Against All Odds

Part 2: Chapter 4

Papyrus had decided that hospitals were places where eternity often visited. This was the second span in the past 24 hours where the wait for something to happen or change seemed to last that long. Within the half hour that dragged its feet, Papyrus could barely feel his own; he'd been pacing as though Undyne's life depended on it.

Sans approached him, putting a hand on his forearm. "hangin' in there, bro?"

Papyrus stopped pacing and started staring at the floor. "I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS I CAN TAKE."

"well, alphys said it shouldn't be too much longer before we hear something."

"BUT WHAT IF THAT'S NOT THE CASE? HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THESE PROBLEMS PERSIST?"

A few moments later, one of the doctors-the very same one who'd told him to stay out of room 915-approached him. "We got her back and she's stable once more. You can see her now if you'd like." He gave the skeleton a friendly pat on the arm and walked past him.

He didn't need to be told twice. Papyrus bolted for Undyne's room, only slowing down once he walked through the doorway. Undyne looked worse for wear, paler than she was before, but at least she was alive. A nurse still remained, working with some tubing and writing things down on a clipboard.

"You're her husband, correct?" the nurse asked him.

"YES, UNDYNE IS MY WIFE AND SHE MEANS EVERYTHING TO ME SO PLEASE... JUST TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG."

The nurse filled out a few more boxes on her form. "She went into cardiac arrest about 30 minutes ago, but was revived fairly quickly, after about a minute. The team worked to get her stabilized and to get her determination levels back down; those levels spiked around the time her heart stopped, but are practically nonexistent now."

"IS SHE GOING TO DIE?"

"At this point, it's uncertain, but she's showing promise of recovery." She wrote down a few more things and smiled at Papyrus. "She's really something else. Compared to what I've seen with other monsters who've gone code blue... they only lasted a few seconds beyond that. In her case, I'm pretty sure it's the determination that kept her from disintegrating."

Papyrus looked at her, still a little confused. "WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?"

"To me, it looks like she just wasn't ready to die."

The nurse remained in the room to keep watch over Undyne for a few more hours, then left. She told Papyrus that he could sleep in the other bed in the room if he wanted to stay with her instead of heading home, but he just took that as an invitation to remain there forever, or at least until Undyne recovered. Goodness knows he wasn't planning on sleeping.

At one point he heard someone calling him from the doorway. There stood Sans, waving him over to talk.

"tori and i are gonna head home for the night, seeing as it's already morning" said the smaller skeleton. "how's she doing?"

"SHE'S STABLE. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'LL LAST THOUGH. NO ONE DOES."

Sans shook his head. "well, they've done this how many times now, three? they've got it down to a science by now.

"THREE?" Papyrus' eyes bugged. "THREE TIMES? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'VE DONE THIS THREE TIMES?"

"ohh boy..." he rubbed the back of his head. "i, uh, spoke with the surgeon after you ran off to tell everyone undyne was all right. she'd already come out of surgery and seemed stable so I didn't think you needed to-"

"OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T." Papyrus felt a flicker of anger igniting somewhere in his ribcage. "WHY TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THE STATUS OF MY WIFE?"