Chapter Text
It was cold and warm at the same time, Kanako had no idea where she was, and neither did she know how long it had been. She desperately tried to remember something, anything to reveal to her what was going on. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn't. She tried to hear, but there was no sound. The longer this state of being continued, the more panicked she became.
*What was the last thing I did?*
She tried desperately to remember, but even her memories were coming to her slow, painfully slow, it's as if all her memories were not quite there. Over many minutes, she started to remember how long it even took her to remember who she was in the first place. She had been slowly, subconsciously, putting her thoughts back together for what felt like weeks or months in retrospect.
*I am.. I was doing something... What did I do?*
She remembered her family, she loved her Parents, she remembered how devastating it was when her Father died... But there was something else before he did. She remembered... she remembered spying on her Parents one time, only days before he died, and overhearing something, something about tapes, a hidden basement, a...
*oh*
It came back to her, what she found a few months later when she got the courage to check. And her in the Moment decision.
*am... I dead?*
No, she was still thinking, although slowly. But what, had the Experiment failed? Probably, judging by the fact the last thing she remembered was a very sharp pain, but if so, how was she alive now?
*I need to... need to wake up?*
This was the only thing she could think of. She had to be asleep or in a coma, there was no other explanation for the way she was feeling right now, and still be alive that is.
After gathering her will for another few minutes she tried her best to Look inside herself, most Monsters could although they rarely felt the need to, but based on what she thought happened it was the most appropriate course of action.
When her soul was finally in front of her mind's eye she was confused.
It mostly looked normal, except for a tiny slowly closing, blue cut. That's when she noticed it. She could hear. Kanako wasn't sure when it started, but she could hear a low hum, likely old lighting.
Was she in a Hospital? It would make sense if something bad happened, which she was now pretty sure of.
She refocused on her soul again, trying hard to really take in all the details inside her mindscape.
It wasn't that it was healing on its own, there was this... Substance around it which seemed to want to enter her soul, but was mostly stopped from doing so by the blue color leaking out from it, the blue was new, she noted. It definitely happened because of the Experiment.
The two colors seemed almost to annihilate each other. Although the white was slightly stronger. It also seemed to be what was so determined to stitch the broken bit of her soul back together.
*wait, I... Since when could I think this fast again*
As she watched in fascination, the blue and white were almost completely gone now, and she watched as the blue finally completely vanished, now there was only a very tiny amount of the White substance left, which seeped greedily into her soul, she felt weird about this, but somehow it made her even more determined to wake herself up.
She had no idea what happened, but if this wasn't a dream, it meant she should wake up.
She tried hard again, and without any effort she simply... Opened her eyes.
"Wait, this doesn't look like the doctors. "
She began to breathe heavily, she didn't know why she felt so calm before, maybe her mind just wasn't all there, but now it was.
She did the first thing any kid her age would do if they found themselves lost and scared in an unfamiliar place, she cried and screamed for her mom.
----
Alphys woke up with a violent head jerk when she Heard the scream, she must have dozed off while feeding the Amalgamates again. But this didn't sound like the kind of screams the Amalgamates made when they wanted to get attention or play, or anything really. They screamed an awful lot about everything.
This sounded like the screams and cries of a normal child.
She looked in the direction the Sound had come from.
"It.. It couldn't, could it?"
She quickly hurried in the direction, the closer Alphys stepped, the more and more sure she became who it was, and for the first time in months, she smiled.
This was coming from the one girl's room that didn't wake up with the others originally, ergo she wasn't together with the other Monsters at the time to melt together.
If she woke up, no matter how small the possibility, her research actually accomplished something.
She got to the room where she put the girl, out of the way and inaccessible to the amalgamates. She did that because well, even if she never woke up, Alphys didn't want the one Person who was still themselves in body to accidentally fuse with one of the others.
She yanked the door open and came face to face with the crying Kanako.
----
Kanako heard a loud noise and stopped crying, she saw a Monster she didn't know enter the room. "W-who are you.. I.. I want to see my mom." The Fox kid backed away from the unfamiliar Monster.
"H-Hey it's ok. It's ok, um you were very... Sick and you're mother sent you here to get better ok?"
The yellow lizard Monster was now slowly approaching her.
"M-My Name is Alphys, I-I am the one in charge around here. I can get you to your mother alright, does that Sound good?"
Kanakos ears perked up lightly at that, this Monster could get her home? Also, she heard her name somewhere before so she was more inclined to believe her.
*Something must have gone seriously wrong, of course mom would send me to a place that could help me, she'd never abandon me*
She slowly nodded. "O-Ok, can you take me to my mom now?", she asked, meekly rubbing away her tears.
"Of-of course." Alphys chuckled nervously.
"But first we need to do a few small tests to see if you're actually all better, is that ok?" Alphys said looking at Kanako nervously.
Alphys stretched out a hand at her, prompting Kanako to grab it. The lizard promptly took her to another room with a few pieces of Equipment, avoiding all the places with amalgamates on the way, so Kanako wouldn't learn about them, but also because she wasn't sure if she was actually better or if she would melt into them as soon as they touched, and she'd rather avoid that.
"Just sit on this chair ok, I just need to run a few scans. ", Alphys tried her best to smile positively at her, but just ended up being awkward. Kanako didn't care.
She sat down and patiently waited for it to be over.
----
**Several Weeks prior in New Home**
"It's time," Clover said.
Flowey as usual observed this from a distance.
*Is this really the best outcome? I've tried this so many times it hardly seems worth the effort anymore.*
He stared blankly at the scene playing out before him and decided that he simply didn't care about this anymore.
Even in the runs that were the best in his opinion, Clover inevitably always sacrificed himself or got thrown out to Asgore, without any Chance of getting the SOULs.
*I'm just gonna go, maybe hibernate in the old Ruins until the next human comes, this is just boring.*
And with that, unceremoniously, Flowey left. Waiting for the next human to fall. He was very good at just stopping to think and skipping time for years or decades at this point. After all, some Experiments with cause and effect took a long time to play out. But his patience was wearing thin, so in his opinion waiting for the next human and then going from there was probably for the best.
----
Something in Ceroba stirred as she was about to take Clover's SOUL. Since Flowey got sloppy with the last couple of resets before he stopped, her subconscious had a lot of time to think about this moment, but she didn't know that, and never would.
*What... What am I doing, I know the alternatives are looking bleak but this.... This is just wrong. This is the exact same mistake I made with Kanako, letting a child make such a huge, dangerous, short-sighted decision, on a whim no less.. No nonono, I cannot do this, not again, not again, not again, NOT AGAIN.*
There was a loud crack as the Soul Container she was holding fell to the ground and shattered.
Clover looked up at her, probably to ask what was wrong. But when he saw that the tall fox lady was crying again, not as hard as before during their fight, but like a tiny whimper, trying her best to hide it.
The Kitsune leaned down to Clover and hugged him again for the second time in the last few minutes. But unlike the last one this time she fully lifted him up to her and almost cradled him.
*He's still so small* She thought sadly to herself. *I think he might be even younger than when Kanako...*
"I... I'm sorry Clover this... I hate that you were put into this situation. I know what I said before but, I don't think I can do this again, not after everything that happened, no matter the reason or how noble it is I.... I can not allow a child to take on such a heavy burden. Not again. "
Clover wanted to protest, to say something, but something about the way she held him in her arms made him let her continue her rambling without protest.
"You never should've had to make this decision Clover. I know how you feel about this, but you've bearly even been here for a day for angel's sake, and you feel like you need to sacrifice yourself for us. I can not allow this, don't even bother protesting. It should be the adult's job to protect kids, not let them do reckless stunts like this. You doing this wouldn't solve all or any of our problems, it could take decades until the next human even comes down here, I..."
She stopped her scolding towards Clover, but mostly towards herself to be honest, when she felt the human child shivering in her embrace.
The Fox looked down at the now crying child in her arms.
"....I just wanted to be useful for once."
She clutched him even tighter into her embrace. Those words struck a cord.
She thought about the day Kanako fell down a lot, what she bearly considered at the time, too lost in her obsession with finishing her husband's work, were those words.
*"Be useful for once."*
Her daughter felt useless and still grieved her father, and she didn't recognize just how bad her daughter felt until afterward, she should have been a responsible Parent, telling her that this is too dangerous, to go upstairs.
Anything would have been better than what she did.
Now they were both crying, Ceroba gently stroking Clover's head.
She looked up and saw Martlet, apparently having stood there for a while now, having become concerned and gotten back up when Ceroba took so long to return.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't do it." Ceroba let out these words in a low whisper.
Martlet, who overheard the last part of Cerobas rant just nodded her head.
"I... I understand."
Martlet's tone was conflicted. At first, she would have been all for this, and she still is, she was just very exhausted from the day's events, and overhearing Cerobas talk with the human made her realize even more that she went along with stuff, and was influenced, way too easily.
It made her think about her own childhood, and how easily it is as a child to get swept along with the first thing one thinks of.
What the hell had they been doing with Clover all day? Dumping way too much responsibility on him, that's what.
"we... We should probably go. It's still night time and not many residents of New Home are awake. I... It's gonna be difficult but as long as the rumors of a human only come from two tiny towns we might still be able to sweep it under the rug as a look-alike given a few weeks of no new sightings, that happens surprisingly often. But if a significant number of Monsters in New Home start seeing him..."
Ceroba, still shaken from the events of the last few minutes just nodded at Martlet's words.
"Let's go to Snowdin, where you live is probably the safest, for now, no chance of anyone accidentally seeing him."
Ceroba looked down at Clover to talk to him but realized that he was asleep now.
*This whole thing must have really taken a toll on him* Ceroba looked down at him sadly.
Without any further words, she concealed the sleeping human in her clothes, and the two practically booked it out of there, Star was initially confused at the scene, clearly recognizing that the human was in fact not dead, but didn't need to hear anything more than that the plan had changed to not question it further. He was glad his new buddy was still alive.
----
To say Alphys was shocked at the results would be an understatement, she didn't know how or why, but almost the entirety of the Determination the small fox kid had been injected with was simply gone without a trace.
Her body still had some more than she had when she first got here, but from all the scans and physical evidence, she looked just fine. And most importantly showed no signs of physical Instability.
*W-what? How... I... This was just pure luck wasn't it, does it have something to do with the fact that she's a Boss Monster? She's the only one that got sent here after all, but there was something off with the readings of her soul in the beginning that I could never pinpoint, I really should run more tests but...*
She looked at the still scared little girl sitting on the chair in the examination room, having put on simple patient clothes Alphys had given her, putting on a brave face.
*It may have just been luck and honestly I... This is no place for a little kid to be.*
Alphys beckoned Kanako to get down from the chair.
"Well, ev-everything seems to be in order. I think you might be even healthier than a typical Monster your age from all I see."
Kanako looked up at her with a hopeful expression.
Alphys stretched out her hand for Kanako to take.
"Come, I'll take you home."
----
Clover woke up in an unfamiliar place, the events just before he fell asleep still racing through his mind. Had Ceroba been right about this, had he not thought the last part through?
Instinctively he wanted to say no, it was only fair right? Why should he stand in the way of the Monsters freedom. Originally he only came down here to see what happened to the other five human children, or at least that's what he told himself when he first came here.
It wasn't that that part was untrue. That was very much one of the final justification his childish brain used to get down here, but the truth simply was that there was just not much justice to be had in his life on the surface.
It was a very childish fantasy, a reason to justify such blazingly suicidal actions to himself.
Heck for as much as anyone including Clover knew before he came here, there was just a well-hidden hole somewhere on the Mountain where people fell down into and simply died, most lore and info about Monsters was simply forgotten on the surface, no one knew any of them even still existed, let alone here.
He liked everyone down here, unlike back where he came from. Sure a lot of them still tried to hurt him and even attacked him, but at least they were (mostly) never truly malicious about it and many even apologized afterward.
He thought about all the people he met.
He had only known Martlet for a few hours, but she already was more important to him than most people he knew back above ground. He came to love the scatterbrained bird Monster.
Well, there was also Flowey but there was just something off about him, he tried his best not to interact with him as much as possible, he constantly talked about saving him somehow, but he never really noticed any evidence of that. Overall just a weird Monster in his opinion.
Starlo was one of his favorites. The Wild West was one of his favourite interests so it came only natural that the Wild East and the Sheriff became one of his most treasured memories here.
And then there was Ceroba. He honestly was conflicted in how he felt about her. He knew all of her darkest secrets and Plans. She was also the monster that stopped him from following through with his sacrifice.
It also felt really nice when she picked him up and hugged him.
At long last he looked around where he was and the first thing he noticed when he tried to remove the blankets on top of him was that it was extremely cold, borderline freezing in the room, the freezing part was a bit of an exaggeration, but it really was very cold.
Still feeling tired and sleepy, and the outside of the bed he was in being so cold, he decided to keep lying down for a bit, quickly falling asleep again.
----
Downstairs Martlet and Ceroba were having a conversation about how to continue, they knew what they were doing was basically treason, but for different reasons, neither of them cared much any more.
Starlo had left them when they crossed into the Wild East. One of the plans they came up with while hurrying back was for him to convince as many Monsters in town that Clover had in fact not been a real human, but just a smaller Monster cosplaying as one. Most of the Monsters had no reference to what a human actually looked like, plus Starlo and his gang were always making up wild stories to entertain, so it wouldn't be unusual.
"So," Martlet said, still bearly holding together, "the plan so far is just for Clover to stay with me for the next few weeks?"
"Yes, I think that would be for the best," Ceroba replied. "You may be one of the more... Scatterbrained Royal Guards I know, but you're still a Royal Guard. They won't immediately suspect you, plus this area is out of the way, and the last place where people should have seen Clover was the UG apartments, hopefully. So there should be no immediate danger."
Martlet wanted to take offense at the Scatterbrained comment, but she knew it was true.
Ceroba continued, "I also need to help Star make up a better cover story, or at least make it convincing enough to come across as real to whoever gets sent there to investigate."
"Ummm..." Martlet rubbed one of her wings awkwardly. "I.. I'm also unsure of how to actually take care of the little guy, like I don't know the first thing about actually taking care of children, let alone a human one. Now don't get me wrong I agree completely but, you know, could you give me some pointers?" Martlet looked at the Fox woman awkwardly.
Ceroba just sighed, this was gonna take a while.
----
In the end, she basically just gave Martlet the rundown of how she took care of her kid in the past, giving him food, making sure he took regular baths, that kinda of stuff, both of them had no idea about human-specific things, like if Monster food had any bigger consequences for him, but decided that if it hasn't been a problem so far, it was unlikely to become a problem.
In the end, Ceroba left to get back to the Wild East and Martlet was left alone with the still-asleep Clover in her house.
Martlet had promised to take care of Clover as best as they could and by the Angel they were gonna try.
*You can do this, you have to.* The still very nervous Martlet hyped herself up.
The Bird Monster wanted to quickly begin what she should've done regularly normally.
Clean her house. Because to be honest it really wasn't in a state to house any guests.
But before that, she actually had to sleep, she had been awake for an awfully long time, almost a full day at this point.
----
After a relaxed sleep and waking up almost 7 hours later, Martlet roused herself from sleep and began the tedious process of cleaning everything, firstly she checked up on Clover to see that he was still asleep.
While cleaning she thought more and more about the conversation Clover and her were gonna have to have.
Sure he seemed sort of receptive to staying with them after Ceroba kind of scolded him into it, but they were actually gonna have to talk about this and that scared her. She knew if humans really wanted to do something they could do so and there would be nothing she could do to really stop him.
She also didn't want to hold him as basically a prisoner for his own good, if they were gonna do this there had to be understanding from both sides on this issue.
And that fact scared her, even with only knowing him for a day she had become really attached to the little guy, enough to question some of her deep-rooted beliefs.
Mostly about Asgore and the government in general. Unrelatedly it also didn't improve her opinion as a whole to know that a government scientist she worked under had basically broken all the promises to her grieving friend about keeping her informed on what they were doing with her daughter. But that was a can of worms for later, once she'd figured out how Clover felt about this arrangement.
She was lost so deep in her thoughts that she had cleaned her whole house before she realized it, it felt surprisingly good to see everything in its proper place for once.
She was just about to start preparing for breakfast when she heard the guest room door opening. Clover was awake.
Nervously she looked upstairs where the human child stood, also looking at her nervously.
"Please come down here Clover we... We have a lot to talk about don't we," she spoke, resignation audible in her voice.
Clover just nodded and came downstairs.
Quickly and carefully taking him by the Hand once he was at the bottom she led him to the couch to talk.
"First of all Clover I.. I'm sorry about all this I don't know If you're even alright with all of this, I just kinda went along with Ceroba's plan because I happened to agree with it but, If you don't that's totally fine, you know. I don't know what, if any of this is even morally alright I mean I definitely agree with stopping you from doing that whole thing on reflection but..."
She stopped her fast-paced rambling as she felt the human boy just hug her without saying anything.
"Thank you, I.... That was pretty stupid wasn't it?" Clover was sniffling now, on the verge of breaking into tears.
Martlet did her best to comfort him, of all the things she expected for him to do, starting to cry in her arms was not one of them, even though she probably should have, he was a child after all.
She let out a soft cooing noise to try and calm him down. "Hey, hey hey I got you I got you." she softly whispered to him. Letting him get all of his feelings out as Clover began to cry harder.
"I wanted to help you all, but that wouldn't have really helped would it? I-I don't even agree with the King's plan at all I... I" Clover was now downright hysterical as some of his deepest fears and motivations came to the forefront of his mind for the first time in his life, having finally met a Person he knew deep down he could trust.
What he said next broke Martlet's heart.
"I just wanted to make you proud of me, to finally do something useful with myself... not be a burden anymore"
Martlet was now on the verge of crying herself. *W-what was his life like before coming here that he would think that he needs to go to such drastic lengths as to.. to...*
She simply hugged him tighter, letting him cry himself out.
After a good 10 minutes of just hugging and being comforted without saying much Clover was finally beginning to calm down, having somewhat realized just what it was they had bearly been prevented from doing.
Martlet was the first to speak up. "Sooooo I'm guessing you're alright with staying here for a while with me while we figure out what to do?" the bird Monster asked hopefully.
"yes"
A simple answer, but still more than Martlet had originally hoped for.
Martlet was now trying to at least somewhat lighten the somber mood they found themselves in. "Well you already know a lot about me, but I feel like I don't really know much about you, anything interesting you feel like sharing with me? For example, I don't even really know how old you are."
Clover answered proudly, "Oh, I'm ten, gonna be eleven soon though." He smiled up at her.
"I also really like Cowboys and Wild West stuff, going to the Wild East was pretty exciting, feels like being in a Cowboy movie"
*oh my angel he's only ten*
"Umm, Yeah that sounds really interesting, would you mind explaining what you find so interesting about that kinda stuff?"
"Would I? Well for instance-"
Martlet would come to slightly regret this decision as Clover proceeded to rant about Cowboy movies and related things for almost half an hour. But at least it kept him focused on something he likes, he really needed the mental distraction.
Also, Martlet got surprisingly into it halfway through.
----
"-nd that's why Cowboys are the absolute best."
Martlet now knew enough Cowboy facts to last a long time. She still wanted to know more about his life on the surface but realized that now was probably not a good time to ask about that.
"Hey Clover are you hungry?"
"Kinda, I guess..."
"Well how about I make you something then, let's see I have..." Martlet walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. ".... Eggs. Huh. Well, I can make you omeletts you like those, riiight?" she glanced nervously at him.
Clover's stomach just rumbled in response and he just eagerly nodded his head, embarrassed.
Before she started preparing the eggs she gave him a quick look though, to see that he and his clothes were absolutely covered in a thin layer of dirt and grime.
*I honestly can't believe I let him sleep in my guest bed like that.*
"Umm, Clover would you mind taking a quick bath while I make the food, no offense but, you're very dirty, haha."
Clover looked down at his clothes, he didn't know what the big deal was, he'd been way dirtier before, but agreed.
"Ok, I still have some of my older clothes, somewhere, they should be in the bottom drawer of my closet, some of those will probably fit you while we wash your other stuff, oh my bedroom is the left one to the one you woke up in by the way, and the bathroom is at the end of the hallway."
Having listened to all that, Clover quickly went upstairs while Martlet cooked. Looking for all the stuff she mentioned.
He didn't know why exactly, but for some reason, the thought of Martlet cooking eggs disturbed him slightly.
----
Martlet heard the bathroom door finally shut after Clover got everything. To be honest omeletts and similar simple stuff were the only things she could make consistently without starting a fire.
She wondered how Ceroba was doing, she hadn't heard from her since she left last night, probably asleep if she had to guess.
Before she knew it the omeletts were done and she prepared her kitchen table with the food, waiting for Clover to come down.
When he came down after a while, she could bearly hold back a squee. He looked so adorable in her old clothes, they were still a bit big for him, but now they almost matched hers. Martlets sense of fashion had not really changed in the last ten years.
"Awww you look adorable" Martlet stepped forward and inspected Clover. "This is much better, now there's not gonna be dirt all over my house haha."
The only thing Clover said in a small whisper was "I'm not cute...", pouting and sat down at the table waiting for Martlet to eat.
*Maybe this isn't gonna be as difficult as I thought.* the blue bird thought to herself.
As they began eating there was one thing on Clover's mind that he just had to ask.
"So were those eggs yours?"
Martlet nearly spit out her food, had a coughing fit, and was blushing severely.
"~caugh caugh caugh~ NO!"
After calming down she added, "Well, technically, some of them I made with magic."
The rest of the day went very calmly for the most part. Martlet showed Clover around the house and officially designated the guest room as his room.
Clover was more astounded by that fact than she thought he would be, but decided to ignore it for now, no point in dampening his spirit by bringing up potentially bad memories.
"And these are the clothes that you can use as Pyjamas, I know they're more of my old clothes but it's the best I have right now." She told him while sorting the clothes into the closet in Clover's new room.
"Your other clothes should be clean tomorrow so just bear with it right now ok?"
"That's fine. Thank you, I... Thank you for all of this stuff, I even get my own room, this is exciting."
Martlet's heart melted as she looked down at Clover, so happy to just get some clothes, not even new clothes.
She wasn't gonna let him down, she was gonna try her hardest to make his life here happy.
"How about we go to bed, I know not much happened today, but it is quite late already, we shouldn't stay up late every day haha"
Clover didn't complain, he was still quite tired.
----
Martlet woke up in the middle of the night, hearing a nervous knocking at her bedroom door.
She got up and opened it, finding a disheveled Clover on the other side.
"What's wrong?" she asks grogily.
"I... I... Never mind it's stupid" Clover turned around and was about to leave when Martlet stopped him by blocking his path with one wing.
She gently scooped him towards her with the wing. "Hey whatever it is I'm sure it's not stupid, how about you just tell me about it, hmm?"
"I had a nightmare and, I don't know why I came to you, I know it would be weird to ask to sleep in your bed, I'm gonna go now."
The human again tried to get out of her wings grip.
He looked like he was about to cry again, Martlet just hugged him close.
"Hey, hey it's ok, you can stay with me tonight, it's alright."
Clover just looked up at her in disbelief, unable to process the fact that she agreed.
"Come," she said as she pulled him towards her bed, nervously he got into it next to her.
Martlet herself was unsure of what to do next, so simply imitated what her mom had always done for her when she used to get nightmares.
She draped one wing over him and began to emit soft cooing sounds, and while Clover found it a bit weird, he also found it quite relaxing, quickly falling asleep in her arms.
*What happened to you?* Martlet thought sadly while looking at Clover's sleeping face.
This would become a thing that they would do many times over the coming weeks.