It was a long walk from the river to the lab. Gaster didn't remember paying for the ferrying fee, but he was sure he had, since no one called after him as he got out of the shallow boat.

The halls felt very cold compared to the rest of Hotland. Somehow, colder than even Snowdin.

The temmie wasn't at the receptions desk. A shell with two eyestalks and an abundance of furry arms was there instead. Gaster hesitated halfway down the entry hall, not sure if he should check in–but the thought of approaching the desk and speaking, introducing himself, asking the monster to call down to inform of his presence–the nerves won out.

He shuffled the rest of the way down the entryway to the elevator, very aware of two eyestalks swiveling to follow him. But his key still worked. The elevator doors slid open.

He didn't look up from his shoes until the doors finally, finally closed.

Fuck.

He'd forgotten how exhausting this could be.

…

Ursama's office was two floors down. A bit below the labs, a bit above the greenhouses. Gaster didn't meet more than two people in the hallways, but he still thought he could feel himself being judged around corners and stared at through the little windows in the doors. And at any moment he could imagine someone walking around the corner to spot him hovering outside Ursama's office, hand not even raised to knock yet. They'd corner him into an explanation. He had to get inside before someone else rounded into the hall, but knowing Ursama was inside and therefore also a person to corner him into an explanation–

Halfway into his thoughts the door to her office fell open.

Gaster jumped.

She shrieked.

Something fell out of her paws and smashed against the ground.

…It didn't smash. It was a plastic cup.

Gaster was three feet back with a hand over his chest, and Ursama was mirroring his posture in the doorway, her dark eyes wide and dilated.

"Goodness!" she said. "Gaster!"

"Uhk," he croaked.

She covered her eyes with her palm and shook her head, letting out a loose breath as she sighed and bent over to pick up the fallen cup. Her labcoat reached down to her ankles.

"Come–come on in. You startled me."

Gaster made a sort of 'wub wub' sound somewhere in his throat that she accepted as meaning, 'me too.'

(He had temporarily forgotten how to blink and only started to again when he realized his eyesockets could metaphorically dry out.)

Ursama's office had a flickering light that she informed him was on the fritz again as they sat down, him shuffling quietly into the too-large chair in front of her desk. She abandoned whatever she wanted to do with the plastic cup, setting it on the corner of the desk beside a messy stack of papers. Beside that was a partly filled lantern in case the lights went out again. "Sorry, one second–"

"I can wait," he croaked, shifting in his seat as Ursama turned around a few times behind her desk, apparently searching for something. Pushed a pair of glasses up and rubbed her eyes, shook her head.

"No, it's fine, we were waiting–can you get the door?"

Gaster stood quickly and went to close the door. Promptly back in his seat. She thanked him quietly. Groomed her snout.

"What WERE YOU THINKING? "

Gaster died immediately.

He melted down in his chair and hid his head between his shoulders and was pretty sure he went momentarily blind, as he had no idea what his eyes were trying to focus on.

(But Ursama hadn't been shouting –it had just seemed so loud to him–he just–

He understood that it couldn't have been heard outside, that she was still rubbing her snout and eyes and she looked exhausted , but his body wanted to curl up and hunch away and just take it–)

"I just–what in the world would possess you to steal CS1 and run off with no explanation , and for months , with–"

Even though she wasn't talking quickly, his mind was still fuzzed over with static and he didn't hear all the words.

"–We've had to stall the project while you were gone and come up with an explanation for the–"

He dug his fingers into the holes in the opposite hand until a sliver of dust scraped free.

"–while a human ran around, and–"

"–I!" Gaster said.

…Ursama paused. Paw away from her nose. Staring at him. Maybe she didn't mean to stare. Maybe she was just giving attention, and staring was just what it felt like, because he'd finally gotten his eyes focusing again, but he could only dart them to the corner of her desk, watching a place where the edge of a stack of papers and the metal top aligned.

"I… I came back because of-of the human, actually…"

…Ursama took another deep breath, sat down in her chair, and Gaster told himself again that she'd never really been angry.

"…I, uh, I saw something in the woods that looked like a, like my bone constructs, but CS1 was far away–"

Ursama held up a paw.

"I'm glad you're safe," she said, "and that the human gave you a scare, but I need to know why you did something this rash in the first place. Like I said. Normally I'd have never believed it would happen with you, Wingdings."

He hadn't heard that before. But he would have to believe she'd said it. It didn't light up anything warm or affectionate in him. The nickname didn't even send a twinge of annoyance. He was already sick to his nonexistent stomach.

"I-I- came to suppect SssseeS1 was being harmed here. S-somehow."

"Being harmed?" She leaned forward a little, snout wrinkling.

" Somehow ," he repeated. "I-I didn't find any physical evidence, but he was very distressed whenever I left the room, a-and since learning to speak more–"

"Has he said something to make you support that theory?"

"Y-yes, he, he expressed some distress about it, um."

"Anything more concrete than that?"

He glanced up from the edge of the desk where he'd been focused, to Ursama's hands crossed in front of her on the desk, to her small eyes still staring at him. This wasn't how he remembered his parents handling things about scared children when he was young; something wasn't going right and he couldn't find it in him to remember exactly what Sans had said– "Well, well he was taken from the room without permission and, and there were additional things he was exposed to without–"

"There's always tests, Wingdings…."

"But, but he was very upset by them, to the point where he did not want me to leave his side, so I believed my presence was stopping someone from–"

"Who do you honestly believe would do that?" Ursama asked, sighing and rubbing the side of her head, just in front of her twitching ear. She finally closed her eyes and relaxed her face again, but Gaster didn't feel any better about it. Instead, he felt even heavier in his seat. "I'm sure he was just scared by a technician taking him out for a bath, or–"

"I-I-I was hoping to ask Serptrine."

…

Ursama didn't answer him, but one of her eyes popped back open and returned to staring.

Gaster shrank again.

"…I'd. Like to ask Serptrine. I-I agree and I'm sure there has to be an explanation. Sans said that Serptrine was there and I'm certain the royal scientist wouldn't–"

"Sans?"

…Gaster couldn't seem to ease the cold grip around his soul.

His jaw was hard to move.

"…I… gave him a nickname…"

…

He didn't want to hear Ursama sigh again.

But she did.

He just tried to focus on his breathing.

"…Wingdings," she said, in a terribly gentle voice, leaning forward on her desk again. "…where's CS1 right now?"

…

"Wingdings. Please answer me."

"…my apartment. I. Didn't want to leave him somewhere far, but he was scared to come back to the lab."

"He's expressing emotions now?"

"…he has been, yes."

"Okay. We'll have the room prepared for you when you return with him in an–"

"I'm–" …There was a way Ursama looked at him when she was interrupted that made the silence feel much, much longer than it must have been. "I'm not… I'm able to sufficiently care for him at my place, I think, so until I get what happened sorted out and talk with Serptrine, I'd rather care for him there, just in case, and–"

…

He met her eyes again and neither of them spoke for a long, long silence.

The lights flickered out. Then on again. Neither commented.

…Ursama put her head in her hands. And sighed.

"You're on unpaid leave, Wingdings," she said. "We'll expect the return of borrowed materials by the end of today and be contacting you with more information later."

…Gaster nodded. Swallowed. And got to his feet.

"Right," he croaked. "I'll go get that."

She nodded and didn't open her eyes to see him, even as her hands once again fell down and her arms folded in front of her on the table.

"Thank you," she said.

"Thank you," he said, and was gone.

–

There weren't any pictures of his parents left in his house. He'd gotten a contact print as a present, once, and kept that as best he could, but the earthquake had destroyed most things that he would've tried to salvage.

Sans had wandered to the kitchen and rifled around, obviously, but found nothing there. Nothing in the livingroom was of interest to him. There were no books he could easily read yet.

Gaster found him on the floor in front of the couch, with Poe Yo beside him, bouncing in circles and pretending to make different monster noises.

He hadn't even prepared a new trap for Gaster, which was… refreshing. In fact, Poe Yo seemed to fail to notice him entirely, busy imitating an Aaron's "nyeah," in a dead, monotonous drone. Sans noticed Gaster's arrival first, actually, stopping his applause abruptly to point Poe Yo towards Gaster and start signing.

"I'm, I'm going to have to run back," Gaster muttered, signing along with the words, about a half a step ahead. "I just, just need to return some things…"

Sans nodded and Poe Yo let out a cheerfully monotone, "Alright!" as Gaster scurried past them, picking up any bolts and screws and wires and soldering irons he'd borrowed from the lab.

Somehow, his apartment was even emptier when he was done than it was before.

…

Or maybe everything looked emptier, now that he'd gotten used to the little round blue carpet at the foot of the quilt-covered bed, the coffee table and two chairs by the window, and the fireplace heating the teapot in place of a stove.

–

The shelled monster in the entry hallway to the labs called out to him this time as he came up to their desk to sign the materials back in, and the only reason Gaster knew they were talking to him was because no one else was even around for them to be talking to–but he had to look around to see it, and almost cringed, pointing to himself, and watching their shell bob in a nod.

"Yeah, you! Your interview went that well?"

The worst part of this conversation was that he had no idea why it was happening.

"I-interview?"

"Yeah!" said the monster. They had a high, soprano voice that matched exactly nothing of their outside appearance. "Are you not the new hire?"

Oh thank fuck.

He signed his name quickly. Gstr on the dotted line.

"N-No, no, I've been here a while."

"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "I haven't seen you around before?"

"I've, I've been away," he said as he took one hopeful half-step towards the elevator, then another. "I, uh, I guess you're filling in for Temmie while she does the same, huh?"

"Temmie?"

"The, uh, the front desk… person…?"

"Uh, well, I'm actually new here, too, so? But I'm the only one here?"

"Oh," he said, and continued trying to shuffle towards the elevator while the front desk person continued to talk.

"The person before me got fired for letting someone steal some supplies. Is that what you mean?"

Oh.

"Uh, hahaha, I wouldn't know. I've been gone a while. Have to go to a meeting, again, though. Bye!"

He.

He circled his thumb inside his hand's hole as he climbed, shaking, into the elevator.

He'd drop off the bag of supplies he'd carried in with him.

The power went off halfway through the return trip back up. He opened the side door of the elevator and tiredly started pulleying the thing up by hand. It was like pulling on a safety-lock seatbelt until you were on a new floor. There had to be a better way to do this.

(When elevators didn't have power, the humans called them 'dumb-vators'. Gaster really hated dumb-vators.)

Back to the piers. Back to the rivers and rivermen. Three more gold coins to get him back to the edge of the Capital. Back into town.

Gaster was exhausted by the time he climbed the stairs to his apartment. Making the round trip twice in one day didn't seem like such a severe undertaking, but today it had been. He leaned against the wall outside his apartment when he finally got there, catching his breath and wishing the Capital were a bit cooler before twisting the knob and shuffling in to tell Poe-Yo that he could head home now when he realized that Poe Yo and Sans were no longer in front of the couch where he'd spotted them last.

Gaster groaned.

That pogo stick better not have tried to use his kitchen or made a mess of his backroom storage.

Grumbling quietly, he shuffled over to the kitchen and poked his head in, expecting the whole place to be flooded, or at least to see–what– sauce everywhere, or something.

…it was somehow disconcerting to see the kitchen in the same state as he'd left it.

He stepped back again, looking around the livingroom once more, even though there wasn't really anywhere to hide except behind the couch.

"Poe Yo?" he called, and did glance behind the couch. No one there.

"Poe Yo, I'm back…"

Gaster opened his back storage closet. Or tried. It was a little bit stuck.

He braced his foot on the wall to try and tug the door open, grunting with one hefty tug. The door squealed.

Ugh.

The air inside was stale and musty-cold. No one'd opened this room at all since he headed to Snowdin.

…

He shut the door again. Hard. It squeaked back into place, even though the knob stuck and didn't go back into the wall all the way.

He tried to shake off the musty smell and swallowed his nerves back down.

Turned sharpy.

Back into the hall. And across the way.

He rapped his knuckles against Poe Yo's apartment quickly, with less hesitation than he'd ever felt outside that door, and more trepidation than he'd ever imagined.

"Just a second!" came the monotone, nasally voice.

And a second later there was Poe Yo, opening the door, and looking up with his jack-in-the-box head, beaming. "Oh! You're back already!"

"Where is Sans?" Gaster said.

"He just went to see you in the lab!" Poe Yo reported, striking a salute. "The slime you sent up here picked him up just a half hour ago!"

–

A/N 'dumb-vator' is a play off 'dumbwaiter', where if you use a german pronunciation, they're pronounced about the same. Dumbwaiters nowadays are freight elevators and run off electricity, but you can find them in houses that far predate electricity. If you've ever taken a tour of the Founder's houses in the US, you'll probably have seen one– they were often used to lift wine or single meals up to different floors in the house so they didn't have to be carried from the cellars.