Broken Souls

Chapter 16 - Waking Up

Gaster was not very surprised to notice Papyrus' room as his surroundings when he woke up. What he was surprised with was that he'd even woken up at all. That wasn't to say he wasn't happy with waking up, he was overjoyed that he had. There was just that little voice in the back of his mind asking what would have happened if he didn't wake up. But he told it to shut up, because he was awake, and now he was very bored of being not awake, so Gaster decided to get up. He sat up, for the first time looking around the room and noticed the two smaller skeletons huddled together on a chair. They noticed Gaster's movements and their faces split into large grins.

"DAD!" Papyrus cried, leaping from his seat and almost knocking Sans over, "I'm so glad you are awake! How are you feeling?"

"I am quite alright Papyrus." Gaster replied, smiling fondly at his sons. Sans was slightly less enthusiastic than his brother, but still wandered over to give their father a hug. Gaster accepted it, then braced himself for the immanent addition of an overly-excited Papyrus.

"thank you dad." Sans mumbled, so only Gaster could hear, "thank you for coming back."

===

The family spent a few minutes longer in Papyrus' room, just being together. Then Papyrus got a call from Undyne, telling him to come to training now Gaster was okay. Sans helped the older skeleton downstairs, then went back upstairs to fetch 'something'. Gaster ran a mental check of any work he needed to do, decided there was nothing and went to sit on the couch. Until he realised he couldn't. 

What, or who to be more precise, was taking up the couch and therefore limiting Gaster's ability to sit down, was a human girl. She was curled up, eyes closed and breaths hardly even there. Something about the aura her Soul gave off was familiar, but Gaster couldn't quite place where he'd felt it before. But regardless, he sense danger. She seemed to reek of darkness and despair. Whether it was her own, or the feelings she inflicted on others, Gaster didn't care to find out. Not when his family could be in danger. So instead, he summoned a very long, very sharp bone spear and raised it high.

"dad." Sans said, appearing next to him. "what are you doing?"

"Well Sans. There is a human here, on the couch. I was about to remove it from the house." Gaster replied, very matter-of-factly, not bothering to turn around but choosing to keep his focus on the girl.

Sans frowned even more,

"remove her... with an attack?"

"Well yes."

"it might be prudent to know that c has very low hp, one attack would kill her." Sans pointed out. Gaster let out an irritated huff, his grip on the spear wavering.

"C? What an odd name for a human. Well she isn't doing anything useful, so I shall remove her, no?"

"i think paps would throw a fit. he took quite the shine to her, until she passed out that is." Sans chuckled, now approaching C where she lay on the couch. Gaster stepped back, dismissing his attack.

"What did she do exactly?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"she used a syringe to extract her soul's essence and injected into yours." Sans answered, "apparently that took a lot out of her." 

As if to prove his point, he leaned over C and gave her a sharp poke in the ribs. Her breathing hitched slightly but she didn't wake up, Sans shrugged and straightened up, looking pointedly at Gaster.

Gaster grumbled angrily but let her alone. He wandered over to the dining table, slumped on a chair and pillowed his head with his arms on the table top. The nature of C's Soul energy still had him on edge, and now with the knowledge of some of that dark stuff  being in his Soul, Gaster didn't feel very safe. But he also didn't feel anything wrong, so he shrugged it off. After giving C a few more pokes, Sans came over and sat opposite him, mimicking his father's position but keeping his eye sockets focused on Gaster.

"still tired?"

"No. Just don't have much to do, Asgore hasn't given me any new projects yet." Gaster mumbled.

"actually, he has. but i have something else for you to try."

"Really now?" Gaster said, unable to hide the obvious sarcasm in his voice.

"yeah, the girl's soul. i know we can all sense it, paps doesn't have the heart to, but it's obvious that something's wrong."

"Yes I know, have you checked her?"

Sans chuckled darkly,

"yup. and that's exactly it, not a single bit of exp. just a human girl with below average hp and a black soul."

Gaster froze up,

"Did you say a black Soul?"

=

Honestly, Gaster had just about given up trying to research C's Soul after three tedious hours spent coaxing the blasted thing out of her sleeping form. Amazingly, he couldn't force another person Soul out of their being, especially when said person was in a coma. Even Sans had tried, with little to no success. The two eventually gave up and Sans left Gaster alone to read over the actual project Asgore had given him.

The Royal Scientist persevered with his task for a good few hours until his sockets were drooping from exhaustion. Despite having slept for gods know how long and being quite sick of not doing anything, Gaster could not bring himself to work any longer. He let his head fall backwards against the couch he'd been sitting against. The papers strewn on the floor around him were going to stay there, whether they liked it or not. Gaster was ready to sle-

"Hey." said the girl.

Gaster let out a strangled shout, lurching forward and falling face first onto the floor. He groaned, rolling onto his back to look up at the girl who was now sat upright with a large grin. Her eyes flashed with sort of mirth that filled Gaster with a hatred he hadn't felt for a very, very long time.

"Human." he growled, standing up and letting his sockets fill with light. Blue for the left and orange in the right. C remained unfazed, her grin unwavering.

"My name's C, but I don't mind being called human, if that's what you prefer." she said, giving a little wave and leaning forward slightly. 

Gaster didn't reply. Was the human- C, mocking him? Did she really have the audacity to-

"Uh, you okay there? I don't know an awful lot about skeletons but I'm pretty sure you don't randomly stare off into the distance, your sockets blazing with light, on a day to day basis."

There it was again! Her mocking tone - no wait. It wasn't mocking. Just... empty? Bored? No, just... uninterested. She didn't act like she was meaning to poke fun at him and sounded as if she just wanted to do something other than sleep. Which was reasonable, she'd been out longer than he had. Gaster dismissed the flames in his sockets and gave her a weak smile, fighting the repulsion as he did so.

"No, we don't. Sorry for the informalities, I'm Dr WD Gaster."

C sat back on the couch and closed her eyes,

"Nice name. I think Wingdings suits you." she muttered, one of her empty half smiles flickering across her lips. Gaster grumbled something unintelligible before fixing C with a cold glare,

"How did you know?"

"I know a lot of things." C replied vaguely, "I also know that you're really tired so I'll move off this very comfortable couch and do that research for you so you can sleep."

Gaster was starting to get very suspicious of C, more so than he was already of course. He didn't like how she could just guess at his name like that, or how she just knew that he was tired.

But, like she said, Gaster really was tired and that couch really was comfortable. So he begrudgingly pulled himself up onto it and lay down, his head propped up on the arm and his legs dangling over the other side. C took his place on the floor, found a pen and began to write notes down. She had an odd way of talking quietly to herself as she wrote, providing a gentle background noise. Gaster didn't see or hear much else as his eye socket drooped closed and he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.