Heartwarming / Awful Hospital

In all the insanity of the Hospital, it's the little moments that matter most.

Showing us that even the most incomprehensible things can and will share as much humanity and understanding as we do, as well as showing us really touching moments and character development, are only two of countless heart-tugging elements Awful Hospital is packed to the gills with balance out its horror and hilarity.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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• Fern leaving the cupcake on top of the Bloodstain as a thank-you. Manages to be equal parts heartwarming AND creepy.
• "...I hope you find youw wittle you."
• When Fern gives the Spleen malaria, it's the closest the Spleen comes to a happy moment.
  Spleen: "Well, what do you know. Malaria. I guess you're theoretically almost marginally not quite as useless as you almost entirely are. I'd even briefly entertain the possibility of expressing some sort of gratitude if I didn't know this would benefit you so much more than the paltry satisfaction I can glean from it. Trust me, that's the kindest thing I've ever had to say about anything. Really. You're officially the least intolerable thing I've ever had the displeasure to endure exchanging trite vapidities with. You should be proud that literally everything else is actually more terrible than you are, it's a very impressive distinct…"
• The Bloodstain returns the favor to Fern…
• Zoe deserves mention here, as one of the few hospital personnel not to be hostile towards Fern's goals.
• According to Word of God, all versions of Fern, no matter how monstrous, unconditionally love their son.
• Celia actually joins Fern as a traveling companion; a big first!
• When Celia assures Fern that she can trust the voices in her head, pretty much all the Commentators were deeply moved.
  Commentator: Celia has more faith in us than she has in Ms. Green. CELIA HAS MORE FAITH IN THE VOICES IN MS. GREENS HEAD THAN MS. GREEN HERSELF. I'm honored. I think.
• Doctor Staph as a character is rather heartwarming, since she actually knows how to treat humans and readily agrees to join Fern.
• When Doctor Phage tries to encourage the commentators to give up advising Fern many of them reacted with open hostility and declarations that they will never stop helping her. It really shows how much everyone is getting into the story and how much they all care for our heroine.
• Mildred's ploy. Especially since the Commentators were really conflicted morally with what to do with her when she was at their mercy.
  Mildred: I just want to say I appreciate how you could have cut off my head back there but you didn't. I think we're even now but I've got to be on my way before the rest of my brains notice your absence and the ol' reflexes take the reigns back.
• For all her Blue and Orange maggot morality, Maggie's really a sweetheart at her core; lending a sympathetic ear to all of Fern's worries, and offering sage counsel. It says something that Maggie's the first thing whom Fern accepts food from, and the sight of them sleeping against one another (platonically) is nothing short of endearing.
• Heartwarming as he was heart-wrenching, little Diptworth named Fern his mother. When Maggie revealed that they'd created him for the sake of serving as bait for a monster, he immediately went along with it; making the ultimate sacrifice without a millisecond of regret.
• Fern telling Diptworth that she was proud of him. He went to his death knowing his mother loved him.
• After Fern has a Freak Out upon witnessing Staph, Maggie, and Celia messily devouring a giant replica of her own head, Maggie and Staph (not Celia though) realize they're freaking her out and look genuinely regretful.
  • Seconds later, they hear her screaming, and rush out to discover her impaled on the spiky tip of a huge monster's tentacle; hopelessly larger than them all. None of them hesitate an instant in fighting it; in fact, the first thing that's done on their first combat turn is for Celia to leap up and snatch Fern from the beast's clutches.
• Maggie's pride that she and Fern are part of the same biological kingdom.
  Staph: ...I don't know, Maggie, are you sure she should be face down? I believe that's where she breathes.
  Maggie: She's an animal, doc, like me. She breathes out the other end.
• Celia's kingdom become the closest that Awful Hospital gets to a Shining City. To quote Staph, "the continual growth and multiplication of your vessels has opened up radical new retirement options across the range, an increasingly popular option to either natural expiration or the preserves." Meaning she's saving countless refugees and giving them a nice place to live!
  • Even Celia's royal sigil signifies something grand. Bogleech stated it's "a three-pronged mold growth symbolizing the unity of fungus, animal and bacteria." She's come quite a long way from the bigot who'd originally conspired with Balmer to kill off all non-fungal life in the Inert Vessel. Fern's had quite a positive impact on her!
• Fern meets back up with Bloodstain, who calmly listens to her venting and gives her exactly the advice she needs to keep going.
• Seeing the Eyeslob learn about love and feelings. Especially since he originated from Jay. His thoughts on this can be best described as child-like astonishment.
  FELL LIKE U NO MORE THING. JUST A LITEL SMAWL THING BUT U NO IT AND U LIKE 2 NO IT!!! ACTULLY YOU LOVE TO NO IT!!! WOWWOWOWOWOW THERE ARE SO MANY WAY 2 FEAL IN A BIG OL WERLD HUH!!!!!
• Fern found it deeply touching when The Commentators suggested bringing all the human patients Jay killed back to life.
  Your head is exploding anew with thoughts that aren't your own. They seem to desperately want you to help these people. Some of them even want you to help Jay. You were still never sure how you felt about these things in your brain, but for the moment, you feel closer to them. For once, you can easily read their good intentions, even if their intentions aren't the most realistic...
• The way Fern treats Crashslob when he's about to die.
• The Save the Villain moments, for both Fern and the Commentators.
  • At the riverbank in the Inert Vessel, Fern and Celia could've killed Mildred, but instead decided to just continue on.
  • Fern could've chosen to de-core both Jay and Crash in the Surgery Ward, but instead gave the former a new life role, and shroded the other.
• How happy Chip is not to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of "overworked barista" any more.
• The whole relationship between Willis and Fern is really sweet. It's enough to almost make you wish the two of them really were biological mother and son.
  • The commentators have also become very attached to Willis and protective of him. One of example of this is when the Macrobobby scored a full hit on Willis without the protection of Shield; many commentators immediately went *berserk* and called for the immediate "death" of the overgrown white blood cell.
• The Eyeslob returns. And, contrary to many commentators' fears, he clearly remembers what we taught him about nonviolent conflict resolution.
  • The commentators' collective response can be summarized as thus: overwhelming pride in the Eyeslob.
• After trapping Phage in a box so that Fern could retrieve the password from his office, the next time we see him it turns out that while he was in the box, he somehow managed to break through the Parliament's memetic filter and regain his sanity. What makes this heartwarming? Well, one of the key things he remembered after breaking free of the memetic filter was Fern, and what was the first thing he did when he thought of her? Instantly begin fretting about how worried she must be about her son, even as he struggles to remember what a "son" is. Rejoice! Phage really was Good All Along !
• After a bit of a scare involving Dr. Phage running into Eyeslob (who thankfully praised Eyeslob for being such a healthy lad and then scuttled off to fetch Dr. Mizer), Fern immediately expressed relief that Eyeslob was safe and started referring him as "him/he" instead of it! Not only that, she apologizes for being mistrustful of him, pats him on the head (which he really liked) and decides she should give him a proper name! The Eyeslob is now called Isaac!
• Proper Hug! Best hug between a human and a walking mass of millions of maggots ever.
• Fern meets another mother worried sick about her child. Fern does her best to reassure her, and the mother thanks her and warns her to be careful.
• Fern saves a trapped Magboil. It sees her as a friend before sadly being warned off by other, more paranoid magboils.