Chapter Text
“Hey. Hey, babe. It’s time. Get up, or you’ll miss it.”
Alphys wasn’t really sleeping. Undyne’s strong arms held her against her chest, and Alphys didn’t want to move.
“You’re going to miss it, you dork! Get up!” Undyne shifted and started prodding the side of Alphys’ face.
“Ugh, okay, okay,” Alphys said, against Undyne’s shoulder.
“It’s not romantic if I’m the only one looking at it!”
Undyne’s yelling set off a round of return yelling from the seagulls. Alphys heard wings flapping, and turned her head just in time to see the birds fly off, silhouetted by the sunrise.
“Oh. Oh, Undyne! It’s so b-beautiful…”
“Told ya!”
The clouds over the garbage dump were lit orange and red around the edges. A light haze hung over everything, and gave the piles of trash a strange, dream-like quality.
Up until that moment, the trash had just been reminding Alphys of one of the darker times in her life. Meeting Undyne had been the one good thing from then, though. She had met her and spoken with her for the first time in the dump underground.
“I want to find where the water came in on Mt. Ebbot,” Alphys said. “I wonder what it looks like, on the surface? Why was there so much garbage?”
“I bet you have a theory! Let’s hear it!”
The seagulls settled down again, and Alphys verbally worked through her thoughts. She was excited when she realized that finding the source of the water was definitely possible. That meant all her theories could be completely wrong! And she would get to find out!
“Ngyaaaahhh–all this red just makes me feel passionate!” Undyne said. She breathed in, deep. “It smells horrible! I LOVE IT! All this stuff, tossed away, but look at it! It’s still here! No one wants to think about it, but can you ignore that stench? NO! You can’t escape it! You can’t get rid of it!”
“W-well, hopefully, it will eventually decompose…”
“You try to ignore it but it turns into something better!”
“I…I guess…” Methane had its uses, Alphys figured.
“Even trash is important! And beautiful!” Overcome by her passion, Undyne smooched Alphys on the top of her head.
“The sky is really pretty?” Alphys agreed.
Off in the distance, a human was waving its arms at them.
“I…I d-don’t think…that guy is just…saying hi to us.” Alphys pulled away, nervous. They had walked past a lot of no trespassing signs on the way to their spot.
Undyne swore. "Alphys, we have to run for it!“ She jumped up. She tucked their plastic lawn chair under one arm, grabbed their snack bag with the same hand, and tucked Alphys under her other arm.
The next few minutes were a blur. Undyne, unencumbered by armor, leapt over the back fence and made it to the car in record time. She tossed Alphys in the driver’s seat and jumped in the car herself through the passenger side window.
"Hit it!” Undyne scrambled to get her seat belt on.
Alphys fumbled with the key, but once it was turned and the car was running, she shot off towards home without even struggling with the gears.
“If I ever rob a bank, you get to be my getaway driver,” Undyne said. "Not that I would!"
"I don’t know why anyone would rob a bank in person when they can just hack in and take the money that way, without all the g-guns,” Alphys said.
“Why aren’t we rich, already??” Undyne kissed her. "I’m joking. Maybe!"
"Oh, good? Maybe?”
“Anyway, the people who want to kill you are what make the robbery exciting! You aren’t just staring at a screen. We could have looked at pictures of sunrises over landfills on the internet, but wasn’t it so much better seeing it in person?”
“It was something, actually. I wasn’t really…into the idea, but…I mean, we met in a dump, right? I thought it would just be d-depressing, but…”
“Yeah.” Undyne went quiet, and the inside of the car seemed suddenly still without her talking.
“Getting to see the sky was like…” Alphys struggled to explain. "It’s not back then, is it? Things are different now! Even the trash is different? I...feel so different than I used to…"
"In good ways, right, babe?”
“Yeah. Everything’s…so much better than I thought it could ever be.”
Undyne nodded. "You want to pick up breakfast, somewhere?"
"D-don’t we smell like garbage, though? Everyone will think…”
“Who cares what they think! I want pancakes!”
She saw Undyne grinning at her in the corner of her eye, and Alphys found herself smiling back. “That does sound pretty good.”