"What happened?" Techno said, waiting by our boat.

My breathing was heavy from the wound, which was now burning from the physical activity. I unhooked the healing potion from my belt and poured the pink liquid down my throat.

Unlike the sour invisibility potion, the healing potion was pleasant, coating my throat like honey. Pink particles floated off of me in swirls the instant I swallowed.

The burn across my stomach began to dull and soon disappeared. I pushed my white glove a bit, seeing the bruise on my wrist fade away into nothing.

"I ran into Quackity, but I took care of it." I climbed into the boat, looking at the teal water.

The water glowed in the dark night, bright coral sending beams of light into the calm waves. Fish swam throughout, their scales shimmering in the crystal light.

Techno remained on the dock, holding the rope. "Do I need to go handle him, again?"

My head snapped up to his eyes. "No, no, don't." I sighed, pulling my cape out from underneath myself. "Can we go home? The potion is going to make me drowsy and if we want to make it back over the waves, we need to go now."

He still didn't climb into the boat. "Did he hurt you?"

This time I smiled and rolled my eyes. He was always so overprotective.

"No, I'm fine. Now get in before I leave you here."

Finally, he climbed in with an amused look on his face. The boat tipped and steadied out as he got comfortable.

I pushed the creeping drowsiness away and raised my hands, grasping the currents. Sparkles came alive under the boat as we began gliding back towards home.

When we crossed into the Northern region, the blizzard had lessened into soft flakes. The snowflakes wafted down and landed gently in our hair, dampening it.

Phil was waiting on the same sandy shore we had left, sitting. His grey wings were wrapped around himself, and something at his side to keep warm.

"Took you two long enough," Phil joked when we stepped onto the shore.

He stood and his wings moved to reveal a small, fluffy sheep. Its wool was a brilliant blue and practically covered his face and friendly chocolate brown eyes.

"Where did the sheep come from?" I asked, kneeling down to pet the sheep's head. It baaed happily, shoving its wooly head into my hand.

"His name is Friend. He's Ghostbur's pet, and he asked us to bring Friend back here from L'manberg. We picked him up while you were running," Phil said, shaking the snow off his wings.

"Here, I can hold the rope." I held out my hand and Phil handed over the lead that was wrapped around Friend's neck. He trotted beside me as we walked off the beach.

"I almost froze to death while I was waiting for you two. I debated on sheering Friend to make a sweater," Phil said in an amused voice.

"Thank Techno for that," I said, teasingly. My eyes were beginning to droop as we walked towards the cottage. "He had to fully question me before we could leave the docks."

"I was making sure you weren't hurt," Techno said to my right.

Phil chuckled on my other side, closing his eyes in joy. "Always the overprotective one."

"For sure," I mumbled. My feet were dragging in the snow and they felt like they were a hundred pounds. The potion was coursing through my veins, pushing towards sleep.

We made it to the stairs that led to the second floor of Techno's cottage, knocking our boots against the wall to shake the snow off. There was some shuffling inside and the door opened to reveal Tommy.

His face lit up when he saw his father. "Phil!" His electric eyes slid over to me in concern. "You look like you're about to fall asleep."

"She is," Techno said, nudging me towards the door. He took the lead from my hand. "So move so she can get to her cot."

Tommy moved, letting me by. My mind felt fuzzy with sleep, my movements becoming sluggish as I plopped onto my cot and kicked my boots off. They landed with a thud on the floor as I fell onto my pillow, my eyes already closed.

"Friend!" I heard Ghostbur say. He sounded far away as sleep pulled me under.

-

The next morning, I was woken up by being hit in the head with a pillow.

"What the-" I mumbled, rolling over only to be met with a pillow to the face again.

"Wake up!" Tommy screeched, hitting me again with a feather pillow. "I want to bloody build my house!"

I groaned and pulled my own pillow over my head to protect myself from incoming fire. My words were muffled, "Why do you need me for that? It's so early in the morning!"

"Because we're living together! I'm not building it on my own!"

"Get Techno or Phil to help you!" I said, being hit with the pillow on my back. "You know you're hitting the person who almost died a week ago."

"Oh, you're fine! The healing potion fixed you up." There was some shuffling and I heard the pillow plop onto the floor.

A second later, I was tugged off my bed and onto the floor by my ankles. Tommy stood in front of me with a sour look on his face.

"Tommy!"

"Get yourself fixed up and meet me outside in two minutes." He said, opening the door. "If you're not out there, then I'll send Techno in to wake you up."

I grumbled and threw a vulgar gesture at him. He just snickered and ran out the door.

When I went to the bathroom and peeled back my bandages, my wound was in fact healed over. A pale scar crossed my abdomen, a permanent memory of what Dream had done to me.

Instead of feeling sad about it, I just smirked at it. This was proof that I did live and I could survive the worst situations.

There was a small first aid kit below the sink, a red and white box with supplies. I pulled the small scissors out and carefully snipped through the stitches. They came out with ease.

Once I was done getting ready, I walked back upstairs, no longer feeling the burn on my stomach. I also felt more rested than I had in a while thanks to the potion.

Outside, the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky. A few feet of snow was stacked on the ground and icicles hung from the edge of Techno's roof.

I walked around the back of the house, where all four of my friends stood in a group. Friend's bright blue wool stood out greatly against the white background from where he laid next to Ghostbur.

As I made my way over, I could already hear their bickering.

"You didn't need to wake her up!" Techno shot at Tommy.

He just crossed his arms, and said back, "Um, yes I bloody did. I refuse to build our house without her."

"We could've helped you," Phil said.

I came up to the group, smirking. "Don't worry, you're still helping."

They turned to me, Ghostbur floating towards me. "Good morning, y/n!"

"Morning, Ghostbur." I smiled at him in greeting. "So, who's ready to build some houses?"

They fell back into their bickering, fighting over who would help.

I looked at the area around us. I never really got the chance to since I had been so blinded by pain the last time I ventured in the snow, and last night I was too tired to take in my surroundings.

The spruce and white concrete cottage was nestled in between big hills and a thick spruce forest. Snow-covered plains stretched in front of the house, the ocean off in that direction past where we could see.

I glanced in the direction where Tommy and I had trudged through the snow a week ago. Thanks to the blizzard, our footsteps and my blood had been covered up.

My smile lessened a little bit at the thought of Tommy's disheveled form basically carrying me through the snow. I couldn't imagine how it felt trying to keep someone you saw as a sister alive after being manipulated for more than a month.

His words circled in my head,

Hey, I'm here. Stay with me.

My eyes moved to Tommy. He looked so much better, his hair and eyes had fully recovered their color. I hadn't noticed it earlier this morning, but now he was wearing Wilbur's old trench coat to keep warm.

The sight of the old coat pulled at my heartstrings. Despite their similar height, it was still too big on Tommy. It was dirty and the L'manberg flag patch was almost falling off.

Besides his blonde hair and eye color, Tommy looked like his older brother in the jacket. He had vowed to not be like Wilbur, but he was his spitting image at the moment.

I know Tommy missed Wilbur, the one who led him in the L'manberg Revolution, back when times were so much simpler.

I needed to talk to Tommy alone, soon. We had a lot to catch up on, including my gratitude for saving my life as well as what happened in exile.

And the Nether incident.

"What do you think, y/n?" Techno said, the group turning to look at me.

I had been too lost in thought to know what they were talking about. They looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond.

"Uh, I-"

"Well, obviously she wants all of us to help her. We aren't going to make the cripple build the house on her own," Tommy said, coming to my rescue without even knowing it.

"Hey! I'm not a cripple. And you're the one who said so as you were hitting me with a pillow."

"You were hitting her with a pillow?!" Techno said, turning on his brother.

Tommy smiled sheepishly at him, raising his hands in innocence. "She needed to wake up."

Before they could start arguing again, I spoke up, "I say all of us work on the house together, that way we can get it done today."

Ghostbur clapped his hands and smiled. "I agree!" I wasn't surprised he had agreed with me, the ghost was just happy to be with all of us.

After some more disagreement on where the house would go, we finally began building it just behind Techno's house, off to the right. It would be the same style as the other house, just with a few modifications that Tommy and I wanted.

As we were building, an idea came to me. One of the modifications I wanted coming from the memories of before when the Dream Team was still together.

We chatted as we built, half of the group collecting supplies in the forest while the others continued building. It wasn't a huge house, but enough for Tommy and myself.

Tommy, who helped the least out of all of us, had spent half of our time jumping off the second story beams and catching himself with his wings inches from the snow. Phil watched off from the side with a warm smile.

Phil may not be a good father, after leaving his kids, but he did seem happy to know that one of them inherited his wings.

Especially since Phil could no longer fly himself after damaging his wings in the explosion.

Earlier this morning, Techno had brought Ash and Carl back from their hiding spot. Now that the Butcher Army would hopefully leave us alone, they were safe to stay in the stable.

The two horses pranced around in the snow like they were foals. Techno said that the two had grown up together after their mothers gave birth at the same time so they were basically siblings.

Ghost played with them, diving into the feet of snow like a fox. He blended in so well that it was hard to see him sometimes.

The sun was beginning to set when Techno and I finished the exterior, and the other three finished the floors, lanterns, and fireplaces inside. Only the furniture was left, and that was the easiest part.

"I think we did a fine job," Tommy said in a proud voice as we stepped back to view our work.

I punched him playfully in the arm, laughing. "Tommy all you did today was play with your wings."

"Excuse me, I did some of this shit. I helped build the roof, with my wings."

"Do you like it?" Techno asked the two of us.

I peered at the house, with its bay window in the front, balconies coming from our rooms, and the twinkling lights Ghostbur insisted on having for the holidays in the winter.

And of course, my special request.

The tower I wanted shot off from my room, almost identical to the one from my old home. It would never replace the one from before, but I could adjust to this one and make new memories with it.

As I stood with this broken, but healing family, staring at my new house, I was happy. My heart swelled with emotion and I could feel tears form in my throat.

"I think it's awesome," Tommy said. The lanterns and twinkling string lights reflected in his blue eyes with the coming night.

"I love it," I said, smiling.

As sappy as it sounded, I felt like I could be a part of this family.

The words that I had told Tommy all those months ago, came back to me in that moment.

Home can be in your friends ... Home is where you choose it to be.

I looked around at the small group that stood in front of my shining house, and I felt like my heart grew its own wings.

My home was with my friends back home, as well as here. I felt loved and safe.

I was home.

~~~~

ayy a happy chapter :) the next one will be as well lolll

i don't give you guys happy chapters that much, so enjoy it while it lasts >:)

if you didn't see my announcement, go check it out! but tysm again for 100K reads on Whispers! I love you all

have a lovely day, and stay safe my frandsss! make sure to hydrate and eat something :)