immediately afterwards

Immediately after returning from his visit with Roman, Gaster had locked himself in his quarters and refused to leave. That was a day and a half ago.

This is why Mila knocked on his door. "Mind if I come in? I made your favorite dumplings, and I don't want them to go to waste."

The pause afterwards was long enough that she'd started to wonder if he was asleep. "...Sure," he said, finally. There was a rustling noise, and then the door opened.

The lights in Gaster's eyes were dim. His traveling cloak was thrown haphazardly over a chair. His suitcase was wide open on the floor, clothes still wadded up inside.

Kody had taught them about blanket forts, once, years ago, when they'd found themselves stuck beneath eight feet of snow in a distant mountain-pass inn. So, when Gaster settled into a nest of cushions underneath a covered table and pushed one out from underneath for her to sit on, she knew why the bed looked untouched.

She put down two plates of dumplings, sliding one across the floor towards Gaster until he took it. They ate, sitting on the floor, in companionable silence. Gaster froze up when he was pushed to talk about something, but would always circle around to it in his own time, so she waited.

When he spoke, eleven dumplings later, Gaster's voice was flat. "I have the answer to your question now."

"The answer to...?"

"I know what makes it come out now. The blaster."

"Mm?"

"He said the things he always said. He hurt me the way he always did. Nothing had changed. And then I remembered what you... I was beyond angry, and the power exploded out of me. And then he looked at me like..."

Mila put her dumplings down. Listening to this was more important.

"For a moment, I thought he was proud of me. I thought he'd finally realized that my own work in my own way had paid off. And then he told me to kill him."

Mila sucked in a breath.

"When I didn't, he told me that he wouldn't see me again, and left me on the dirt."

She looked at him. At the scars etched into every one of his bones. He didn't tell most of the stories of how they got there, but the picture they painted was as clear as a window.

"It took an hour before I could even start to heal myself." _An hour for me to believe that I still deserved to live,_ he didn't say.

"...I'm so sorry. That must have been..." Terrifying? Awful? No word that Mila could find really encompassed the degree of her horror. She scooted closer, offering a hug.

Gaster froze.

Not for the first time this conversation, Mila's heart dropped. Oh. She should have remembered. She let her arms drop, and Gaster relaxed.

After a while, Gaster broke the silence. "There’s another thing he said. He told me that if you died, it would be my fault for not being strong enough to protect you. I... know you'd say that's not how it works, but suppose it was true. A thought experiment, if you will." Gaster's voice was barely above a whisper. "If I failed, and you died, would you forgive me?"

"Of course!" Mila said immediately. Then, more slowly: "If... if one day you have to think back to this conversation, to help you forgive yourself - I am certain you will have fought with every ounce of your strength, as you have always done. You will have done _everything_ you could, because I have never known you to do anything less. And even if it was, somehow, your fault... I forgive you. Absolutely. For the rest of time."

"Thank you," he said, and that's when he let himself sob.