#the lopsided stack of cheese in mine

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Babysitting with Takumi

Takumi had been half-joking when he said he would babysit for the Kudos to get to know his maybe-sister. But he’d been half-serious at the time too, and now here he was. Alone. With two children. On a Saturday. Their parents wouldn’t be home until Sunday afternoon and of course this had to be a weekend that his dad and Hakuba were off on a kind of sort of romantic getaway too (did it count as a romantic getaway when they initially went away for a case?). Either way, Takumi didn’t actually spend much time with children. Ever. What had made him think this was a good idea again?

Two wide-eyed little girls stared back at him, either one of them looking like they could be a blood relative.

Right. Family. Maybe family. Family was important even if it was family that might not be family, or maybe just family in the adopted sideways kind of way.

“So... What do you want to do?” Takumi asked, wondering what the heck babysitters were supposed to do besides make sure children were alive and well and not setting things on fire while their parents were elsewhere.

“Usually we play games and eat dinner and maybe watch a movie or something before bed,” Hanae said. “When Ayumi-neesan is over we sometimes do girl stuff. Mitsuhiko-niisan only ever wants to watch documentaries or play trivia games, and Genta-niisan sometimes shows us how to bake.”

That was three babysitters right there; the Kudos probably had a whole bunch of other people they could have entrusted their daughters to but they’d decided to let Takumi watch them. Oh crap, he was responsible for two little kids.

“Are you okay?” Hanae asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“No, I’m good. Really. You didn’t say what you wanted to do?”

Hanae and Midori exchanged a look like they could read each other’s minds. Was it a sibling thing? They’d done something similar when they dragged him to play with them when he last spent time with them, so maybe it was a sibling thing.

“What do you wanna do, Takumi-niisan?” Midori asked.

What would Tou-san do at a time like this? Break out story books and magic tricks and a spur of the moment adventure game? Or what would Shiemi do? ...Pull out a pack of cards and teach them poker? Heck, cards weren’t a bad idea... “Want to play Go Fish?” He pulled a pack of cards from a pocket with as much flair as he could manage. It wasn’t his dad’s level of showmanship, but it should impress a couple of kids.

Midori looked excited. Hanae didn’t seem impressed, but then she was a bit older than her sister.

“Are you a magician like Kid-san?” Midori asked.

“Uh.”

“Of course he is, Midori,” Hanae said. “That’s how it works. Like Tou-san teaching us detective stuff and Kaa-san teaching self-defense.”

“Um!” Did they know his dad was Kid?

“Relax,” Hanae said, “we keep secrets. Right Midori?”

Midori nodded. “No one can know we know Kid-san. But that’s okay because he’s cool.”

“Tou-san’s better,” Hanae said. “But Kid’s not too bad.” She glanced sideways at Takumi. “Adults don’t notice you listening if you pretend not to know they’re talking.”

Takumi was uncomfortably reminded of the times he and Shiemi snuck downstairs to listen to adults talk in the kitchen after bedtime growing up. He swallowed. “Yeah, adults do that sometimes. Um. Maybe don’t mention you know I’m related to Kid?”

Hanae rolled her eyes. “We’re not stupid.” She grabbed his arm. “C’mon, we can play cards in the kitchen.”

“Do you know any card tricks?” Midori asked as Hanae dragged him down the hall.

“Some?”

“Can you teach me?”

“Maybe?”

“Teach her later, I want to play cards,” Hanae said.

And so that was how Takumi found himself in the Kudos’ kitchen playing Go Fish for the next half hour. Midori won the first two rounds and Hanae won the third, and Takumi wasn’t really trying to win and the girls clearly noticed because after the third round, Midori demanded he show her a card trick and it devolved from there.

It was hard to teach a child how to palm a card when the card was bigger than her hand. Stacking a deck was a little more successful and Midori was engaged in trying to get a simple trick to work, but Hanae was clearly bored with it all.

“I don’t get what’s so fun about it when it’s such a simple trick,” Hanae said as Midori tried to get it right for the eighth time. “Once you know how it’s done you can mess it up, and it’s not that awe inspiring anyway.”

Takumi had never met a child so utterly disillusioned with sleight of hand. It was annoying because he’d practiced hard to get the skills he had and his dad had taught him every trick he knew. And that was his family legacy she was looking down on. Takumi pulled a second deck from another pocket, bridging the cards between his hands in a showy flutter that would have made his dad proud. “Okay, there are flaws in that argument. One, the trick she’s learning really is basic. Of course it’s simple, it’s one of the first tricks you learn when you’re getting hang on working with the cards.” He kept up aggressive eye contact as he moved the cards in flashy patterns, muscle memory taking over. “Two, messing up a trick just because you don’t like it would be a pretty mean thing to do for both the performer and the audience. Three—” He exchanged the cards for a paper flower with a flick of the wrist and a bit of misdirection. “Magic tricks are meant for people who want to believe in magic. If you go in wanting to pick them apart, you’re not going to enjoy them. Just relax and appreciate the time and skill it takes to do them instead of worrying how it was done.” He held out the flower.

Hanae took it, reluctantly impressed with the display. She’d better be at least a little impressed. He didn’t practice some of those hand movements for hours for nothing.

“Okay, I think I got it,” Midori said. Takumi watched her go through the trick with clumsy hands and a determined frown, doing his part when prompted. This time the desired cards matched up at the end and Midori’s face lit up into a huge grin. “I did it!”

“Good job. Keep practicing and you’ll be impressing an audience in no time,” Takumi said.

The joy on her face was like how he remembered it every time he figured out a new trick. He couldn’t even remember what exactly he’d learned first, but the thrill of getting something right was always there, even years later. Hanae still had a bit of a frown on her face, but she smiled for her sister.

“Sometime you have to do that in front of Kaa-san and Tou-san and see what they think.” Hanae grinned.

Midori stuck out her tongue. “No way, Tou-san’d see right through it.”

“Kaa-san then.”

“Only if you help me practice.”

“Maybe,” Hanae said. “If you’re not a tagalong when I have friends over next.”

“Your friends are fun and it’s boring on my own.”

“Do we have a deal or not?”

“Only if you really help me practice.”

“I will,” Hanae said with a nod, like it sealed a pact.

Takumi took the cards back when Midori offered them and slid them back into his pockets. “So, dinner now or...?”

“Dinner!” Midori said. “I want omurice!”

“Uh.” He knew how to cook it theoretically. He looked at Hanae. She shrugged.

“I’m fine with whatever.”

“Okay. Omurice.” That was just fried rice stuffed in an omelet right? Not too hard. He found some leftover rice in the fridge and vegetables and eggs as the girls pulled out pans and a cutting board.

“Knives are up there,” Hanae said, pointing at a pull-down knife rack that was outside easy reach for a child.

Takumi fell into the rhythm of cooking easily enough. He gave the eggs to Midori to crack into a bowl and chopped up onion and garlic and carrots into tiny pieces. Omurice wasn’t something he’d made before, but his mom made it for him growing up and Shiemi had him help her a few times. Takumi wasn’t a great cook, but he could feed himself. He had to with Kaa-san working late so often. He couldn’t go over to Tou-san’s house every day just for dinner, so he’d figured out enough to get by. Shiemi’d made some pretty interesting mistakes with him. They only set the kitchen on fire once and that was because they tried frying something without knowing what the hell they were doing.

Vegetables and rice sizzled in a pan, frying slowly with ketchup and soy sauce to give it flavor. Milk and salt with the egg...

“I want cheese on mine,” Hanae said as Takumi contemplated the rest of the cooking process.

“I don’t want cheese on mine,” Midori said, wrinkling her nose. “Cheese doesn’t go with rice.”

“It goes with the omelet.”

“But tastes weird with the rice!”

“Got it, one with cheese, one without,” Takumi said. He’d have his without too; cheese and ketchup were weird together, and omurice was always better with ketchup.

It went pretty well until he tried to fold the first omelet around the rice. It ripped and he ended up with a mess on a plate. “...Guess that can be mine.”

“I’d eat it,” Midori said. “Put a bunch of ketchup and it’s like something from a monster movie.”

Comparing his cooking to something out of a scary movie was far from flattering. Thankfully the next one came out better if a little lumpy, and Hanae’s came out looking even better.

Takumi smiled at the last one. It wasn’t even a little dark like the second one. “There you go, omurice.”

“You have to put ketchup first!” Midori said when he started to move to the table with the plates. “Those are the rules. Draw something cute!” She thrust a ketchup bottle at his face.

Takumi took it and drew a wobbly smiley face on his egg disaster.

“That’s terrible,” Hanae said at his side. She snatched the bottle. “Here.” She drew a passable cat face on Midori’s omelet, two triangle ears, dots for eyes and nose, and little whisker lines. “Like that.”

“Me next!” Midori grabbed the bottle and stretched on tiptoe to draw an even more lopsided smile on Hanae’s omelet with a heart around it.

“Better?” Takumi asked.

“Good enough,” Hanae said. She stole her plate from Takumi’s hands. “Midori, get forks.”

“Not as good as Kaa-san’s omurice,” was the verdict once they dug in, “but still good.”

Takumi supposed that this was about the best reaction he could get because most of the time mothers did cook your favorites best. The dishes all got piled in the sink to wash later before he was dragged off by the girls again.

This time it was to watch a movie. There was a five second stare down in front of the DVD collection before the girls did jan-ken-pon, hands flinging out scissor and rock shapes. Midori grinned as she won. “I get to choose the movie,” she said.

“How do you keep winning?” Hanae complained.

“Cuz I’m good at it,” Midori said, rifling through an impressive number of animated movies. She held up The Cat Returns triumphantly.

“We watched that last week!”

“I won, I pick.”

Hanae looked at Takumi, hoping for support. He held his hands up defensively.

“Anything’s fine!” he said. “Do you not like it?”

“I like it but she keeps picking it. If you have to pick a Ghibli movie, Kiki’s obviously better.”

“I think you mean Spirited Away,” Takumi teased.

Hanae scowled, insulted. “Kiki’s plot makes way more sense than—”

“Cats,” Midori said, shoving the DVD she’d chosen at their faces. “Cats beat everything.”

“Cats are pretty cool,” Takumi agreed, taking the disc to put in the player. “But dragons are cooler.”

“Cats.” Midori repeated.

“Kaa-san won’t let us get a pet,” Hanae sighed.

“We have space. And I’d take care of it,” Midori grumbled. “And cats don’t need to be walked like dogs.” It was clearly a sore subject.

“I’m not allowed to have a pet either,” Takumi said. He sat on the couch and the girls followed, Midori flinging herself half on her sister and her feet in Takumi’s lap. It was kind of cute except for how she kicked him in the knee in the process. He rubbed his knee as he got to the disc menu. “But Tou-san has birds and they’re nice. Birds are loud, but Tou-san’s are pretty smart and friendly.”

“I wish I had any pet,” Midori sighed.

“Maybe sometime you could meet Tou-san’s doves. It’s not the same as having a pet, but I don’t think anyone would mind you visiting from time to time.” And maybe it would be a chance to introduce his grandmother to his maybe-sister. The smiles the offer got him were enough to make him glad he’d decided to be here though.

Bath and bedtime were met with very little resistance to his surprise—perhaps because the movie had kept them up later than the initial bedtime was supposed to be—and by the time Takumi found himself in the guest bedroom, he was both tired and relieved that he’d managed to get things right so far.

He checked his phone as he set an alarm for the next morning. Shiemi had left a text. Surviving babysitting?

So far so good, he texted back.

Getting to know your maybe-sister? Her answer was immediate—she must be playing a cell phone game or something.

Getting to know them both a bit. Midori-chan likes omurice the same way I do. Such a tiny thing, but it made him smile a little. Part of him wanted to pick out similarities and try to know for sure if she really was his sister... But the logical side of him knew that just because someone was related didn’t mean they were necessarily similar. And she’d been raised by the Kudos. Logically they weren’t going to be much alike. But it was nice seeing her try to learn a card trick and seeing her like what he cooked. Takumi didn’t know the first thing about being a sibling and barely knew anything about children, but the warm feelings were probably normal. He wanted to be something in her life. And in Hanae’s because she was kind of headstrong and skeptical, but she reminded him a bit of other women in his life. She likes cats, he added after a moment. He didn’t know much more about her than that yet, but it was a start. Hanae likes Kiki’s Delivery Service but Midori likes The Cat Returns better.

Obviously Whisper of the Heart wins over all of them.

Sacrilege. What happened to your crush on Lin in Spirited Away?

I rewatched Whisper and got caught up in the romance and struggle of young artists. Obviously. Takumi could picture Shiemi sticking her tongue out at him.

He smiled. You know that means a rewatch of Spirited Away is called for.

Your place or mine?

Tou-san’s, next Friday. We’ll rope everyone into a Ghibli movie marathon.

I’ll be there. And I’ll win everyone over on my choice ~_^

Takumi snickered and sent back a few increasingly ridiculous emojis before locking his phone for the night.

***

Takumi woke up with his heart pounding in his chest and the vague feeling like he was dying. Flickers of fear and horrified anticipation lingered, snippets of half-remembered lights and blurs of white dissipating into the gray-dark of his surroundings. It took him a moment to recognize where he was, the blankets twisted around his legs not his familiar worn bed-cover, but stiff sheets and a floral patterned coverlet. Takumi relaxed against his pillows, anxiety dropping as he recognized that it had been a dream. Just a dream that couldn’t hurt him no matter what his heart half beating out of his chest wanted him to think. He pressed his palms into his eyes before groping blindly for his phone.

Six forty in the morning. He’d set the alarm for seven thirty, but it wouldn’t make much sense to go to sleep again. If he could go to sleep again. The dream that woke him was less distinct than most of his nightmares, but he didn’t have to remember the details to have an idea of what it had featured. There were only two events that his brain currently fixated on and threw back at him in all the wonderfully warped ways an anxious brain could twist them. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a few weeks though. It figured that he’d have one now, staying at the Kudo house.

Brains were stupid. Even after dangers were over and done with, even when nothing bad ended up happening to him physically, it was like the sheer range and mass of emotions from those moments got condensed into a bowling ball and every now and then it’d roll off a shelf and shake things up again. Like bits chipped off and leached into the present sometimes. He hated it, but he was getting better, little by little.

In his hand his phone vibrated with a message. It was from Tou-san, a selfie with Hakuba in the background. They had tea mugs in their hands and seemed to be on a hotel balcony, watching the sun rise.

Case went well, the text following it said. Weather’s great here. If we get a chance we should come back for a family vacation someday. I’d even go to the beach. ^_^

Takumi snorted. Tou-san on a beach. Well, okay, maybe if he stayed in the sand but he’d have to try pretty hard to get Tou-san in the water. He looked at the picture again. Tou-san looked happy at least. Hakuba didn’t seem to know that he’d had his picture taken since he was looking off at the sunrise. It wasn’t intentionally romantic or anything but the framing ended up that way and it still felt... a little weird to think of his dad dating his teacher. But more in that his dad was dating at all than that it was Hakuba in the end. They both looked happier though and he genuinely liked Hakuba so it was all good. Hakuba would feel like family soon enough. He was halfway there already.

Shiemi still wants a beach trip next summer, Takumi sent back. Since we never made it this year.

She’s welcome to come with us. She’s family. There was another photo, just of the sunrise, all yellows and pinks and orange glinting off a distant ocean.

I’ll tell her you said that. She’ll hold you to it. Have fun on the rest of your vacation.

Good luck babysitting ~ ¶

Takumi smiled at his phone before hauling himself out of bed.

After running through his morning routine, he padded off down the hall to the kitchen. There was something inherently unsettling about having free reign over someone else’s house, especially early in the morning. The Kudo manor was big too, three times the size of his home with Kaa-san at least if not larger. He couldn’t picture growing up in this sort of place. He was used to crowded spaces and lived-in clutter. There were signs of life everywhere, but not the same stacks of newspapers and mail and paperwork on the kitchen counter like with Kaa-san or books and sketches and random notes like with Tou-san. The kitchen was clean and neat and everything had its place. Was it always like this or had it been cleaned since he was coming?

By the time he heard the girls coming down the stairs at a bit after seven, he’d already started the rice and had the miso soup almost finished. He’d considered pancakes, but he’d gone with what he knew he wouldn’t mess up.

“Good morning,” Takumi said as Midori bounced into the room, trailed by a sleepy Hanae.

“Morning!” Midori said, clambering into her spot at the kitchen table.

Hanae followed with a yawn. “I thought teenagers slept in,” she said, resting her head on her arms.

“I ended up waking up early.” Takumi dished out rice and soup. “Hope this is okay for breakfast.”

“Kaa-san makes traditional breakfasts on weekends,” Hanae said. She looked like she was going to fall asleep in her rice.

“Did you sleep badly?” Takumi asked, passing her a cup of juice to go with everything.

“Midori woke me up,” Hanae grumbled, shooting her sister an annoyed look.

“I was gonna start the rice for breakfast but you beat me to it,” Midori said.

“You can help with lunch instead,” Takumi offered, and Midori hummed in agreement before digging into her meal with a cheerful, “Itadakimasu!”

Hanae had another huge yawn before she started picking at her meal too, so Takumi just ate and watched them as they exchanged conversation back and forth between each other, arguing about something or other, but he’d missed what exactly the subject of the argument was.

***

There’d been a suggestion, Takumi thought, something that seemed perfectly reasonable for children. Yeah, sure, playing cops and robbers was normal for kids. Sure Takumi would play. Sure, he could be the banker in this scenario, why not?

Takumi was regretting agreeing to this.

He had somehow ended up tied to a tree in the back yard with Hanae standing next to him, one hand making a finger gun in his direction as Midori played the cop in this scenario. A cop that didn’t seem too invested in helping free the hostage.

“Just give up! You’re surrounded and won’t be getting away with it!” Midori said.

“Getting away with it? Getting away with it?” Hanae laughed a very good imitation of an evil cackle. “I don’t need to rob the bank to get what I came for!”

Wasn’t the point of cops and robbers to rob the bank and chase each other around? This was not, Takumi thought anxiously, how he remembered playing make believe. Hanae jabbed him in the shoulder with her finger-gun.

“It’s the bank’s fault I’m here! If they’d just given me that loan, none of this would have ever happened! Hiro would still be alive and no one else would have to suffer!”

“Killing a bank teller won’t make up for it!” Midori said.

“No, but blowing up the bank would make us even! It ruined my life so I’m going to ruin everyone attached to it.”

“But is it what Hiro would’ve wanted?”

“You don’t even know Hiro!”

Takumi felt like he was trapped in a soap opera.

“We can still fix this. You don’t have to turn evil to get revenge.”

“No one will take the lawsuit!”

Takumi tuned out the argument, twisting his hands around in his bonds. Considering he was tied up with a jump rope and it was done by a ten year old, it was surprisingly secure.

“You just need to—!”

“Too late!” Hanae shrieked. She raised a hand. “BOOM!” She laughed evilly. “And now we’re all dead.”

Midori huffed. “Hanae! The cop is supposed to win!”

“Where’s the fun if it’s always predictable? And I always end up the villain.”

“That’s because you’re bad at jan-ken.”

“But I still won this time,” Hanae said, smug.

“Ugh, I call take back! Bombs are cheating!”

“Are not. I can explode the game if I want to.”

“Can not.”

“Can too.”

“No.”

“Yes. Because I’m older and I said so.”

There was a moment when Midori went still and it hit all of Takumi’s instincts to duck and cover. Then she threw herself at Hanae and Hanae shrieked and ran. And Takumi was still tied to a tree. Crap. He tugged at his wrists.

“Guys?” Toward the house there was more shrieking. Two voices shrieking. He couldn’t even tell if it was play fighting or real fighting and how the heck had he even ended up in this situation? “For the love of...” Takumi started picking at the knots as best he could considering he couldn’t see them. “Someone’s going to be in a time out after this. Or something. Probably.” He’d agreed to this...sort of...but... Yeah he kind of sucked at babysitting.

The door to the house slammed. And now they were inside and unsupervised. Wonderful.

“...Is everything alright?” a voice said from the other side of the fence. A moment later an elderly man peeked over the edge. He blinked at Takumi. Takumi’s face burned.

“I’m the...babysitter,” he muttered.

“I’m their neighbor,” the man said. “And also one of their babysitters. I just got home though.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you need help?”

The knots finally gave under Takumi’s frantic tugging. He wrenched his arms free. “No! Nope, I’m fine! Great even, I’m just going to go...make sure they haven’t killed each other!” Takumi all but ran for the house. The neighbor was probably going to tell the Kudos exactly what happened. Takumi was never going to live this down.

“Okay!” Takumi said, bursting into the living room where a pillow war between couch cushion fortifications seemed to be going on. “I think that’s enough cops and robbers! New rule; no tying me up, okay? Okay.”

A pillow flew his way. Takumi slung it back before he could even think the action through. Two wide grins turned in his direction. “Oh shiiiii—” Takumi got out before he was attacked by two children armed with pillows.

***

When the Kudos returned that afternoon, the living room had been turned into a pillow fort and Takumi and the girls were reading in a pile in the center. The jump rope from earlier was supporting the roof of the fort, tied between two chair so the sheet could drape. Once he’d finally stopped being attacked by pillows, it had been a compromise to stay in one place and not do anything that involved attacking each other.

Takumi was tired but a lot happier than he’d have thought to be curled up with kids reading. It was comfortable like they’d done it together dozens of times. Hanae was the sort who hyper-focused when she read. She didn’t even look up when her parents peeked into the room. Midori gave a distracted hello, slipping another page in her book before doing a double-take. Then she carefully shoved a corner of blanket in to the book to mark her place and scrambled over to give them a hug.

Takumi crawled out after her, smiling nervously. “Hey.”

“Looks like you were having fun,” Kudo Ran said, her arms around Midori.

“A bit, yeah.”

“More than a bit,” Midori said.

Kudo Shinichi laughed. He crouched next to the pillow fort. “Hey, Hanae, we’re home.”

“Mm.” Hanae flipped another page.

“We brought back some of those lemon butter cookies you like.”

“Mm.”

“We’re going to give Midori your share.”

“Mm—wait.” Hanae looked up. “Tou-san!”

“We’re not actually giving Midori your share of the cookies.”

“You’d better not!” She abandoned her book to give her dad a hug.

Takumi snickered. Both girls surrounded their father asking about sweets, and Shinichi struggled to his feet with children hanging off each arm as he laughed.

“They weren’t any trouble were they?” Ran asked.

“Not too much,” Takumi said. He wasn’t going to mention getting tied up unless they did first. “It was fun.” Mostly. Stress aside, he’d babysit again.

“He made us omurice!” Midori said, bounding over to give her mother another hug. “He also said we could visit sometime and see his family’s pets. They have doves. Can we?”

“Tou-san keeps them,” Takumi explained.

“Maybe sometime in the future,” Ran said.

“You never did say how many doves he had,” Hanae said.

“Oh, about eighteen or twenty?” He thought one of the doves had managed to hatch a few eggs, which would bring the number up. That sometimes happened though they normally tried not to have them reproduce because there were a lot of them to begin with. “They’re really tame. You can go in and hold your arms out and they’ll land on you.” If you had food, the bolder ones would land on you before you offered a perch. Takumi could remember having birds land on his head when he was little. They still did if he let them.

“So cool! We gotta visit sometime,” Midori said, giving her parents pleading eyes.

“We’ll have to see when will be a good time,” Shinichi said. “Provided it won’t bother anyone.”

“The doves always can use more socializing. Tou-san visits them daily, but they’re kept at Obaa-san’s house so they spend a lot of time in the dovecote. I could take them sometime if that would be okay.” Takumi hoped it wasn’t overstepping to offer. From Ran and Shinichi’s smiles, it must not be.

“Thank you. I’m sure they appreciate the offer.” Shinichi ruffled his daughters’ hair. Hanae batted his hand away while Midori kept smiling. “Now...those cookies...” Both girls bolted for the kitchen and Shinichi trailed after them laughing.

Ran and Takumi followed slower. “They didn’t actually cause you too much trouble did they?” Ran asked now that the girls were out of earshot. “They can get into trouble.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Takumi said. “Although they’re, uh, intense when it comes to make believe. I’ve never heard a kid complain about loans not going through at a bank while playing cops and robbers before.”

Ran winced. “They have a lot of real life examples on why people might commit crimes,” she said diplomatically.

And right, Shinichi was a detective. They must have grown up getting glimpses of the worst sides of humanity. Thankfully that didn’t seem to make them less carefree. Takumi’d been shielded from a lot of that despite his mom being on the police force just because she’d shooed him out of the room whenever talking about work in specifics came up. The Kudos must take a more direct approach of addressing Shinichi’s work. Or maybe there was more bleed over with Shinichi working homicides than with his mother working heists. “That makes sense,” Takumi said. “I’m glad I got to spend time with them though. It was fun.”

Ran’s smile went a little lopsided. Midori being his maybe-sister had never been brought up, but Takumi had a feeling that it was on her mind too. “You’re welcome to come over anytime, Takumi-kun,” Ran said. “Babysitting or not.”

“Thanks.” He’d take her up on that. Maybe bring Shiemi with him sometime... That would be nice.

“We brought you back a cookie too,” Ran said as they got to the kitchen. “Since you were nice enough to watch them.”

“Thanks,” Takumi repeated. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind coming back and doing this again.

***

“So,” Shiemi said on the phone later. “Babysitting went ok?”

“Yeah. It was fun. Even if I did get tied to a tree.”

“You what?”

“We played a dramatic game of cops and robbers and I got tied to the tree,” Takumi said rolling his eyes. “I got out of it.”

Shiemi cackled. “I would pay for pictures of that.”

“I didn’t tell the Kudos about that part. But knowing my luck the neighbor will probably tell them at some point...”

“The neighbor saw?”

“Yeah.”

Shiemi kept laughing.

Takumi sighed. “Some friend, laughing at my pain.”

“That’s the best mental image!”

“Laugh it up, sometime I’m taking you with me to meet them and maybe you’ll get tied to a tree.”

Shiemi’s laughter petered out into giggles. He could practically see her wiping away tears. “You sound so sure I’d get tied to a tree. Takumi, what makes you think I wouldn’t be organizing those girls into a single-minded mission of catch-the-thief against you?”

“You wouldn’t.” The silence was a grin of bared teeth. Dammit. “You would. Now that means you can never meet them.”

“And deny me the pleasure?”

“I don’t need to be hunted down. Getting attacked by pillows is enough.”

“Wow, that does sound eventful. You have to spill all!”

Takumi rolled his eyes again, but this time with a smile. “Sure, Shiemi.” He’d definitely introduce them all at some point. He’d probably regret it later, but he kind of liked how the number of people he cared about in his life kept growing and he wanted them to like each other too.

AN: Fun story, my brother and I actually tied up my cousin to a tree once when she babysat us. Between that and accidentally leaving the stove on and setting off the smoke alarm, I'm not at all surprised that she only babysat us that one time. ^_^; Truth be told, I can't even remember why we tied her up. My parents got home, joked about something along those lines and she was all "well actually..." This was before my brother and I went through a phase of fighting all the time. Woo. 

Also, do you know how terrifying it is to find yourself backed in a corner and attacked with pillows by a horde of children? I do. I remember this happening very distinctly. That was about the family party I decided the adults were better company after all. My only time babysitting as a teen involved frantically washing two kids to remove possible poison ivy oils and teaching them to do headstands in their basement so Takumi's not doing too bad.

[dragonasheswrites-blog]

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 11: In Which Dinner is Delivered

...To a very hungry and very confused ambassador.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 10: The Trouble With Letting Go

Next: Chapter 12: In Which Leaves are Crunched

Click here for the story overview.

Sans scrubbed at his bowl, giving a little grin when the cheese sauce came off without too much fuss.  That had been his mistake the first time they made mac ‘n cheese: he’d left the dishes for later, and had wound up getting in trouble with Boss when the sauce took too long to scrub off.

As long as he didn’t think about how much work he was doing it wasn’t too bad, really.  Attie usually followed him around everywhere and insisted on helping, so he didn’t have to do everything himself, either.

“Dry,” he said, handing the bowl off to his helper.  She took it from him, tongue between her teeth, and carefully rubbed a dry dish towel over it.

“Done!” she declared, placing it with over-exaggerated care on top of a small stack of other dishes.  “Can I wash the silverware?”

“Sure,” he said.  He peeled off his rubber gloves (he’d found out the hard way that food, water, and bones don’t mix well) and handed them over.  Attie swapped her towel for the gloves and carefully put them on, stretching her tiny fingers as far as she could into them.

The gloves went up to her elbows and were far too big for her hands, but there wasn’t much she could do to hurt the silverware.  She awkwardly fished a pair of spoons out of the dishwater, rubbed a dishcloth over them until the cheese sauce was gone, and tried to hand them to Sans.

“Rinse ‘em off,” he reminded her.

“Oh!  Right!”  She turned on the water and rinsed them off before handing them back to him for drying.

The little girl bounced impatiently on her toes, splattering tiny droplets of soap water across the kitchen, as Sans put the dry dishes away.  He looked at her for a long moment, tilting his head from one side to the other and tapping his jawbone.

“Ooookay.  I guess we’re done.”

“YAY!!!” The gloves flew off and landed on the floor halfway across the kitchen.  He retrieved them and tossed them back into the sink, listening for the telltale pitter-patter of feet that announced Attie’s presence.

She slid precariously into the dining room and scrambled onto the chair she’d claimed as hers, phone clutched in both hands.  “I can call Mommy now, right?”

“Sure.  But only for a few minutes; you’ve got more homework to do.”

“But it’s Friiiiiday!”

“Yeah, ‘n that means it’s the last day of school for the week.  But remember what Undie said: if you don’t finish on Friiiiiday, you have to do schoolwork on Saaaaaturday.”

Attie groaned in a way Sans knew wasn’t truly serious and dialled.  Her little feet kicked back and forth as she waited.

Her entire body crumpled after a moment, and Sans felt his own mood sink as well.  “She’s not picking up,” Attie said.

“She’s probably asleep again.  She needs lots of rest, remember?”

“Yeah.  But she was awake and talking to me earlier!”

“She sure was, but she might be tired again.  Remember when you woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago?  You went back to sleep after, right?”

“Yeah, but that was the middle of the night .  It’s the middle of the day right now.  Why is Mommy sleeping so much in the middle of the day?”

“You tell me.”

She sighed.  “Because she’s still sick after what the assassin lady did and she needs to sleep so she can heal up all nice and healthy.  That’s what you told me.  I still think she would heal faster if she was awake, though.”

“Do ya, now.”

“Yes.  Also, then I could go see her.”

“Well, let’s finish up the last bit o’ this schoolwork.  I’ll text her like always so she doesn’t worry; I’m sure she’ll text or call or somethin’ when she wakes up.  Okay?”

“Okaaaaay.”

The rest of the school day dragged by for Sans.  It wasn’t so much that the schoolwork was boring (at least, not any more than usual), but that Attie seemed to be entirely unable to focus.  Sans could empathize.  It seemed like a small eternity before she dragged out her paper and pencils and began to half-heartedly scribble some kind of picture for her art project.

Then Sans’s phone vibrated.

“Is it Mommy?”  Attie asked, nearly tripping over her chair in her mad dash for Sans’s seat at the table.

“Woah - hang on there, kid!  Gimme a sec.”  They both stared intently at the phone as the messaging app loaded.  Sure enough, the screen read:

Frisky Dreamer 4:45 PM Sorry I fell asleep.  Didn’t realize I was so tired.

The noise Attie made had his skull ringing.  “Okay, okay, settle down, alright?”

“MY MOMMY’S AWAKE!!!”

“Yeah.  Now do you wanna text her back or should I?”

“We both can!”

Sans sighed.

You 4:49 PM No problem I know the feeling

Frisky Dreamer 4:51 PM Is Attie there?  Is she okay? Oh.  Never mind.  She just texted me.

“Mommy wants to know if we’re both okay!”  Attie said.  “Can I take a picture of you?”

Sans hesitated.  He was absolutely certain that Frisk didn’t want anything to do with him.  “Uh, why don’t I just take a picture of you and send it to her?”

The kid rolled her eyes.  “Because she asked about both of us.  That means we have to send a picture of both of us.”

“Well, you’re outta luck; my phone doesn’t have one of those little cameras on the front.”

“That’s okay!  Mine does!”  She began scrambling up onto Sans’s chair, hampered by the fact that she couldn’t do much to move the skeleton currently sitting in it.

With a low grumble, Sans scooted away from the table far enough to lift Attie into his lap.  “There ya go.  Oh, wait a sec.”  The kid’s pigtails were looking a little lopsided.  He took the hair ties out and carefully re-gathered her hair, making sure not to pull to hard or get the fine strands caught in his phalanges.  “There.  Now you’re extra cute.  Happy?”

“Not yet; I still need to take the picture.  Smile and say ‘cheese!’”

“‘M always smiling, kid.”

She laughed.  “I mean a real smile.”

“You think you can tell the difference?”

“I know I can.  So smile really big like you’re happy, okay?”

He let his mouth fall into his default wide grin as the flash went off.  Attie hummed and examined the picture, frowning.

“That’s not a real smile, Mr. Sans.  We have to try again.”

She did try again.  Several times, in fact.  Finally, she came up with a picture that she declared “okay, but not great” and scooted off his lap to send it to her mother.

Sans caught a glimpse of it and felt his face growing a little red.  He really wasn’t photogenic, being a literal skeleton and all.  He wasn’t even sure what was going on with his mouth in that picture; it looked like he was scowling as much as smiling.

Frisky Dreamer 5:00 PM Not a fan of the camera?

You 5:00 PM SO Can we come visit today or r u 2 tired?

Frisky Dreamer 5:02 PM You can come.  Might want to check with the guards, though. Oh, and why do you use textspeak only half the time?  I know you can text in full sentences.

You 5:07 2 much werk Work

Frisky Dreamer 5:09 PM ...Right. By the way, can I ask a favor?

You 5:11 PM Whats it worth 2 u?

Frisky Dreamer 5:12 PM Add it to my tab. Can you bring some food in? Probably need to sneak it in; the docs don’t like outside food.

You 5:15 PM Uh sure Whaddaya want?

Frisky Dreamer 5:17 PM Something not too rich or smelly.  I’d go for plain bread at this rate.

You 5:19 PM I’ll see what i can do

He looked through the cupboards.  Undyne and Boss had gone on a competitive shopping trip a few days ago so there were groceries, but once again it was an eclectic mix of gourmet noodles and random ingredients he was pretty sure they had selected for the packaging more than the contents.  With a grin on his face, he grabbed a few things from the cupboard and a leftover container from the fridge, then stuck them in his inventory.

“Hey, kid, wanna head out?”

There was a pause, then Attie looked up from her phone. “What?”

“Wanna go see your mom?”

“YES!”  She dashed off to get ready.

A few minutes later they appeared outside Ebott Medical Pavilion, hand in hand.  Attie had adapted well to teleporting over the past week; she barely seemed to notice it anymore.

“You remember the way to your mom’s room?”

She thought for a moment.  “I think so?”

“Go ahead and take us there.”

“But what if I get lost?”

“I’ll be right here; I can ‘port us back outside if we get really stuck.  Okay?”

“...Okay.”

She did pretty well, all things considered.  She went down the wrong hallway after leaving the elevator (it was confusing; the hallways really did all look the same) but she was resourceful enough to correct herself after realizing that the room numbers were wrong.  Finally, they arrived at the new and improved security checkpoint outside Frisk’s room.

“I did it!” she said, bouncing on her toes.

“Yeah.  Great job.”

“Can I give your ID to Mr. Lesser Dog?”

Sans eyed the aforementioned canine, who was wagging his tail hard enough to knock them both over.  “Uh, sure.  Just watch for the-”

Thump.

“...You okay there?”

Attie picked herself back up and dusted off the knees of her jeans.  “I’m fine!”

Lesser Dog whined and leaned over, realizing that he’d hurt one of the few humans he liked.  Attie smiled and reached up on her tiptoes to give him a brief and gentle scratch behind the ears.

Beside him, Doggo shifted in what looked like a nicotine deprivation dance, but Sans knew better.

“Can I pet you too, Mr. Doggo?” the kid asked.

He thought it over for a moment, then leaned over with a long sigh.  Attie giggled.  Sans knew that Doggo wanted to be pet just as much as Lesser Dog did, he just would rather give up dog treats for life than admit it.

Literally.  The question had, actually, come up once or twice.

*Bone friend and little pup good boys,* Lesser Dog woofed, handing Sans back his ID.  *Can go in to see sick momma puppy.*

“Thanks, LD,” Sans said, giving the dog a scratch under his chin.  He snorted when the dog’s neck extended a little.  “You keep a good watch, yeah?”

*Lesser Dog and packmate Doggo will watch very good!  Dogs are good boys!  Won’t let anyone smelly past!  More pets?*

“Maybe on the way out, pal,” he said, steering a giggling Attie into the hospital room.  He didn’t want a repeat of what happened the last time they’d seen Lesser Dog on duty; it had taken hours to get his neck back to a reasonable length, and he’d been growling and snapping at everyone in sight the whole time.

Frisk, thankfully, was still awake.  “Made it past the attack dogs?” she asked with a smirk.

“Yyyup!”  Attie said, bouncing on her toes.

“C’mere, you.”

Attie ran at her mother, skidding to a stop just short of the hospital bed before gingerly crawling onto it to give her a hug.  “I missed you,” she mumbled into Frisk's shoulder.

“I missed you too, baby boo.”

They sat like that for a moment, and Sans shifted awkwardly.  He felt like he was intruding.

There was a funny rumbling noise, and Frisk’s face started to turn pink.  Sans grinned; after living with a little human shadow for a week and a half, he knew that sound.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Maybe.  A little.”

Sans dug into his inventory and, with an elaborate flourish, pulled out a plastic fork and…

“...Tuna?”  Frisk’s voice was almost a full octave higher than normal.  She looked a little sick.  “I ask for something bland and low-profile, and you bring me...a can of tuna.”

“I cod not pass up the opportunaty."

Attie wiggled off the bed and stomped over to her babysitter.  “Mr. Sans, stop being silly with my mommy!”

“Heh.  Sorry, kid.”  He patted her right between her pigtails, then put the can back in his inventory.  After a moment of poking around, he withdrew the leftover container.  “Wanna show your mom what you made?”

“Yes!”  She grabbed the container and the fork he offered her and presented them both to her mother.  “We made macncheese, like I told you.  I think this is our best one yet!  We had to go to the store last night for extra cheese because Mr. Boss doesn’t like to buy cheese, so it’s suuuper fresh!”

“The only bread we had in the house was hot dog buns,” he explained, shrugging.

Frisk gave him a long look, carefully opened the container, and grinned.  “It looks great, Attie.  Thank you so much!”

“You’re so welcome!  Mr. Sans helped, too.  You should say ‘thank you so much’ to him, too.”

Sans opened his mouth to say that it really wasn’t necessary, but-

“Thank you so much, Sans.”

“Heh.  It’s nothin’.”

“I mean it.  Thank you, Sans.  Thank you for everything.  Including, of course, the mac and cheese.”

His eye sockets met hers, and he felt a jolt of...something.  Surprise, definitely.  Frisk...she hated him, right?  Heck, he deserved it!  But..she looked really, genuinely grateful.  When was the last time someone (besides Attie) had thanked him?  “I...uh, you’re welcome.”

They both looked away at the same time.

“Mommy?”  Attie piped up.  “Why is your face all pink like you’re embarrassed?”

“Um…”

“Oh!  Do you wanna kiss Mr. Sans?”

“ATLAS HOPE DREEMURR!”

Sans pulled the hood of his jacket up, knowing full well it wasn’t nearly as effective as he hoped.  This kid…

“Is that a ‘no?’  Undie says the blushing thing means you’re embarrassed or you want to kiss someone.”

Frisk gave a noise that sounded like a growl and took a few quick bites of the mac ‘n cheese.  “This is really great,” she said, a touch too loudly.  “You’ve gotten really good at this, Attie.”

The kid gave a devious little smile.  “Thanks,” she said, patting her mother’s hand.  “It’s okay.  You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”

Sans coughed.  “Attie, listen to yer mom.”

“But she didn’t tell me to do anything!”

“Didn’t you ask me not to tease ‘er?  She’s still sick.  Stop bein’ so…” he waved a hand in the general direction of the woman he was not looking at.  “...silly.”

Attie sighed.  “Okay.  Sorry, Mommy, for embarrassing you.  Sorry to you also, Mr. Sans.”

“‘Tsokay.”

“You’re forgiven.”  Frisk dug into the mac ‘n cheese with the air of someone desperately hungry, but wanting to make her food last.

“We can make more,” Attie said, watching her mother closely.  “I didn’t know your tummy was so empty or we could have made some more before we left.  Right, Mr. Sans?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“But we didn’t know.  Mr. Sans said they would probably give you some sugar ‘n stuff through the bag thingies, and that you would get enough water that way, but I don’t think that counts as eating for real.”

Frisk hummed.  “I agree.  This is much more pleasant.”

Sans coughed into his hand.  “So why’d you want us to bring ya food?  Don’t they feed you here?”

“Well...yes.  It’s just...hmm.”  She took a few more bites, eyes narrowed in thought.  “Do you know my doctor?  Dr. Ray?”

“Yeah...I’ve met ‘im.”

“What’s your opinion?”

He looked at her, not sure where this was going.  Why was she being so...friendly?  Was this a trap?  Frisk could switch from friendly to aggressive very quickly when she wanted to.  “I.  Uh.  He’s a doctor?”

“Your honest opinion.  I think...well, I want to hear what you think of him.”

He sighed.  “I think the guy’s an asshole.  He doesn’t think much’ve other folks; doesn’t seem like it’s aimed at monsters particularly, though.  He just doesn’t like people he thinks are...hmm.  Lesser than him?  ‘M not sure how he decides that - education level, maybe? - but if you don’t fit his criteria, he thinks you’re basically worthless.

“He might not be aware of it.  He certainly thinks he’s right all - or at least most - of the time, and being aware of such a huge character flaw would puncture his ego.  He probably just thinks that he knows better than other people, and they should listen to him because he’s a doctor.  He seems alright at his job for all that; it’s probably a point of pride to do well.”

Frisk nodded.  “Do you think he’s a liar?  What reason would someone like him have to lie?”

“Depends on the lie.”  He studied her face.  She looked...wary.  What did all this have to do with food?  Had someone threatened her?  At least she could defend herself, probably better than he could...now that she was conscious, anyways.  “He might lie to protect himself or his job.  If he made a mistake, he might want to cover it up.  Doesn’t strike me as the type to lie for someone else, though, unless it suited his purposes or helped him somehow.”

“So you don’t think he’s malicious.”

“Not unless you’re a threat to him.  What he’d do if he thought you were tryin’ to hurt his reputation or upstage him…’m not sure.  But in general?  Like I said, guy’s an asshole.  ‘Course, I haven’t had any huge soul-searching conversations with the guy.  Could be completely wrong ‘bout him.”

“I don’t think so.”  She laid her fork into the empty container firmly.  “Sans, I haven’t given you enough credit.  You really are a lot more observant than you think.  I appreciate your input on this.”

He shuffled his feet a little.  It wasn’t...it was just how he was, how he’d survived so long on his own with a little brother to look after, not anything special.  “Tch…’ts nothin’.  What’s all this about?  And what’s it got to do with food?”

“Dr. Ray was acting strangely when I first woke up this afternoon.  I pressed the call button and he walked in instead of one of the nurses.  He told me that I’d been unconscious due to an accidental overdose.  He followed that up by being weirdly insistent that I eat, and...call me paranoid, but I didn’t trust him not to ‘accidentally’ add something extra to my food.”

His grip on his magic slid a little, and he felt his eye burn.  An accident?  Attie had been separated from her mother, unsure of whether she’d live or die...and the doctor was calling it an accident??

He couldn’t believe it.  And from the look on Frisk’s face, she didn’t believe it either.

“Calm down,” she said.  “There’s nothing we can do now.  He said that the matter was being handled, and that it wouldn’t happen again.  Of course, then he tried to take my phone.”

“What?  Why would he do that?”

“Consider this.  If you’re right, and he was trying to protect himself - his reputation, his job, whatever - he wouldn’t want me communicating with people who knew the truth, at least until he could run damage control.  Make sure he got his story straight. I assume someone does know the truth?”

“Uh, yeah.  Attie ‘n I were just leavin’ when you were...attacked.”

“Wait, so I was attacked?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No!”

Attie gave a wet sniffle.  “It was really scary.  There was an assassin lady and somehow she got past the dogs, but she was wearing the nurse clothes.  Sponges?”

“Scrubs,” he corrected.

“Right.  She was wearing the nurse scrubs, but she was on your bed and you were trying to get her off of you and she put some kind of poison medicine into your bags.  Then she started fighting Mr. Sans even though you told him not to fight her, but I think that’s okay because he didn’t let me get hurt.  Not even a little bit!”

Frisk looked at her daughter for a long moment, gripping her arms like she wasn’t sure the kid was really in one piece.  Then she looked over at Sans.  “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

He did.  He explained how he’d tried to contact Frisk on the day of the incident, but how she’d been unresponsive most of the day and asleep when they’d arrived.  He told her how they’d been kicked out of the room by the nurse.  He considered telling her that the nurse had made him uneasy, but...he didn’t want to make it sound like he was some kind of hero.

Instead, he played up Attie’s concerns: how she’d been worried, and had insisted they go back to the room.  The actual fight he described as factually as he could: the order of events, what he knew of the nurse’s movements, and the arrival of the dogs.

Frisk nodded along, looking a little overwhelmed.  “I...don’t remember any of that,” she said, finally.  “I remembered weird flashes of emotion, but nothing detailed or reliable.  I mostly just recall...burning?”  She rubbed her arm above where the needles were taped to her arm.

“I believe it.  Alphys ‘n some of the human doctors are still tryin’ to figure out everything that was in that bag the nurse hooked you up to.  They think she may’ve dosed you with something over time as well, but gotten impatient when it didn’t work as fast as she wanted.”

“She was a nurse, then.”

“Yeah.  ‘M kinda out of the loop, but I did a little digging on my own.  She was employed by the hospital as of three weeks ago, at least.”

“How do you know?”

“The local paper ran a story about the hospital and she was one of the nurses interviewed.  Gave her name as Graciela Lira, though I heard rumors that might not be her real name.  ‘Ts hard to tell; she apparently was a foster kid at some point, so her paper trail’s a bit hard to follow.  No one expected her to go after you, though.”

“Interesting.  Let me guess: she’s a monster specialist.”

“Worse.  Monster pediatric specialist.”

Frisk gripped Attie a little tighter.  “And...they still let her practice here?”

“Well, not right now.  Attie ‘n I saw the whole thing, as did Alphys’s security cameras; whatever the hospital told Undyne, she pushed back hard with evidence.  She’s got the nurse - whatever her name is - in custody.”

“Good.  I wouldn’t want someone like that around children.”

This was definitely outside Sans’s comfort zone.  It was almost like they were allies or something.  Granted, Frisk was probably still high on painkillers, but she wasn’t being nearly as aggressive as she usually was, even after his little joke earlier with the can of tuna.

Was this how Ambassador Frisk Dreemurr treated people she could actually stand to be around?  If so, he wanted to-

-DEFINITELY not do anything, especially after Attie’s stupid comments earlier.

He coughed.  “Well, hopefully you, uh, don’t go through that again.  The Guard’ll hold her until you feel better so you can interrogate her yourself.”

“...The human government is just letting this happen?”

“Yeah, not sure why.  My guess is they want something from us; your mom’s been in meetings all day, every day.”

It was traditional among monsters for the victim of an attack (or, in the case of a child, the victim’s guardian) to be the chief interrogator when bringing the attacker to justice.  The human government tended to frown on the practice, what with the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing they believed in, but they had been strangely accommodating in this case.  Either there was something about this lady that would’ve been dragged to light in a human court system or they were using her as a bargaining chip to get what they wanted out of Tori.  The Queen of Monsters was notoriously vindictive towards anyone who harmed her family, to the point where it clouded her judgement.

“...Sans?”

“Hmm?  Sorry.  Just...thinkin’.”

“Anything important?”

It still sat oddly with him that Frisk - of all people - was asking for his input.  “Just...theories.  Can’t prove anything.  It just...nothing about this seems right.  The timing of the attack, the way it was planned, the person who carried it out...and now what that doctor told you; it doesn’t add up.”

“If it was planned, it was done quickly.  Very quickly.  Either that, or…well.”

Or she didn’t really have appendicitis.  It was unlikely, from what he read, but still.  Either situation was worrying. Was it easier to induce a medical condition or to organize an assassination attempt in a matter of days?

“Are you done with grown-up talk?”  Attie asked, wiggling impatiently on the bed.

Frisk laughed.  “For now.  Sorry.”

“Can I show you my pictures?  I made you a whole lot while you were sleeping.”

“Sure!  Show me what you’ve got.”

It took almost a full hour for Attie to go through all the pictures she’d made.  Most of them, to Sans��s eternal embarrassment, featured him in some way.  And of course, each one had a story.

“This is Mr. Sans when he accidentally put his shirt on inside out and backwards because he was so sleepy.  You can see the tag on the front.  Oh!  And this is when we went to the park with Undie, and Mr. Sans tried to swing and fell off.  That’s why he’s on the ground.  I thought he was hurt, but he wasn’t.  This one is Mr. Sans and I drinking our juice after training.  It tastes reeeeeally bad…”

And so on.

“All of them look wonderful,” Frisk said after Attie had arranged the pictures back into a stack.  “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

“Me too.  I was worried I’d miss you a lot, and I did, but it was also fun doing schoolwork with Mr. Sans.  He knows a lot ‘bout science!  Do you think he can help me with my science sometimes after you’re better?”

Sans tensed.  As busy as he’d been, he’d almost forgotten that Attie wasn’t going to be in his life forever.  Frisk was going to heal, then she’d take her daughter home.  And he’d probably never see either of them again outside official functions.  After all, he’d seen Attie only two or three times in seven years, not including the time she’d been living with him.

All Frisk said was, “We’ll see.”

Which, in his experience, pretty much meant “no.”

It didn’t matter, he told himself as Attie chattered on about something.  He hadn’t even wanted to watch the kid in the first place.  He’d be glad when she was gone.

Well, he amended, not glad.  A week ago he would’ve been happy to see her go; but after so many nights of worry and nightmares, and so many days of tutoring and kitchen accidents, he’d maybe gotten a little...attached.

That really wasn’t good, under the circumstances.

A knock on the door interrupted Attie’s story of something Undyne had done the other morning.  He knew the routine well enough to know who it was.  “Time to go,” he said, collecting the empty container from dinner.  “Say good-bye to your mom.”

Attie sighed.  “Good-bye, Mommy.”

“Good-bye, Attie,” her mother responded.  “I’ll miss you.”

“I know.  But I’ll be back tomorrow!”

There was a strange look on Frisk’s face when they left; something resigned and a little sad.  She hid it well, but Sans was a master of reading expressions.

He just didn’t know what to make of it.