eye-sockets were black, hollow.  Papyrus saw him like this so rarely that he immediately grew serious and put his arm around Adelle.  

    "Oh, God...This is exactly what I was afraid of..."

    She expected Sans to hold it over her head that she was a danger to his brother, but the smaller skeleton surprised her.

    "if it wasn't you, it would have been another monster.  these guys are bad news.  i think the only reason they haven't come here yet is because of the nosy parkers out front, but we need to be gone before that van leaves, capiche?"

    In the space of three seconds, Adelle went from hating and resenting that van's presence to praising it to the heavens (internally, of course), and she grabbed her phone and began rapidly texting back and forth with Burgerpants and Chad, who had both responded while she was too upset to notice the text alerts.  While she was busy with this, she heard Sans and Papyrus discussing the subject of where she and her roommates would stay.  

    "I KNOW WE DON'T HAVE A GUEST ROOM, BUT WE HAVE A COUCH.  AND LOTS OF BLANKETS AND PILLOWS!  CAN'T THEY STAY WITH US, AT LEAST FOR THE NIGHT?"

    "that's up to them."

    Adelle's bank account was nearly empty; she didn't make enough to save up, now that her hours had been cut back.  She couldn't afford to stay at a hotel, and she knew better than to suggest to Papyrus that she could just walk until sunrise.  That was what she usually did when she couldn't sleep, she walked, or she sat in a bar and got drunk.  Financially, her roommates weren't much better off, either.  She didn't want to impose on her friend (boyfriend?) and his brother, and she knew Chad and Burger would be very unhappy with this turn of events, but what could she do?  Her hands were tied.

    Her thoughts were interrupted as brick crashed through her bedroom window, and she screamed.  The brick didn't hit anybody, thankfully, but a folded note was attached to it by a rubber band, and she stood well away from the window as she read it.  

    WE'RE COMING FOR YOU.

    But they weren't coming tonight.  Why resort to cheap scare tactics if that was the case?  Adelle gritted her teeth and hurled the brick back out the window.  "Fuck off!"

    Papyrus's eye-sockets widened at the explicit language, but under the circumstances, she might have been justified.  He put his hands on her shoulders and led her away from the window.  "WE REALLY DO HAVE TO GO NOW.  SANS?"

    "sure.  let's go.  i know a shortcut."

    "Just out of curiosity, Sans...how long were you standing outside my bedroom door?" Adelle grabbed her laptop, the strip of photo booth pictures, and a change of clothing, and she narrowed her eye-sockets suspiciously.  Her non-existent stomach dropped when he winked at her.

    "long enough."

    "DON'T TEASE HER, BROTHER."

    "what?  i can't answer a question?"

    "Let's just go, okay?"

Chapter Text

     Burgerpants and Chad rather liked the idea of remaining safe, so they quickly accepted the offer to stay at the skeleton brother's house overnight.  They planned to discuss their options for the future in the morning, and they promised not to stop at their own house on the way over.  Adelle had the presence of mind to grab her roommates' laptops and power cords, as well as a dusty teddy bear that sat on a shelf in her room.  

    Sans and Papyrus knew very well why it was dusty, and neither of them commented on it.  If her house was going to be robbed or (further) vandalized, she didn't want her brother's dust to be disturbed.  Sans, especially, could understand that, though he had no actual memories of the previous timelines.  

    Adelle looked from the teddy bear in her hand to Papyrus, trying to find the words to explain, but one look at his face told her that it was unnecessary.  

    "WE'LL FIND A SAFE PLACE FOR HIM."

    By 'him', did he mean the teddy bear or...?

    "Thanks..."

    Sans placed one hand on his brother's arm, and the other on Adelle's, and before she could ask him what he was doing, she found herself standing in an unfamiliar house.

 
    "What the...So, that's how you got ahead of me so quickly that time.  You can teleport!"

    "UGH..." Papyrus shuddered.  "VERTIGO..."

    "there's a backbone joke in there somewhere.  anyway, welcome to casa de skelebros." Sans flopped down on the couch, propped his feet on the coffee table, and turned on the TV.  "you can just put your stuff wherever.  take a load off.  ya look dead on your feet."

    "UGGGHHHH, SANS, NOT TONIGHT, PLEASE!" Papyrus put the laptop he was carrying on the kitchen table.

    "Well, look at you," Adelle retorted, a note of playfulness creeping into her voice as she decided to throw a little bit of shade at Sans.  "You're bone idle."

    "GIVE ME STRENGTH..." Papyrus hid his face in his hands, mostly to hide the rebellious smile that refused to be suppressed.

    "nah, i just want to see if you guys are on tv.  by this time tomorrow night, you could say..."

    "SANS, NO."

    "...that the two of you will be involuntary celebrities"

    "SA--OH.  I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE ANOTHER PUN."

    "tibia honest, now isn't the time.  heh.  guess i just can't help myself, bro."

    Adelle watched this exchange in amusement...and more than a dollop of jealousy.  Her grip on the teddy bear tightened a little, and she glanced around for an out-of-the-way spot to put it.  

    Papyrus jerked his head in his brother's direction and grumped, "SEE WHAT I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH?  COME ON.  WE'LL PUT TEDDY ON TOP OF MY BOOKSHELF."

    When her roommates finally arrived, Adelle fully expected Burgerpants and Chad to blame her for the three of them having to take refuge with Sans and Papyrus, but the first thing Chad did was enfold her in a tight, brotherly hug.  Burgerpants had to work late, but when he eventually joined them he treated her the same way he usually did.  That is to say, he clapped her lightly on the shoulder as he passed her, producing a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket and preparing to light it.

    "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" Papyrus pointed dramatically at the front door.  "THERE'S NO SMOKING IN MY HOUSE."

    "Oh."  Burgerpants looked disgruntled, but he went back out to the front porch again.  He leaned against the side of the house and flicked his lighter several times, but it wouldn't light.  He shook it, tried again, then finally he sighed and put it back in his pocket again.  There was the sound of someone striking a match, and he turned to see Chad offering him a light.  "I didn't know you smoked."

    "I burn incense.  It's very relaxing."

    "Hippie," Burgerpants accepted the offer and lit his cigarette, dragging deeply before exhaling twin jets of smoke from his nose.  

    "That, and it covers up the ashtray smell wafting from underneath your bedroom door," Chad rubbed his blue paws together, blowing on them to warm them up.  "You think it's her?  The monster we've been hearing about on the news lately?"

    "Who else could it be?" Burgerpants laid his ears back, his voice bitter but resigned.  "Sans is too short to be the one, and Papyrus...I seriously doubt it's him.  Either he's the world's biggest softy, or he's a phenomenal actor."

    "You don't seem all that surprised." Chad sat down on the porch swing.

    "I've had my suspicions for a while.  It really sucks that we got caught in the middle of it all." Burgerpants flicked the filter with his thumbnail, and a tiny clump of ash drifted to the ground.  "I should be mad at her for it, but...well, can you blame her, though?  I can't.  I mean...we come up to the surface, thinking everything's going to...I dunno, get better, you know?  Granted, I'm still flipping burgers, but at least I'm not working for Mettaton anymore.  Then some humans come along and beat her little brother to death, just because he was a monster and he was there, and she had to watch him..."

    Burger abruptly cleared his throat and stubbed out his cigarette, not even half-way smoked, before speaking again.  "Like I said, our situation sucks, but she lost her brother.  There have been times when I wanted to go out looking for those guys, but what's the point, if I don't even know what they looked like?  Hell, she doesn't even know."

    "Yeah..." Chad rubbed his arms and stood up.  "I'm cold.  You coming inside?"

    "Yeah, in a bit."

    Adelle couldn't sleep.  It wasn't the hard floor, which she insisted on taking instead of the couch.  Papyrus had even offered to let her stay in his room while he slept on the couch, but she shut him down immediately.  She would not take his bed from him, and she had slept on the floor many times in the past.  Papyrus didn't like it, but he didn't argue with her, and now she found herself sitting cross-legged among the blanket pile while Chad snored on the couch and Burgerpants lay curled up in a sleeping bag.

    God, she couldn't take this!  Her booze was back home, and she wasn't about to ask Sans if he had any.  And she couldn't go with 'Plan B' and walk until dawn, either.  

    Or could she?  

    She turned her head to look at the door, and the shiny brass doorknob glinted mockingly at her in the glow of the nightlight, which Papyrus explained was to keep him from stubbing a toe in the dark.  She didn't ask him why he would be walking around the house in the dark, because she kept some pretty weird hours herself.

    Surely, no one would miss her if she just walked around the block a few times!  Those men didn't know to look for her here.  She could hear Papyrus upstairs, snoring like a chainsaw.  She had to do something.  She was going stir crazy!

    Sleep would not come.  Adelle got up and slipped on her shoes before padding over to the door and reaching out to grasp the doorknob.  

    Then she stopped.

    She couldn't do this.  Wasn't this partly the reason why her friends couldn't sleep safely in their own beds tonight?  And Papyrus had been so kind to her.  She had already hurt him once; she would not do it again by rejecting his hospitality!

    Adelle lowered her head and turned away, and only then did she realize that she couldn't hear Papyrus snoring anymore.  And the sound of soft footsteps descending the staircase left her feeling like she'd just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  

    Papyrus stepped into the dim light and just looked at her.  He didn't ask her what she was doing, and he didn't look angry or surprised.  He merely looked sad.

    He knew.

    "I'm...It's just force of habit.  I can't sleep.  Did I wake you up?"

    Papyrus shook his head no, and with an effort he spoke in a whisper.  "This is when I always get up."

    "Always?  Papyrus, it's four in the morning..."

    "I guess I just don't sleep very much.  Want some warm milk?  It usually helps me GET TO--" Papyrus covered his mouth, and Burgerpants rolled over in his sleep.  How could they have a real conversation when he couldn't keep his voice down?

    Adelle shook her head and glanced at the door again.  "It won't help.  I've tried every insomnia cure in the book."

    "There's a book?"  So insightful one minute, so naive the next!  

    "Figure of speech, Papyrus." she smiled, moving away from the door.  Guilt squeezed at her soul when she saw the relief in his face, and she rubbed her arms as if chilled.  In a way, she was.  "I'm sorry.  Walking at night like this...and everything else...it's probably how we got in this mess in the first place.  Do you ever..."

    Papyrus waited for her to continue, but she didn't, and he motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen, where they would be less likely to disturb Chad and Burgerpants.  As long as he could maintain low tones, that is!  It wasn't even as if he could blame it on hearing loss.  He simply had two volumes; loud and louder.  

    Adelle mindlessly followed him, sitting down at the kitchen table when he did.  

    "Do I ever what?" he whispered.  

    She fingered her pendant without thinking about it and stared at the Christmas-themed vinyl tablecloth.  It had the image of some sort of red flower on it; 'poinsettias', she thought they were called.  "Do you ever feel like you'll go crazy if you don't do something?  Like you can't sit still?"

    "Yeah.  I always have to be doing something.  Maybe it's why I like puzzles so much." his eye-sockets were fixed on the pendant.  He had never asked her about it, but he noticed that she often touched it when she was upset.  "May I ask about that?"

    "What?"  She was looking down when he pointed, so she didn't know what he was talking about.

    "Your necklace."

    Oh.

    "It was his."

    Papyrus immediately regretted asking her about it.  Open mouth, insert foot!  "Oh...I'm sorry."

    "No, you can ask.  I mean...it's a metal washer on a string.  Kind of a weird thing to wear, right?"  Her smile didn't quite reach her eye-sockets.  "He thought it was cool, though.  He found the washer at the garbage dump on one of our trips there, and decided to turn it into a 'good luck charm'.  Hmph..."

    Papyrus felt his metaphorical heart break a little.  He himself believed that good luck charms could work, but he wondered if their luck could be used up.  Then he decided that he wasn't fully awake yet, despite feeling like he was, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.  

    "I'm okay."  She didn't pull her hand away, though.

    He didn't believe her.  He knew she wasn't okay.  He chose his next words very carefully.  "You don't have to put yourself in danger when you feel this way, you know.  I don't care what time it is.  Call me on the phone, or wake me up, or whatever.  I'll help you.  Please, let me help."

    She squeezed his hand back, chuckling softly through her nose.  It wasn't a happy chuckle.  "You've done nothing but help me since I've met you.  Knowing someone gives a damn...excuse me, a 'darn'," she corrected herself, remembering that he didn't particularly care for swearing, and he nodded to show his appreciation, "that helps a lot.  But...you're not the only one.  Chad and Burger have tried, and I'm still...well...it isn't going away...He did, but it just won't."

    Papyrus hugged her, reflecting that maybe there were some things that even 'The Great Papyrus' couldn't fix.  "Talk to me anyway.  Lean on me, and I'll be there.  Even if that's the only thing I can do, you bet I'm gonna do it."

    Adelle didn't doubt that he would.  She returned the hug and accidentally breathed in the scent of his cologne.  It was very faint, and she realized that it was coming from  around where his ear would be if he was a human.  She didn't think that she would be the type of person to care one way or another about someone's perfume or cologne, but on Papyrus it was a comforting sort of smell.

    Safe.

    He smelled like safety.

    God, she was turning into such a dork!  They hadn't even known each other for a full two months yet, and the most ridiculous random thoughts tended to pop into her head whenever she was around him.  And now she was aware of it; thanks for that, Alphys.

    "I wish you could have met him..." she mumbled into his clavicle.  "You two would have gotten along famously."

    "Without a doubt!"

    Adelle tried to respond, but ended up yawning instead.  

    "AM I THAT BORING?" Papyrus joked before covering his mouth.

    "No, of course not.  I guess I'm more tired than I thought."

    "You can have my bed, if you want."

    "Papyrus...we had this conversation earlier, remember?  I'm not taking your bed from you.  Plus, it wouldn't be fair to Burger and Chad."

    "Ah...you have a point.  I feel bad about you sleeping on the floor, though.  Besides, I just got up for the day, remember?  I'll wake you up in time for you to go to the police station."  He squinted suspiciously and sat back to look her in the eye-socket.  "You do plan on going, right?"

    "Well, I figure it'll look bad if I don't.  Plus, I should probably tell them about the brick.  I probably should have called them earlier, but I don't really trust them."

    "They were kind of sneaky..." Papyrus had to agree with her there.  Still, Officer Jenson had at least treated them fairly.  "I'm sure it'll be fine!"

    He hugged her again, then followed her out of the kitchen.  He frowned when she headed for her blanket pile instead of the staircase, but if she really preferred sleeping on the floor for the sake of fairness, he wouldn't argue any further.  

    "Night, Papyrus.  Or, rather, morning." she whispered wrapping her fingers around her pendant as she closed her eye-sockets.

    "Night-morning, Adey."

    I'm sure it'll be fine, Papyrus had said.  As Adelle looked warily from Officer Jenson to a serious-looking Asgore and then back again, she wondered if she should have a little chat with Papyrus on the topic of 'jinxing'.

    "Howdy." Asgore favored her with a sad smile.

    "Well...this is a surprise."

    "Well, you see..." Jenson truly did look a bit remorseful, but he was committed to his course.  "My authority regarding you is limited, mostly because several particulars have yet to be established.  A lot of gray areas.  And I just want to come out with it and say that I like you and Papyrus.  I can tell that the feeling isn't mutual, and that's fine."

    Adelle thought that he was half-right.  She didn't hate him, and she believed that he felt he was doing the right thing, whatever it was he was doing.  But she didn't trust him either, and she was beginning to feel cornered.  Her eye-sockets began to glow green.  "I'm not sure I follow."

    "We have you on tape, Adelle.  And I'm not just talking about last night's news  broadcast."  Jenson waited for her to respond, but she didn't utter a word.  Asgore simply stood and observed for the time being.  Jenson smiled sadly.  "The reason I asked you to come here is because this needs to stop.  Immediately.  There's only so much I can do, without walking into a legal minefield.  Which is why Asgore is here."

    "Oh, you son of a..."  She caught herself and shut her jaws with a 'click'.

    Asgore stepped forward, but she took a step back, and he halted.  "I've seen the tapes, child.  It's difficult to make out who it is, but not impossible.  You've been quite busy.  Intervening on behalf of people being attacked is a good thing, but there is a limit to how far you can go before you become the villain.  I'm afraid he's right.  When the moment came for you to retreat, you attacked.  This cannot be allowed to continue.  There must be consequences.  Do you understand?"

    Her only response was a single terse nod; she didn't trust her voice or her temper.

    Asgore got down on one knee so that she didn't have to crane her neck to look up at him, and his eyes were kind as he looked at her.  "So very angry.  Angry and frightened; you're trembling so badly that your bones are rattling.  I can see that you have suffered, child.  I've known suffering, too, as you well know."

    She did.  It was well known that Asgore's children, one natural and one adopted, were both taken from him on the same day.  Soon after, his wife left him, though Adelle didn't know the details of this, or even care to know.  She remained silent, glowering at the former king with a look of betrayal.

    "I said that there would be consequences, and there will.  The fact that you didn't kill anyone will be taken into account, of course, but would you care to explain the reason behind your attacks?"

    Adelle narrowed her eye-sockets in disbelief.  It took the power of seven human souls and one monster soul to break the barrier.  She wasn't sure exactly how this had taken place, but she knew that Frisk played a major part in this.  She also knew that Asgore had decreed that any human who fell into the Underground must die, and that the first six human souls had died by his orders, if not by his hand.  He was a kind man, a good king, and yet...and yet!  She hadn't really thought about it, having had her hands full with Tahoma and with work, but now that she did, she was downright incredulous.  Did it matter that Asgore had given the order out of grief and anger?  Even if he hadn't meant it, he'd still ordered it, and it was still done!  "How...How can you, of all people, ask me that?"

    Asgore gaped at her, stunned, and he almost appeared to be near tears.

    "Humans killed my brother.  He was only ten years old!  He was a baby!  Where are their consequences?  Where is his justice?"

    The former king lowered his gaze to the floor before getting to his feet.  "I'm sorry..."

    "You're 'sorry'," she sneered.  "Sorry won't change anything, will it?  It never does.  I've...I've pushed my friends away, I've treated one of them abominably, and no amount of 'sorry' can erase it.  Heh...but they forgave me just the same, even if I didn't deserve it.  So...what happens now?"

    Asgore sighed, stroking his beard as he considered the matter.  He understood her better than she knew.  He also understood that when someone did something wrong, they had to face the consequences of their actions.  His own consequences had been steep; the loss of his relationship with his wife and being unable to age or die naturally had taken a heavy emotional toll on him.  "I will need to think it over.  But from now on, you are not to attack anyone.  You may defend yourself, and you may defend others if you happen upon an attack-in-progress, but you are not to seek out conflict, and you are not to vent your anger in the form of violence.  You will also be placed under a strict curfew; you are to be indoors by 6 PM."

    "And about the brick thrown through my window?"

    "Brick?" Asgore and Jenson asked at the same time.  

    "Guess nobody called it in...big surprise.  Granted, I didn't either, but still..."  

    By the time Adelle was through explaining what had happened and what Sans had told her about the news broadcast, Jenson's face had turned the color of cottage cheese.  "Do you have somewhere else to stay?"

    "We stayed with Sans and Papyrus last night, but we plan to go back today and check on things."

    "No, I wouldn't advise that.  We'll send a patrol car over to do a check, and assess whatever damage there might be."  Jenson was scribbling something in his notebook, and Adelle fought the urge to jam his pen right up his nose.

    "Do you need our permission for that?"

    He looked up.  "Do we have it?"

    She sighed, waving a dismissive hand.  She hadn't slept well at all, and she didn't have the fortitude to argue.  "Do what you gotta do..."

Chapter Text

Other than the broken window, there was no further damage to the house.  A patrol car sat outside for the next week, and things were as uneventful as they could be.  

    Two things had changed; one, Adelle now had a 6:00 curfew and was required to do community service until further notice.  And two, she and Papyrus were now officially 'dating'.  Or, rather, they would be if she could actually go anywhere.  For the time being, he was a frequent visitor, and Chad and Burgerpants were getting used to seeing him at the house.

    As much as Adelle hated losing her freedom to come and go as she pleased, the 'community service' part wasn't bad.  Asgore had her working at a soup kitchen on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  She'd thought that she, Burgerpants, and Chad weren't doing all that well financially, but many of the humans who came in didn't even have a house to go home to.  

    And it wasn't just humans, either.  A few monsters peppered the crowd, and they mingled freely with the humans, chatting with them or sitting in silence, and enjoying what was possibly the only meal they would get that day.  She thought she recognized a couple of them from the Capitol, but she couldn't be sure.

     A few of the humans who came by for a meal actually recognized her from her frequent walks.  She hadn't taken much notice of them before, but they were surprisingly friendly towards her.  One of them actually thanked her for saving his life the previous month, but for the life of her she couldn't remember doing it.  There were so many attacks she had brought a halt to, and they all tended to blend together after a while.  After working at the soup kitchen for only three days, Adelle was a little more grateful for what she had, and she left feeling relatively good about how she had to spend her time.

    The main downside to all of this was the fact that her cover was blown.  Her roommates didn't mention it, but more than once she caught them watching her as if they expected her to sneak out the moment they turned their backs.  Truth be told, if she thought that she could have gotten away with it, she would have.

    The police hadn't gone public with her identity as a personal favor to Asgore, which she both resented and was grateful for.  Any liking she'd had for the former king was long gone.

    "For as long as I've known you, you never did like being told what to do," Chad told her one day as they, along with Papyrus, put together a meal.  Burgerpants was still at work, but had asked them to put aside a plate for him.

    "You've only known me for about eight months.  You're not wrong, though." Adelle smirked as she stirred the spaghetti sauce.  It was a recipe she had gotten from a can of diced tomatoes, and Papyrus had asked her for a copy of it.  Having tasted his spaghetti sauce in the past, she readily complied!  It wasn't that his sauce was bad, but there was definitely room for improvement, though she hadn't had the heart to tell him so.  Her smirk turned into a wide smile as Papyrus came up and hugged her from behind.

    "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO AFTER DINNER?"

    Chad saw the beaming smile on her face, something he thought he would never see again, and he couldn't resist taking the opportunity to tease them a little.  "Should I leave the room for this?"

    "HUH?  WHY?"

    "He probably thinks we're gonna make out, or something," she replied, chucking a dish towel at her roommate, who caught it easily.  

    "N-NO, NOT WITH OTHER PEOPLE AROUND!  THAT WOULD BE RUDE!"

    "I was just kidding.  Please, let me live!" Chad pretended to cower behind the towel.

    Adelle winked as Papyrus's laughter made her left 'ear' ring.  "I'll think about it.  Well, I guess we could see what's on TV."

    Papyrus, it turns out, was very picky about what he watched.  Above ground, Mettaton had made a name for himself, but he wasn't on every channel like he was in the Underground.  In fact, he didn't even have a TV show of his own yet.  However, he did do live performances, and those would occasionally make it to the small screen.  Papyrus had every single one of his CDs and action figures, and he set his DVR to record when he knew Mettaton would be on TV and he had to go out somewhere.  In case it wasn't obvious, he was a Mettaton nut.

    While he didn't insist on searching for one of Mettaton's shows, he had basically pooh-poohed every suggestion so far.  He sat with his head resting on Adelle's shoulder, and while she flipped through the channels he droned away in a bored voice, "NO.  NO.  NO.  NO.  NO--WAIT A MINUTE!  ...NO."

    I suppose this is what I get for telling him he could pick what we watch, Adelle thought as her thumb began to cramp up from the channel changing marathon she was putting it through.

    Papyrus heard her quiet sigh, and he blushed.  "I'M SORRY."

    "Nah, TV's lousy tonight."

    It was.  She didn't really care what they watched, though.  Having Papyrus close like this was nice!  Chad had found an excuse to leave, but Adelle knew it was mostly to give them some privacy.  She thought it was a bit unnecessary, since they weren't actually up to anything, and she hoped he wouldn't leave every time Papyrus was over; it was his house, too.

    Adelle flipped to the next channel, and Papyrus made a displeased sound at seeing a news broadcast.  He didn't like the news, because they rarely reported anything other than sad and depressing things, and she knew this well.  She was about to change the channel again when something in the background caught her eye.  She stiffened and sat up straighter, turning up the volume.

    "ADEY..." Papyrus whined playfully, but suddenly he sat up too.  "OH MY GOD..."

    A group of four monsters--bears, by the looks of them--huddled in a tight group, holding each other.  It was difficult to make out, but another bear monster knelt behind them, tenderly sweeping someone's dust into a bucket and sobbing.

    Papyrus gestured at the TV, clearly upset by this.  "WHY DO THEY PUT THE FAMILIES ON CAMERA LIKE THAT?!  IT'S SO DISRESPECTFUL!"

    Adelle slowly shook her head, whether in response to what he said or what she was seeing, it was anyone's guess.  The remote fell from her numb fingers, and she didn't even notice.

    "As you can see, The Legion of Human Pride has struck again, devastating yet another family and leaving us to wonder why.  With no witnesses to describe the events that took place this evening, the police will be turning to security cameras in an attempt to--"

    Papyrus turned off the TV, and his soul thrummed in his chest when he saw how brightly Adelle's eye-sockets were glowing.  He had been unfortunate enough to see her triggered once before, and he wondered if he was going to see it again.  Not knowing whether or not it was safe to touch her, he asked uncertainly, "ADELLE?  ARE YOU OKAY?"  Ugh.  What a foolish question!  Of course she wasn't okay!

    She turned her head and looked at him as if she had just remembered he was there.  In truth, she had.  Her mind had gone to another time and place, and she was the one collecting a loved one's dust.  Only she hadn't had a bucket; she and her roommates had been forced to use Tahoma's clothes as a sort of makeshift satchel, and...

    How much of her brother remained in that dirty alley?  Collecting all of someone's dust was impossible, of course, but the thought of part of him staying there...

    What was Papyrus saying?  The green glow dwindled to nothing, leaving her eye-sockets hollow and dark.  "Wh...what?"

    Papyrus recognized her brief confusion, and was strongly reminded of Sans when he awoke from one of his nightmares.  He could never get Sans to open up and talk about them, but his presence still seemed to help.  Maybe it would help her, too.  "I...ASKED IF YOU WERE OKAY, BUT..."

    The white points of light were back in her eye-sockets, and she blinked.  "Um...I'm gonna go clean up..."

    "THAT CAN WAIT..." Papyrus began, but she was already up and striding purposefully towards the kitchen.  Well, then.  This wasn't quite like Sans after all.  Sans just got more lazy (if that was even possible) after one of his bad spells, but Adelle seemed to be just the opposite.  As she clattered around in the kitchen, Papyrus was strongly reminded of the lion he saw pacing in its enclosure at the zoo.  Like the lion, she was unable to leave, and so she 'paced'.  He got up and peeked into the kitchen.  "HEY, UM..."

    Adelle gasped and dropped the dish she was drying.  It fell to the floor and shattered.

    "I-I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO SCARE YOU!  OH, NO, HERE, I'LL GET IT."

    "N-no...I'm sorry, I...I wasn't thinking.  I shouldn't have left you sitting in the living room.  I..."  She had already begun to hyperventilate, and she turned her face away as he knelt beside her and helped her pick up the broken pieces.  She didn't want him to see her like this!  Panic attacks were embarrassing!  True, she had seen him have one, but it was still embarrassing!  Tunnel vision was setting in, and a high-pitched ringing filled her ears.  Was that really what it was?  Or was it a distant scream?  She couldn't seem to coordinate her hands well enough to pick up the ceramic shards, and so she stopped trying.  Instead, she knelt where she was and shook, her arms wrapped tightly around her rib-cage.

    "IT'S OKAY.  IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.  THAT'S WHY I STOPPED WATCHING THE NEWS, YOU KNOW.  SO MANY UPSETTING THINGS.  AND...HEY..." He reached out, but she flinched.  Okay, no touching.  He craved physical contact when he was this worked up, but it made her feel cornered.  He could work with that.  He rested his hands on his knees to prove that he would keep them to himself until she was ready.  "OKAY.  I WON'T TOUCH YOU.  BUT I'M RIGHT HERE, ALL RIGHT?  ADELLE, I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT ME, CAN YOU DO THAT?"

    She shook her head.  She couldn't really understand what he was telling her.  She only knew that he had asked her to do something, but she wasn't able to process it.  She couldn't do as he asked, because she didn't know what he wanted!

    Papyrus had never seen anyone so terrified.  "OH, SWEETHEART...IT'S NOT HAPPENING AGAIN.  YOU'RE SAFE.  YOU'RE IN YOUR HOUSE.  I'M WITH YOU.  IT'S PAPYRUS.  REMEMBER?"  He leaned forward a bit, trying to make eye contact with her.  The white points of light in her eye-sockets had turned green again, and they skittered briefly to the space between his eye-sockets before darting to the kitchen window.  The curtains were closed.  "YEAH.  SEE?  WE'RE IN YOUR KITCHEN."

    Kitchen.  Safe.  Papyrus.  Here.  Now.  Can't breathe.  Want to escape.  Can't leave.  Can't breathe.  Can't see...

    Papyrus wasn't sure how long he kept repeating himself, telling her calmly and matter-of-factly where she was, that she was safe, that he was with her.  He was rather proud of how he was handling things, especially when her breathing began to even out and the green glow faded once more.  Finally, deliberately this time, she raised her 'eyes' to look at him.  "Pap...Papyrus?"

    He smiled encouragingly, unable to mask his great relief.  "YEAH!  THERE YOU ARE...DEEP BREATHS.  HERE, WATCH ME."  He demonstrated for her, drawing in a deep breath, holding it for a beat, then letting it out and starting over.  Maybe this wasn't so dissimilar to Sans's night terrors after all.  This was working!

    Adelle copied him, unable to match him very well at first as she fought with her shakes and her nausea.  When she reached for him, he gathered her close without a word and pressed a skeleton kiss to her forehead.  "I...I'm sorry.  That...that came out of nowhere..."

    "NO, IT DIDN'T," he glared at the doorway that led to the living room, where the offending news broadcast had given his girlfriend such a severe flashback.  It came from somewhere, all right.  His resolve to avoid the news was now stronger than ever. 

Chapter Text

The next day was a rarity for Adelle in that she had the house to herself and nothing to do.  She had the day off, but Papyrus did not, and normally she would go out for a walk when this happened.  After everything that had happened, and the trouble she had gotten herself into, why buy more trouble?

    What made it even worse was the new blanket of snow that lay on the ground, already being churned to gray slush by the passing cars.  It was the first snowfall of the year, and the first snow she had ever seen.  This year marked many 'firsts' for her, and most of these firsts happened in Tahoma's absence.  

    All things considered, Adelle thought she was doing okay.  After last night's little 'episode', Papyrus went on a bit of a rant about the news, stating that it invaded peoples' privacy (which it did), and that it was mostly depressing stories (which it was), and he went on to advise her not to watch it anymore.  She nodded, but she knew that she would continue to watch it.  How else was she supposed to stay informed?  

    Papyrus...

    The last thing she wanted was to bring him down.  In her present state, she wasn't much good for anyone, let alone girlfriend material.  So, what could she do about this?

    These were the things Adelle pondered as she peeled apples for an apple crisp, a mug of cooling hot chocolate sitting at her elbow.  

    She, Papyrus, Chad, Burgerpants, and possibly Sans had plans to have a movie night, and she had printed out a drinking game for one of the movies.  'Labyrinth', Chad had called it.  None of them had ever seen it before, and it was about thirty years old now, but it looked cute.  She knew what it was about, and when Chad expressed concern, she had bluntly told him that she could handle it.  A teenage girl wishes her baby brother away, and has to solve a labyrinth in order to get him back?  Great!  The implication was that the child eventually gets rescued; nothing triggering there!  And Papyrus loved puzzles, so of course, he was in.

    Adelle was shaken out of her thoughts when someone rang the doorbell, and she considered ignoring it.  Everyone she knew was either working or busy, and she had no desire to speak to anyone she didn't know.  On the other hand, it might be a good idea to sneak a look out the window and see who it was.  

    She wiped her hands and went to do just that, but the sight of Asgore standing on her front porch nearly made her groan.  Great...what did she do this time?  

    Even worse, the former king had very good peripheral vision and he caught the movement of the curtains.  He gave what most would consider a friendly smile and waved at her before folding his arms again and stamping a bit.  His breath puffed out in great clouds, and he was trying not to shiver.

    Adelle withdrew, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then opened the door.  "Yes?"  

    She hadn't meant it to sound as clipped as it did, but fortunately Asgore didn't seem to notice.  Perhaps he was too cold.

    "Howdy.  I just came by to check on you.  Uh...may I come in?"

    Inviting himself in.  Rude.  Ah, well.  She couldn't very well leave him outside to freeze, could she?  Adelle stood aside to let him in, and he stomped on the mat to clean the snow from his boots.  "Here, give me your coat.  I'll hang it up in the closet."

    After she had done so, they simply stood in the living room for a moment.  She avoided his eyes, which he noticed immediately.  "Well...hm.  I hardly know where to begin."

    Adelle had no patience for hemming and hawing just then, and she resisted the urge to roll her 'eyes'.  "Well, while you're deciding, why don't you follow me into the kitchen?  I was kind of in the middle of something when you rang the bell."

    "Oh?" Asgore perked up in interest as he followed her into the kitchen.  "What are you making?"

    "Apple crisp.  It's for tonight."

    "Mmm."

    Adelle put on the kettle for some tea, remembering that Asgore liked it.  She didn't have his favorite kind, but the stuff she did have wasn't bad.  While she had her reasons for being unhappy with Asgore, she didn't want to be a poor hostess.  Asgore didn't sit down; the chairs were too flimsy for him, but he seemed content to stand, and Adelle sent a wry look his way as she resumed peeling apples.  "As you can see, I'm behaving myself."

    "Ah..." Asgore looked down at his hands, then clasped them behind his back when he realized he was playing with his fingers; a childish habit he had never quite grown out of.  "That...that is not what I meant when I said I wanted to check up on you, child."

    "It's 'Adelle', if you don't mind...I feel weird when people call me 'child'."  Or, more specifically, when he called her that.

    "As you wish."  The kettle began to whistle, and Asgore smiled and shook his head when Adelle began to wipe her hands so that she could fix his tea.  "Here, let me.  I've made tea so many times I could do it in my sleep."

    Adelle shrugged and let him do as he pleased.  

    "I can tell that you aren't very happy to see me,"  He poured the water, ducking his head a bit so that his horns wouldn't hit the ceiling fan.  "and that's perfectly understandable.  After all, I showed up unannounced, and this after I've disciplined you."

    Very astute, thought Adelle.  "I'm not sure if you're expecting me to deny it or not."

    "No," Asgore leaned against the counter as his tea steeped, the slight smile on his face indicating that he didn't take her words personally.  "but I was hoping we could talk."

    "We are talking.  If you have something you want to say, go ahead and say it,"  Adelle began slicing the apples, privately surprised at how calm she was about this.  She thought she would be angry that he was standing in her kitchen, but she simply felt tired.

    "I saw the news last night."

    Adelle dropped the apple she had just picked up.  It bounced off the table, and Asgore caught it easily and handed it back to her.  She glared at him.

    "Forgive me.  I wasn't sure if you had seen it too, but if you had, I wanted to make sure you were all right."

    "You mean, you wanted to make sure I wasn't going to do something in retaliation." She resumed slicing, her movements quick and precise.  "No.  What's the point?  You'd know who it was."

    Asgore threw away the tea bag and sipped his tea.  "Not necessarily.  You see, you are not the only one who has suffered such a loss.  It was always possible that there could be more than one monster going after humans.  It's still possible, though at this point I think it's unlikely."

    He watched as Adelle continued to aggressively slice apples, and he remembered the sorrow and anger from the monsters he had spoken to, monsters who had lost friends or family members to hate group attacks.  He saw these things in her as well, but there was something more, something that he recognized.  What he saw was barely suppressed rage, and the desire to act out.  He knew these feelings very well, and he knew what acting on them could cause.

    "May I tell you a story?"

    "Go ahead."

    "My species of monster only ages after having a child.  The child grows up, and the parents grow old, until eventually they pass away.  That is the way with us.  But it's common knowledge that this...this did not happen with me.  Asriel was taken from me when he was only eight years of age.  This was several hundred years ago...so, as you know, I am very old but do not look it.  You...you know the story of how I lost my children, do you not?"

    Adelle nodded, feeling a swell of compassion for the man in spite of herself.

    "Good, then I can gloss over that part," Asgore sighed, draining his mug in one gulp.  "It is...difficult for me to speak of it.  In a fit of rage, I made a decree that all humans who fell down into the Underground would be killed, their souls taken, and I would break the barrier and destroy humanity.  I never expected those humans to be children..."

    Adelle stared up at him, her face unreadable.  She knew all this.  But somehow, she had never really thought about it before that day in the police station.  Asgore had murdered six human children.  How could anyone attack a child?  How were they any different from Tahoma?  Barring the fact that they were human, of course.

    Asgore sighed, hanging his head.  "There is no excuse for what I've done.  There is not a day that goes by where I don't regret it.  Not just because my wife grew disgusted with me and left, but because...I...ahem."  Asgore turned away to look out the kitchen window, controlling some powerful emotion with great difficulty.  "A king is expected to keep his word, you see.  Once I'd said that I would do something, I was required to do it.  If I did not...I would be letting my people down.  And yet...for every human child who died to free us, I felt like I was spitting in the faces of my very own Asriel and Chara.  Was this what they would have wanted?"

    The skeleton tried very hard to stay angry at Asgore for punishing her, to hate him for what he was now confessing, but instead she found herself fighting back tears of her own.

    The old former king, who, in truth, did not look a day over thirty-five, cleared his throat again and wiped his face.  "I was no different from the humans who attacked Asriel.  I even understood why they did it!  A monster showed up, carrying a d...deceased...human child, and what other conclusion could they have jumped to than the obvious one?  A monster has killed a human, and would kill more if they didn't kill him first.  Ah...Child, I mean, Adelle...can you not see that vengeance begets nothing but a vicious cycle of further vengeance?"

    "Uh...I..."

    Asgore turned to face her once more, wearing that same sad smile as before.  He knelt down as he had in the police station when she had trembled so badly with fear and anger that her bones rattled, and he shook his head.  "This is a dangerous path you have decided to walk.  Not just for the rest of us.  Anger is normal...It's part of the grieving process.  But there are healthy and unhealthy ways of expressing it.  I don't want to see you repeating my mistakes.  Do...do you know what I am trying to tell you?"

    She looked away, then went to the sink to wash her hands.  "I think so.  But I wasn't exactly planning anything.  And last night, I wasn't...I...kind of had a panic attack, and forgot where I was.  Papyrus was with me, but..."

    Asgore stood once more, and waited patiently for her to continue.  

    "Look, it's embarrassing, okay?"

    "You are not the type who likes any sort of loss of control, are you?" he asked gently.

    "What was your first clue?"

    "The attitude."

    Adelle whipped her head around to goggle at him, and he smirked and raised an eyebrow.  She tried once again to be angry, but instead she smiled ruefully.  "Well, yeah...I've been trying to work on that.  Last night, though...it was the worst one yet.  And Papyrus saw it.  Sometimes, I think I'm going crazy..."

    "You're not going crazy, Adelle."  Asgore joined her at the sink and began to wash his mug, but she took it from him and began washing it herself; he smiled at that.  "You are grieving.  You have gone through something terrible, and you're handling things the best way you know how, but...there is no shame in accepting help.  There are times when we all must do this, whether we wish it or no."

    She rinsed the mug and set it in the drain board, and she stood gripping the edge of the sink.  "Well...how do you get over something like this?"

    "You don't."  Asgore's voice was full of compassion as he took the risk of laying a hand on her back, but she didn't reject his comfort.  "It does get easier, and you learn to live without them.  These days, they call it 'the new normal'.  But there will always be times when you miss the person you've lost."

    "Well, it sucks!" Adelle dried her hands on a towel and went back to putting together the apple crisp.

    "It does.  Now...the thing that concerns me now is the panic attack you say you had.  Have you anyone you can talk to?  Professionally, I mean."

    "A shrink?" She raised an 'eyebrow'.

    "I was thinking more along the lines of a grief counselor, though there is no shame in seeing a therapist.  It's just something to consider."

    Adelle thought back to how stressed Papyrus had looked in the moments after she came down from her panic attack, and her soul swelled with guilt.  What had the poor guy gotten himself into when he decided to date her?  She wanted to be with Papyrus, but she wanted to be someone who was good for him, not someone he had to take care of!  Last night had been out of her control, and she hated it!  If there were measures she could take to deal with her issues, it would be foolish to avoid them.  "I suppose it couldn't hurt."

    "Good.  I know a good one.  I believe I have his card here...oh...no, I must have left it at home.  Well, I will get you the information later."

    "I'm not sure if I want to...well...Okay, this is going to sound bad, but is he a human or a monster?"

    "A monster, like us.  I knew him back when we still lived underground, but I didn't start seeing him as a patient until after the barrier came down.  His name is Silas, and he does group therapy as well as one-on-one sessions.  If you can't afford him, I will cover the cost."

    "No."

    Asgore saw that he had touched a nerve.  It seemed that her pride was one of the things she cherished.  He tried another tack.  "It isn't a freebie.  Community service was a punishment, but I'm thinking of your long-term recovery.  I feel that it is better to prevent further...incidents...rather than dole out punishments for previous ones.  I'm only asking you to think about it.  You needn't make a decision now."

    Instead of giving a definite answer either way, Adelle mixed cinnamon into the apple slices and sprinkled the streusel topping over them.

    "Um...you know, there is going to be a Christmas party to celebrate our first year on the surface.  I was wondering if you would like to help with that, instead of working at the soup kitchen." Asgore said hesitantly.

    "Believe it or not, I actually like working there.  And I'm not really sure I'm up to a Gyftmas...Christmas party."

    "So, you don't want to switch one for the other?"  Now he sounded disappointed.

    "I'm just getting used to the soup kitchen."

    "Right...Well, thank you for the tea.  I'll get that information for you.  You'll think about what I've said, child?"

    Asgore had forgotten that she didn't want to be called that, but somehow she didn't mind it anymore.  "Yeah...I will."

Chapter Text

Adelle grunted as she lifted a heavy bag of chemical fertilizer, and it nearly slipped from her skeletal hands when her phone began to go off.  "Whoa!"

    She recognized Papyrus's ringtone, and was instantly concerned.  He frequently texted her at work, but he never called her.  She put the bag down as quickly and gently as she could manage, and fumbled her phone out of her pocket.  "Papyrus?  Is everything okay?"

    The relieved sigh on the other end was almost a sob, and the little white points of light in Adelle's eye-sockets took on a greenish tint.

    Papyrus's voice, normally so strident and sure, was tight with an emotion she could not identify.  "YES.  I MEAN, NOT REALLY.  BUT BETTER NOW THAT I HEAR YOUR VOICE.  IS EVERYTHING OKAY THERE?"

    Adelle's hand went unconsciously to her sternum as if to still the heart that wasn't there.  "Yes, everything's fine here.  Papyrus, are you okay?  Did something happen?"  She hunched her shoulders at the din of Undyne's loud swearing in the background.  Papyrus said something Adelle didn't quite catch, and she thought he might be talking to Undyne, possibly letting her know he was on the phone.  "Papyrus?"

    "I HAD TO CHECK ON YOU.  SOMEONE...SOMEONE BROKE INTO THE GYM LAST NIGHT AND SPRAY-PAINTED DEROGATORY WORDS ALL OVER THE PLACE.  THEY LEFT BONES, TOO...CHICKEN BONES, I THINK?  AND..."

    There was the sound of a brief scuffle before Undyne, who had apparently snagged his phone, added her two cents.  "Hey, punk!  Man, this mess is unreal!  It looks like someone had a confetti party, only with a slightly-used bucket of KFC!  And you should see what they did to the bathrooms!  I don't know how they avoided tripping the alarms, but--hey!"

    "UNDYNE, PLEASE!  I'M TRYING TO TALK TO MY GIRLFRIEND HERE!" Papyrus took his phone back and spoke into it again.  "YOU'RE SURE EVERYTHING'S OKAY OVER THERE?"

    Oh, God...

    "I'm coming over there.  Just give me a few minutes to--"

    Papyrus hastily interrupted her.  "N-NO, DON'T DO THAT!  I KNOW YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS WORK, AND WE'RE FINE, REALLY."

    "Papyrus..."  She nearly said 'you're not fine', but decided not to state the obvious.

    "I'M FINE, ADEY," Papyrus sounded calmer now.  "I WAS MOSTLY WORRIED THAT YOUR JOB WAS HIT AS WELL, OR...OH...I HAVE TO GO.  THE POLICE WANT TO SPEAK WITH US."

    She sighed, looking at her watch.  Seven hours to go.  "Are you sure you don't need me to come?  Because I can afford to miss a day."

    Papyrus didn't answer her right away, and she could hear him breathing.  More rapidly than usual, to be sure, but he was nowhere near having a full-blown panic attack.  Finally, he answered her.  "I'M POSITIVE.  I'LL CALL YOU BACK.  EW!  UNDYNE, DON'T EAT THAT!"

    Adelle gritted her teeth and held the phone away from the side of her head.  "Do I want to know?"

    "SHE FOUND AN INTACT DRUMSTICK.  UGH!  UNDYNE, THAT IS SO NASTY!  IT WAS ON THE FLOOR AND EVERYTHING!"

    Despite her worry, Adelle covered her mouth and desperately willed herself not to laugh.  "Sounds like you have your hands full.  I'll let you go, but do call me back, okay?"

    "I WILL.  BYE, ADEY."

    "Bye."

    As days often will when you're looking forward to something, Adelle's day passed very slowly.  Papyrus kept his word and called back two hours later, and he sounded just fine, but when he showed up at the end of her shift to walk her to her house she couldn't believe how haggard he looked.

    "I knew I should have--"

    But Papyrus smiled gently and shook his head.  "YOU HAVE YOUR DUTIES, AS DO I.  TODAY, MY DUTIES WERE A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT, BUT I WAS ABLE TO PERFORM THEM ADMIRABLY.  DO YOU KNOW WHY?"

    "Because you're 'The Great Papyrus'?" Adelle loosely wrapped her arms around his neck, crossing her wrists at his nape.

    He grinned and pressed his forehead against hers.  "WELL, YES, THAT TOO.  BUT LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU KEPT ME GROUNDED."  He sighed, closing his eye-sockets.  "IT'S BEEN QUITE A DAY.  BUT!  IT'S OVER NOW.  ARE YOU READY TO GO?"

    "Yes," she brushed her thumb against one of his cervical spinous processes, but stopped when he gave a slight shiver, and she noticed that he almost looked disappointed that she hadn't continued.  "Come on, we can have spaghetti.  Chad's visiting his family, and Burgerpants is working late, so it'll be nice and quiet for a few hours."

    The city was not a good place for stargazing.  Still, it was one of Adelle's favorite nighttime activities, which she used to do in the park on some of the nights when she couldn't sleep.  There was less light pollution there, and little chance of being disturbed.

    Now that she was on punishment for her other nighttime activities, being out of her house after dark was no longer allowed, and she had taken to watching the stars from the attic window.  

    The attic was little more than a crawlspace, really.  She couldn't stand fully erect in there, and Papyrus would definitely need to duck if he wasn't sitting down, but she thought it was rather cozy.  No one else went up there for any reason other than to rummage through the boxes for a pair of gloves or some sort of knickknack.  As far as her housemates were concerned, the attic was Adelle's space, and she was welcome to it!

    On this night, Adelle decided to share her 'safe haven' with Papyrus.  As much as he tried to hide it, the slight hunch of his shoulders and his reluctance to speak clued her in on his mood, and she understood it all too well.  It was one thing to know that your kind were hated by some and feared by many, but it was quite another thing to find yourself on the receiving end of an attack.

    "Here we are.  Watch your head."

    Her warning came a little bit too late, and Papyrus knocked his head smartly on the ceiling.  "OWIE..."

    "Sorry, I tried to warn you..."

    Papyrus grinned sheepishly, following her in a half-crouch as they made their way to the window.  He noticed that it was much cleaner than he would have expected from an attic.  Not a speck of dust or a cobweb anywhere!  She must come up here frequently if it was this clean.  

    He also spied a neatly folded pile of blankets and a pillow, along with a small stack of paperbacks and a flashlight.  "YOU SLEEP UP HERE?"

    Adelle placed the pillow underneath the window sill, then unfolded the blankets and draped them on top to make a soft cushion for them to kneel on.  "I used to sleep up here a lot.  There were times when I just...didn't want to go into my room.  Mostly, I just read up here during the night."

    Papyrus settled down on the pillow and teasingly nudged her arm.  "YOU CAN'T READ IN THE LIVING ROOM?"

    "You can't see the stars from the living room," she countered, looking up at the sky through the window.  "Remember the first time you saw them?"

    "YES," Papyrus stared solemnly up at the sky.  Even with the usual city things that hid many of the stars from view, he could still see several points of light .  It was actually a clear night, for Ebott City.  "YOU KNOW, THERE WAS A LEGEND BACK IN THE UNDERGROUND.  I'M SURE YOU'VE HEARD IT, EVEN IF YOU NEVER VISITED THE WISHING ROOM IN WATERFALL.  IF YOU PICKED A STAR AND WISHED REALLY HARD, YOUR WISH WOULD COME TRUE.  UP HERE, THEY STILL HAVE THAT LEGEND, BUT THEY ALSO SAY THAT IT'S SHOOTING STARS THAT GRANT WISHES, NOT STATIONARY ONES.  I WONDER WHICH ONE IS TRUE..."

    "Shooting stars aren't actually stars, though.  They're chunks of space rock, burning up as the pass through the atmosphere, or something like that.  Personally, I think the fiction is more interesting than the fact.  And I've never seen a shooting star, other than on a computer screen." she glanced furtively at him out of the corner of her eye-socket, and she was dismayed to see that her boyfriend was on the verge of tears.

    "NOR HAVE I.  BUT I WONDER HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR A WISH TO BE GRANTED."

    Adelle tenderly touched his back, feeling the knobs of his spine through the shirt, but being a skeleton herself it felt perfectly normal.  "About as long as it takes us to work towards our goals, I think.  Making a wish can be fun.  To imagine how things might turn out if this bad thing didn't happen, or if that good thing did.  Sometimes we have to make our wishes happen ourselves, though.  Sometimes that takes a lot of time."

    Papyrus averted his face and clenched the hands that rested on his knees into tight fists.  This sounded an awful lot like the encouraging things he had said to her in the past, and right now it was something he needed to hear.  An unfortunate side effect of this was the further lowering of his emotional defenses, and he didn't want to cry in front of her.  She had bigger problems than he did.  She needed him to be the strong one for her!  Or so he thought.

    "YOU KNOW, IT'S LIKE...LIKE PEOPLE EXPECT ME TO BE POSITIVE ALL THE TIME.  AND I DO TRY, ADELLE.  I DO.  I LIKE BEING A POSITIVE INFLUENCE, AND I LOVE IT WHEN I'M ABLE TO CHEER UP MY FRIENDS, BUT..."  His breath hitched in his non-existent throat, and a faint orange glow lit up their tiny nook as a large tear dripped off his right cheekbone and splashed his knuckles. "I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE HUMANS HATE US SO MUCH!"

    Adelle began to rub his back, and she tactfully avoided mentioning his tears, which trickled down his face despite his efforts to remain stoic.  Unless it was painfully (and loudly) obvious that he was crying, she saw no reason to embarrass him by calling attention to it.  "They're afraid."

    "OF WHAT, THOUGH?  THOSE WORDS THEY WROTE ON OUR WALLS...I WON'T EVEN REPEAT THEM.  THEY STREWED BONES ABOUT, ALL THROUGHOUT THE GYM, AND THEY EMPTIED A BUNCH OF SARDINE CANS IN THE BATHROOMS AND CLOGGED ALL THE TOILETS; IT TOOK FOREVER TO CLEAN UP ALL THAT WATER, TO SAY NOTHING OF THE SMELL.  I'M A SKELETON, UNDYNE'S A FISH, SO I KNOW IT WAS A MESSAGE MEANT FOR US.  I WOULD LIKE TO TALK WITH THOSE PEOPLE, AND EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT THEY'RE ON THE WRONG PATH--" Papyrus abruptly stopped speaking when he felt her hand on his back briefly tense.

    "They're afraid of what we can do.  Maybe even a bit jealous.  But look at Frisk.  Frisk is a good human.  So is my boss, Travis.  And since meeting them, I've met many humans who could be called good.  And until I met you, I never would have given them a chance.  Except for maybe Travis, he was always a good guy.  If there are at least two, there's still hope.  And you helped me to see that."

    Papyrus rubbed his face on his shoulder, thinking he was being all slick about it, and fought the urge to sniffle.  "I-I DID?  I MEAN, OF COURSE I DID!  NYEH-HEH...HEH.  MY EXPERT ADVICE MUST BE REALLY GOOD IF IT WORKS ON ME!"

    Adelle saw no reason to call him on his bravado, and instead she pulled him into a hug.  "It won't always be easy.  And it's great to be brave when things like this happen...but you don't have to be brave with me, you know that?  Whatever happens, good or bad...I'm here for you, Papyrus.  Just as you've been there for me."

    Papyrus tried to give his signature 'nyeh-heh-heh', but it came out wobbly and a bit watery, and he hugged her tightly.  He knew for months that he liked her very much, and more recently he realized that his feelings for her might not be as platonic as he thought they were, but it was in this moment that he knew he loved her.  "WHAT A LUCKY SKELETON I AM!"

    Movement outside caught their attention, and they both looked out the window just in time to observe a bright streak of light.  The shooting star sliced a brilliant path across the indigo canvas before fizzling into nothing.

    Adelle broke the silence first.  "Well, is that clichéd, or what?"

    "NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!  THAT WAS WHAT I CALL FORTUITOUS TIMING!" Papyrus grinned back at her, his blue mood quite gone, if not forgotten.

    "You gonna make a wish?" Adelle teased, beaming at him.

    "SOMEONE ELSE CAN HAVE IT.  I'VE ALREADY GOT MY WISH."  He pressed a lingering skeleton kiss to her teeth, and they turned their attention back to the night sky.