Work Text:
Susie had vanished when Noelle woke up. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Well, maybe not “lately”; it’s been almost six years since The Roaring ended. She, Kris, and Ralsei have been acting strange since then.
On the bright side, Noelle and Susie are newlyweds; they’d just come back from their honeymoon and have some leftover wedding cake. Plus, the artificial impregnation thing worked, and Noelle was pregnant with their child. Strangely enough, it was Susie who wanted to carry the baby, but the couple later found out that she was infertile, so it had to be Noelle. She didn’t mind; she’s happy to do anything for her wife.
Usually, whenever she got like this, Susie would be out at a store or something and then come back before Noelle woke up, but Noelle had a sneaking suspicion about where Susie was this time. Grabbing the half of the wedding cake that wasn’t (lovingly) demolished, she headed out.
It’s quite a trek to get to Worlds’ Edge, which is… the weirdest land to exist. Ever. It has mountains. It’s a field. It dips randomly when you enter the Dark World without any feeling of a decline. It’s a forest. It’s everything you can think of.
Sure enough, Susie was there, laying in the hyacinth field. The Heroes had planted them a few years ago. Whether to hide their mistakes or forget about them, Noelle isn’t sure, but sometimes the three of them would randomly come here to sulk. Especially Kris.
“Susie?”
“Go away.”
Noelle sat down next to her.
“Go away!”
“What’s wrong?” Noelle asked sternly.
Susie glared at her briefly, then sighed. “...I don’t know if I wanna tell you…”
“You can tell me anything sweetheart,” Noelle slid the wedding cake closer to her.
She sighed again. “I’m not going to be a good mother.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not?”
“You’re loving, caring, loyal, if someone hurt our child, you’d kick their butt! You’ll be an amazing mother, Susie.”
“After everything I did? Nah. They deserve better.”
Noelle sighed, “Susie. You are one of three people that saved the world-”
“Not at will.”
She ignored that and kept talking, “-you have powers that can rebirth the world or kill it, you pretty much died and came back-”
“Again, not at will.”
“-AND you’ve managed to get back on your feet after what happened! You have a lot of determination, Susie! If you love something, you put all of yourself into it!”
“I mean, all that’s true, but I don’t think any of that has anything to do with being a good mother?” She sat up and glanced at Noelle. “Well-- OH SNACKS!”
Noelle started to get mildly annoyed. “When our child is born, are you willing to take care of them? Will you love them with all your heart? Will you raise them with me?”
“Of course! I already love them even though they’re unborn!” She stuffed about a third of the wedding cake in her mouth.
“Exactly! A bad mother wouldn’t say any of that. If you’re going to be a bad mother, you would’ve left me by now, right? You wouldn’t be willing to take care of a baby, either.”
Spitting cake everywhere as she spoke, Susie responded, “I made this choice, gotta commit to it, right?”
Noelle flicked a stray piece of half-chewed cake off of her shoulder. “Yes! Exactly!”
Susie laid back down, smiling a bit. “I’m glad these flowers are coming back. I… I really like them…”
“They come back from hardship, just like you.”
Susie smiled at that. “Heh, you’re pretty cool too, y’know? You were just as traumatized as I was.” It’s true; seeing her childhood friend be severely gored and her future wife lose her ability to walk in an instant hurt Noelle. A lot. Especially knowing that Kris is likely to die from chronic cirrhosis (that somehow resulted from their injuries) in a few years, unless they get a liver transplant, which their doctors are being stubborn about.
Susie must’ve read Noelle’s thoughts. “Hey… y’know that three-berry rhubarb pie that Kris and Toriel make every spring?”
“Oh, yeah! Kris asked me if I wanted to help with that. Apparently they’re making a lot of those for the spring festival. Do you want to help?”
“Kind of… yeah. I mean, my talent with cooking is as appealing as a brick. But it looks… fun? Plus it would probably cheer Kris up.”
“And possibly be a nice birthday gift for Ralsei. Wait, actually… he’d help with the baking, wouldn’t he?”
Susie snorted in amusement. “He can’t bake without magic, no matter how many times you, Toriel, and Kris have shown him how.”
Noelle chuckled a bit. She showed Ralsei how to make cookies once and told him not to use magic - she thought he was going to explode! “Doesn’t he do anything without magic?”
Susie shrugged. “I dunno. Pretty funny in a way, to be honest.”
“Do you wanna go home?”
Susie hesitated. “...Not yet. I… um, I wanna stay here a little longer. Just with you.”