It was, according to Toriel, nearly twenty hours before I woke up.

After I had passed out, she carried me to one of the large chairs in the living room, and let me curl up there to sleep.

When I first woke, I remember that I felt exceptionally warm. Even with my height, I was dwarfed by the size of the chair, curled up in the fetal position. There was a blanket wrapped around me and a pillow beneath my skull.

As I began to wake up more, I heard voices, and gradually, they resolved themselves into Asriel and the human's.

"-strange seeing him there like that." The human was saying. "Normally he's so tall and... bossy. Mister I'm-the-Royal-Scientist-and-My-Word-is-Law. But now he's just lying there."

Asriel laughed a little. Despite the fact that I was annoyed with them for talking about me behind my back, I was glad to hear that Asriel was relieved enough to laugh. It meant Asgore was okay. "Yeah." Asriel said. "It is kinda weird. Mom said he used up almost all his Magic though, so it's only fair that he's really tired."

The human snorted a little. "He looks so weak, though."

I decided that was enough. "Don't you kids know," I mumbled, still half-asleep, "that it's rude to talk about someone who's listening?"

They both let out small squeaks of surprise. "Sorry, Dr. Gaster!" Asriel said quickly.

I just grunted, slowly sitting up, stretching my back, and rubbing my eyesockets.

When I looked over at Asriel and the human, both sitting in the large chair opposite the one I occupied, they were both staring at me.

I grinned, maybe a little viciously. "It's also rude to stare."

They both looked away quickly, the human snickering a little.

I just chuckled as I stood up, stretching my back yet again. Then I realized something.

"... Where's my coat?" I wasn't wearing my lab coat. A quick glance across the room showed it wasn't anywhere nearby.

"Oh!" Asriel smiled up at me. "You got Magic all over it, so Mom took it to get it washed." On seeing the note of panic cross my face, he quickly added, "She made sure to take everything out of the pockets first, though! All your stuff is on the table."

I gave a slight nod, and turned for the doorway. Just as Asriel had said, all of the tools and odds and ends that had filled my lab coat pockets were in a pile on the table.

Poking through the mess, I saw one thing was missing, though. "Asriel, will you go run into your father's room and see if my pocketknife is still on the floor where I dropped it?"

"Oh, it's not!" Asriel replied. "I saw Mom pick it up! It should be with all your stuff right there."

"... It is not." I said slowly, turning around to look at the children. "So where might it be?"

Asriel looked perplexed. The human, I noted, was being uncharacteristically quiet.

I stuck out my hand to them.

"What?"

"I know you have it. Come on, give it back."

For a moment, they just looked at me. When I was unyielding, though, they reached into their pants pocket, and produced my knife, which was swiftly delivered to my hand.

Asriel admonished the human. "You took it? Why would you do that?!"

The human just shrugged. "I dunno. I thought it was cool. Maybe it would be useful."

For a moment, I scrutinized them. Then, slowly, I said, "You know that monster souls are not as strong as human Souls, right? A monster's Soul breaks almost immediately upon the monster's death. There would not be enough time for a human to absorb the Soul." (Of course, this isn't strictly true. With bossmonsters, there is a split instant where the Soul remains after death, but I wasn't about to tell the human that.)

They immediately got defensive; a strange reaction, I do believe. "It was just supposed to be a joke; I didn't poison dad on purpose!"

I shrugged a little, looking at the blade of my pocket knife. It hadn't been cleaned too well; I'd need to do that when I got back to the lab. "And I never said you did. I was simply offering you a warning, if you were intending to go down that path. It is a dark one, and the results it yields are not in the slightest bit satisfactory." After a moment, I looked at the child. They had their head down, staring at their shoes. Interesting, isn't it?

Not long after, Toriel returned with my lab coat, then went to check on Asgore. With that, I gathered up my stuff and went to go back to the lab, leaving Toriel with instructions to call me if anything happened to Asgore.

She would be calling me again, quite soon, but not for Asgore.

§

A/N

This chapter feels REALLY short to me, but the next bit was too long to break off, and I wanted to publish this chapter now.

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!