Gaster was sitting at his desk, tapping a pen against the desktop.

Things weren't going well.

Sans had been pretty badly wounded in the fight-- he was still unconscious. Granted, he had done enough damage, enough that when Asgore had arrived, he had killed the human in less than a minute, but...

As it turned out, the Determination was so thick in Sans' bones, that when he had finally been brought down, when he had finally begun to let go, it had started seeping out of his wounds.

Sans had bled Determination. And that hurt, apparently, a lot. Gaster had had a difficult time lifting Sans off the ground; he started writhing and screaming the second anything touched him.

Nonetheless, Gaster had carried him back to the lab and bandaged up his wounds in an attempt to stop Sans' loss of Determination. There was still a lot left in the small skeleton, Gaster knew, but it looked like Sans had lost almost fifteen injections' worth of it.

Gaster couldn't imagine the pain.

On top of that, there was just the general brokenness of Sans' body. His ribs had been all but caved in, there was a webbing of cracks across his skull, and his entire right shoulder was just a mess, not to mention the myriad of other smaller breaks and cracks and scrapes.

Currently, Sans was passed out on the operating table, but all of Gaster's machines showed that his vitals were more or less stable. Sans would live, and, with the amount of healing Magic Gaster had poured into him, with very little scarring.

This whole thing, though, was just... difficult. The loss of Determination; more than a year's work wasted. The time waiting until Sans healed.

The fact that Sans hadn't been strong enough.

Gaster had gone back and watched the recording of the battle, filmed through his network of cameras.

Sans had put up an impressive fight, there was no denying that. But, at the end, when it mattered most, he had failed to use Blue Magic. He could have saved himself, won, if he had had Blue Magic.

Gaster sighed, rubbing the ridge of his nasal bone.

Sans hadn't been strong enough, and now they were not only set back because of that, but Sans was badly injured and would probably be in pain for a long time.

And then, as if this weren't enough, there was an issue with the CORE. Some of the metals hadn't been pure enough composites, and a bunch of stuff had turned molten in the heat. It was going to take a long time to repair the damage.

Gaster groaned again, smacking his hand against his skull.

Why, why had everything gone so wrong?

And then Sans let out a strangled cry, writhing as he woke up. Gaster rose from his seat and walked over. He grabbed up Sans' hands and tried to hold the small skeleton down, tried to keep him from injuring himself more, but that was challenging when grabbing ahold of him almost anywhere meant jostling some broken bone or another.

Sans only cried out more, choked sobs slipping from his mouth.

Still struggling to keep Sans still, Gaster summoned several pairs of hands and sent them about the room, getting a sedative ready to calm Sans down.

Gathering Sans up in his arms as carefully as he could manage, Gaster held Sans' skull against his chest. He had found that one of the things that helped Sans calm down was hearing the beat of his Soul, and this now was what he was hoping to use.

It was hard, though. Sans was still struggling and whimpering.

"Shhh, shhh. Calm down, Sans. Try to stay still." Gaster's voice helped, too. "You're going to be alright. You're going to hurt yourself, calm down."

Finally finishing with the sedative and handing it to himself, Gaster shifted Sans in his arms to set the glass against Sans' mouth.

"Shh, stay calm, Sans. Just like that. Everything's going to be okay, just stay still." Gaster slowly started to pour the liquid into Sans' mouth.

Sans gagged and choked, crying out, thrashing in Gaster's grip.

"Nonono, hush, shhh, calm down, it's alright, Sans." Gaster rocked back and forth a little, repeatedly murmuring to Sans to calm him down. "Come on, you're going to be okay, just calm down."

Sans gradually stopped struggling in favor of trembling fiercely, moaning and whimpering.

"That's it. Now just stay still..." Gaster again held the drugged drink to Sans' mouth. "Sans, I need you to drink this, alright? It'll make you feel better. You'll go back to sleep, and everything will hurt less. Okay? Sans? Can you drink this for me?"

Wether Sans actually heard Gaster, he had calmed down enough to actually drink it, or it was just some instinctive reaction left from the days when Gaster hand-fed him, Sans began to drink. Regardless of the reason, Gaster was glad that he was drinking it, as it meant he wouldn't have to put it into an IV drip, and was careful to not tip the liquid into Sans' mouth too fast.

By the time he had finished, the sedative was already taking effect. Sans was only just trembling a little, and he was more or less limp.

Gaster settled Sans back down on the table, sighing heavily.

When had everything gotten so difficult?

~o0o~

Sans wasn't quite sure when he had started screaming, only that he was. Everything burned and ached, and he couldn't see.

So he screamed, crying out for help he couldn't be sure would come.

"Sans! Sans! Calm down! Calm down, you're alright."

Recognizing Gaster's voice, Sans let his own voice taper off, shaking and gasping. "d- dings?"

"Yeah. I'm right here." Sans felt Gaster grab lightly onto his left shoulder, which hurt just a little less than his right.

"d-dings-- ev-eryth-ing h-h-urts--"

"I know. Just try to stay still."

"i c-can-t s-see--"

"You took a pretty nasty hit right above your eyesockets. I had to wrap almost your entire skull in bandages."

Sans just whimpered.

"Everything's going to be alright, Sans. You just need a bit of time to recover."

Sans whimpered again.

And then he remembered why he was there, why he couldn't move without crying out in pain, why he was wrapped in bandages.

"i- i'm s-sorr-y! i'm sorry, d-ings--"

"Why are you sorry?" There was a note of bitter humor in Gaster's voice.

"i w-wasn't-- i could-n't b-beat t-the hum-man-- i w-wasn't str-rong en-nough-- an'-- i c-couldn't-"

"Sans." Gaster's grip on his shoulder tightened a little. "Sans, that's not your fault. We couldn't have known how strong the human was. If anything, it's my fault. You weren't ready, but I told you to go anyway." He hesitated. "And... Do you know what happened after you fell? King Asgore came and killed the human in one hit."

Sans let out a moan. He was so weak; he was meant to kill humans but he couldn't, and King Asgore had killed the human in--

"You brought the human's HP low enough that Asgore didn't have to do hardly anything. Without all that you had done against them, that battle would have lasted much longer."

Sans wasn't so easily convinced. "b-but i s-still- w-wasn't..."

"And that's okay. You're alive, and you're going to heal. You'll recover, be just as strong as you used to be, and then you'll get stronger. You can't give up, Sans. We're so close. Next time, we'll do better. This will work; the only reason it didn't work now was because we tried to make it work too soon. You will get better." Sans heard Gaster sigh slowly. Not being able to see, he flinched slightly when Gaster grabbed his hand. "You'll get better. For now, though, just rest. Alright?"

Sans let out a sort of breathy whine of agreement.

"Good." There was a rustle of cloth, Gaster's clothes, probably, as he moved away. "Still hurts, though, doesn't it? I'll get you something to help you sleep."

Sans mumbled out an affirmative response.

It was a few minutes before Gaster returned. Carefully, he lifted Sans' skull, holding a glass to Sans' mouth.

"Here. Drink this."

With Gaster's help, Sans did so.

When he had finished and Gaster started to pull away, Sans clumsily, blindly reached out in the direction he thought Gaster was, trying to ignore the stab of pain in his shoulder and arm and ribs. He managed to grab something, probably a fistful of Gaster's lab coat. "d-dings-- d-don't g-go!! p-please- d-on't leave m-me-- ... p-lease d-don't g-go-..."

Gaster sighed quietly, almost sadly. He reached up and wrapped a hand around Sans' hand, gently loosening Sans' grip. "Okay, Sans. I'll stay here. I'm not going to go anywhere."

Sans let out a choked sob of relief. "i d-don' w-wanna be alone-..."

"I know, Sans." Gaster's fingertips just brushed against the top of Sans' skull, and Gaster gripped Sans' hand tightly. "You're not alone. I'm right here."

"d-don't go-..."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay right here. Just try to rest, Sans."

"...don't l-leave-... me- a-al-one--..."

"I'm not going to leave you, Sans. I promise."

~o0o~

Sans woke to a soft light filtering through the bandage over his eyes.

"hhhhhnnnngh?" He mumbled sleepily.

He had been laying there, in and out of consciousness, for nearly the last three weeks. Always when he had woken up, Gaster was nearby, ready to come to his aid and keep him calm.

Everything still ached fiercely, but compared to how badly it had hurt before... he was thankful.

"Stay still." Gaster quietly responded to Sans' mumbled question as he once again lifted Sans' skull. "I'm taking the bandage off your head. If it's healed enough, I can leave it off."

Sans didn't respond, just taking slow, deep breaths, trying to push away the dull throbbing in his bones.

After a few seconds, Gaster pulled away the last of the bandage, still cradling Sans' skull in his hand. "That... It looks alright. It'll be sore for a while, but, well, everything will be. You... You can open your eyes whenever you're ready."

Carefully, Gaster lowered Sans' head back onto the table, and moved on to the thick swath of bandages around Sans' shoulder. He had already finished taking care of most of Sans' smaller injuries before Sans had woken up, and was moving on to the bigger things now.

Gradually, Sans opened his eyes. It seemed that Gaster had anticipated his waking up now, and purposefully kept the light level of the room low, so Sans had no difficulty adjusting to the light.

Slowly, he lifted his head to see what Gaster was doing.

"wh-why--" he said, his breathing shuddery, "why is it s-so red-?"

Gaster stopped what he was doing, looking at the red-stained bandages he had been pulling off Sans' shoulder. There were faint splotches of red soaking through the bandages around his ribs, too. With a slow sigh, he reached out and gently forced Sans to lay back down. "You were bleeding Determination. It's stopped, now, but... that'll have set us back quite a bit."

Sans closed his eyes, moaning pitifully. "wh-y d-does it h-ha-ve to h-hurt s-so much-?"

Starting again on unwinding the bandages, Gaster sighed again. "You'll get better, Sans. You'll be fine."

§

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