The first eight years of Asriel's life were probably just about the best of my life in the Underground, barring the time spent with my sons.

Asriel was profoundly curious, and loved to see whatever I was working on. Granted, he was... rather soft. He had such a low confidence, always apologizing the instant he thought anything was wrong, nearly breaking down into tears.

I always got really awkward when he did that. What do you do with a crying child? I still don't really know. And I certainly didn't know then.

But, he was an innocent little fluffball, nearly as adorable as Papyrus. And that helped lower my Lv immensely.

And then, right around when Asriel was eight or nine...

Well. Every so often, the royal family took a trip back to the nearly-empty Ruins for a few days. One of these days, they came back home quite early. I received a phone call.

I generally hated talking on cellphones. It doesn't have the same effect as talking in person. But I still carried a cellphone around for emergencies, and well...

"Hello?"

"Gaster you must come quickly!"

"What? Toriel-"

"There is no time to waste! They are hurt very badly, and healing Magic is not effective enough! Hurry!"

Foolishly, I responded "I'll be there in a moment."

Had I known who was hurt, I would have taken my sweet time in making my way to the castle. Even if I had still gotten there in time to save them, at least they would have suffered more.

But, as I did not know, I hurried around, gathering up a few things before full-out sprinting to the castle.

I arrived there only a few minutes later. People tended to get out of my way when I was going somewhere, and the fact that I was running just about as fast as I could only added to my appearance of urgency.

Thankfully, skeletons do not need to breathe (though it does wonders when trying to focus your Magic), otherwise I would have been quite out of breath.

Asgore was waiting for him. I think, really, I surprised him with my speed. He certainly looked surprised.

Nonetheless, he led me into the castle. As he walked he explained the extent of the mystery person's injuries as far as he could tell- aside from all the small cuts and bruises, it looked like one ankle may have been broken or sprained, and they had gotten a nasty hit on the head- one that, even with bandages and healing Magic, was still bleeding. It seemed they had taken a fall, and got pretty banged up in the process. They were, apparently, more or less unconscious by then.

I was a little surprised when, inside the castle, Asgore guided me to Asriel's room. But I supposed that they had merely wanted the person to be comfortable.

And then I stepped into the room, saw the person lying in Asriel's bed, and stopped in my tracks.

I could hear both Asgore and Toriel, who was sitting on the edge of the bed beside Asriel, speaking, probably to me, but I only remember muffled sounds. I think I stood there, staring for a good minute.

And not without a good reason. Lying in the bed was a human. A child, small and pale and head wrapped in bandages, but a human nonetheless.

And suddenly, I was grabbing at what was left of my Lv, clinging tightly to it, hardening myself with it.

Finally, I snapped out of it. "No."

"What?" Both of the bossmonsters stopped.

"No. I refuse to help this-..." I gestured at the figure in the bed. "This human."

"Gaster-" Toriel admonished, but I cut her off.

"No! I will not help a human. Humans are the entire reason we are stuck here! They killed thousands of monsters!" I ignored the looks my friends were giving me, ignored the way Toriel reached out and clapped her hands over Asriel's ears. "Humans KILLED MY BROTHER. They are responsible for all our suffering and misery! I will not help a human, I WILL NOT BETRAY FIRHAUR!"

"Gaster," Asgore argued, "this is a child! They probably weren't even alive for the war!"

"They are still human." I spat.

"That's not fair, Gaster."

I rounded on Asgore. "Fair?" I screamed. "Fair?! Life is not fair, Asgore! If life were fair, Firhaur would be alive! But he's not, he was a good person, and he's dead, and I have blood on my hands, but I'm still alive! How is that fair? How is it fair that I'm here, while my brother lies on the surface without even a proper funeral because it was too dangerous for us to go collect his dust? His dust, I might add, that was spread by human hands? How, how is that fair?! TELL ME HOW THAT'S FAIR!"

Before I could continue, Asgore reached out and grabbed my shoulders, and met my gaze with one equally fierce. "Help. Them. Now."

"Or what?" I snarled back.

Asgore frowned. "Or I will rescind your title as Royal Scientist, and limit your access to the Underground to solely your house."

For a moment I was too furious to speak. Finally, I spat out a single, "traitor," before stepping over to the bed and shoving Toriel out of the way. I refused to touch the human with my own hands, and did everything with two of my pairs of summonable hands. The third set was used solely for the purpose of Speaking in Hands, spewing out a combination of vile insults towards the king and queen, even more disgraceful insults at humans, particularly the one in front of me, and just a wide assortment of profanities in general.

All in all, my examination of them went quickly enough. Their ankle was put in a splint, and a few rune-inscribed bandages applied to the wound on their head, and then I was turning to go.

Asgore grabbed my shoulder as I left, halting me. "Gaster. I realize you did not want to do this," (understatement of the eternity) "but thank you."

I wrenched my shoulder free of his grip. "Don't thank me for saving the life of a demon."

And then I was stalking away.

Once I made it back to the lab and to the safety of the tenth floor, I threw something of a temper tantrum, throwing everything I could afford to throw and screaming both in Hands and Common. I stayed in my lab for the next two weeks. All calls on my phone from Asgore or Toriel were immediately dismissed, and eventually, I just went and blocked both numbers. (I would unblock them later- it wouldn't do to not be on call when the king or queen needed me. But for the time being, I wasn't responding to anyone.)

And I still regret saving that human's life. They are a demon.

... And sometimes...

I'm sure...

I'm sure it's just my imagination, but sometimes, looking at this code that makes up the world...

Sometimes I could swear I see bits of code with their name on it.

... Chara.

§

A/N

Again. For any of you Portal fans... all I could think was that Gaster was Still Alive. And it's no use crying over every mistake, he just keeps on trying 'til he runs out of cake, and the science gets done, and he makes a neat gun, for the people who are still alive...

I love that game.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!