Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I'm awake.

You're back.

You were just sprinting down the corridor, probably muttering something to yourself, but you've skid to a stop on the other side of the crumbling doorway. You see that you're not alone.

You approach the flowerbed slowly, silently, one hand stuffed deep in your pocket. Your eyes are on Flowey. He hasn't noticed you yet, his gaze fixated downwards on his non-sentient siblings. Sunlight from miles above creates a spotlight around him.

You stop at the edge of the mound. He's still unresponsive. What could have him so distracted?

You take a deep breath, and-

"I knew you'd come back."

He's waiting for you to react. You can wait too. There are too many words to know which ones are right.

He chuckles hoarsely, "You're not giving me much to work with here, Char-"

Disappointment and disgust flash across your face for no one to see. You whip around, but before you've even lifted a foot, there's a vine anchoring you to the ground.

"I know, I know, Frisk." The vine retracts. "It was worth a shot though, wasn't it?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

You and he turn to face each other at the same time. His petals are faded, almost wilting. Your boots are caked in mud, your sweater desperately needs a wash, and there are a few leaves caught in your coarse hair. You both look so... tired. But you smile anyway. He doesn't smile back.

"So what do you want?" he prods, craning his stem to see if anyone's followed you. "I'm sure you have other things to do, so what, you wanna talk? Just came back for the nostalgia?"

"Both, I guess," you answer in your usual wispy voice, kneeling to his level. "I wanted to see how things are going down here. It wouldn't be very good of me as the monsters' ambassador to ignore the monsters still living here, would it?'"

"And here I thought you were slacking off," Flowey says, back to his usual, bordering on sarcastic tone. "Can't just be their hero, now you're their ambassador, huh? How's that working out for ya?"

Your expression shifts, but your smile stays. "Well, you know how humans are."

"...Yeah."

Pain flickers in his eyes, and you jump to clarify, "It's not that bad really. Papyrus has been helping me get better at public speaking, Toriel's teaching me laws and stuff, no one's been threatened or anything, well not recently, uh, Asgore, he's..."

Your sweaty hands clench up. You stuff your free hand into your other pocket and start pulling at the lining. You shouldn't have brought him up... but he deserves to know, doesn't he?

"He's been staying at the embassy. They're still... working things out. Seeking out the families of the kids, that kind of thing. He's already ceded the throne, so it's not..."

You force your eyes to focus back on Flowey. To your surprise, he doesn't seem that upset.

"Makes sense," he sighs. "It's probably better this way."

Now that you think about it, perhaps it isn't that surprising. If you were in his position, had discovered upon coming back from the dead that your father had committed the very sin you refused to at the cost of your own life, yet lacked the spine to follow through on his promise and make that sacrifice worthwhile, well...

But it was more complicated than that, wasn't it? He's still - no, this is a rabbit hole I-we-you won't let yourself fall down, not now. Suffice to say, you still don't know how to feel about him either.

His unspoken sins weigh in the air. You try to think of something to say; you could talk about how everyone has pitched in to make Toriel's school a success, about how Mettaton's scheduled a concert for a human audience (really? impressive), about how Papyrus is studying for his driver's license, about the trip you took to the beach last weekend with all your friends, how happy everyone is, how happy you are, because you are happy, aren't you? You found a family, you became a hero, you got the happily ever after you deserved, and sure it's not perfect, it was never going to be, but...

...Frisk?

"I tried to warn you how things were gonna go," Flowey smugly says. "Down here, people had no choice but to rely on each other. They learned to be happy with what they had. Up there, in that world-"

"There's no such thing as happily ever after." You grip the item in your pocket so tight you can imagine it shattering. "We'll always have more work to do."

You sit, careful not to let the locket - that's what it is - fall out. The light is in your eyes, so you mess around with your hair with your free hand to block it out. A leaf tumbles out onto Flowey, who shakes it off. He looks out of his element, like he wants to mess with you so badly, but after the surprise downer you just dropped, he doesn't know how to proceed. Neither do you. This isn't what you came here for, is it? You're not here for him, though you're glad you found him. But then, for what?

"...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this all about me," you mumble, lifting your head and putting on your default friendly face. "Uh, speaking of work, wanna tell me what's been going on down here?"

Dodging the question with another, I see. That's fine, I can wait. I'm curious too.

"What do you think's been going on? Basically nothing," Flowey groans. "There's what, less than a hundred monsters still down here? Pretty much everybody that lived in the Ruins, or Waterfall, or Hotland has moved to New Home. And with monsters like Undyne and Mettaton living on the surface now, there isn't much to keep things interesting. I betcha these caverns'll be empty in a year or two. Once people aren't afraid of humans anymore, the only thing keeping them here will be... sentimentality."

"Well you know what they say, sentimentality," you stumble through the word, "is a helluva drug."

Flowey's shocked for a moment, and you can't help but giggle. He glares back at you, but the anger melts away quickly. There's a moment of shared, almost comfortable, silence. You both soak in what little warmth the sun rays carry down this far. Somewhere, birds are singing.

Then the look in his eyes becomes more inquisitive.

"Frisk, what are you really here for?"

Your face drops, but before you can say anything, he continues, "You've taken your nostalgic walk back to where it all began, we've been talking for a while now, so what else is there?"

"We can keep talking!" you protest. "You, uh, you haven't told me what you've been up to! You been hanging in Snowdin? Haven't killed anybody, I hope!" You laugh, but immediately want to take it back.

Thankfully, Flowey just rolls his eyes (rather, the equivalent for when you only have pupils) and says, "No need to worry about me. I've mostly just been... home. Alone."

Your expression shifts to your trademark look of concern, and you inquire, "Have you been up to see the surface yet?"

"No, haven't even thought about it," he retorts. The words come out too fast to be true, and you know it.

With just a look, you pressure him into clarifying, "I mean of course I've thought about it, but I don't need to go or anything. It's not like there's anything for someone like me to get out of it. And with how things went last time, I..."

Suddenly his lips are zipped. In his scramble for excuses, Flowey seems to have stumbled onto something honest. You've dealt with this before. You relax your posture and smile encouragingly.

It works better than you'd expected. After an exhale, the fluster in his face fades, and all that's left is sincerity. "I don't even know if I could," he admits. "Things are fine here, things are normal. I'm not ready for a whole new world."

"Maybe next time I come back, I can bring you up with me? Just for a look?" You offer.

Flowey takes a moment to process the suggestion, then lets out a slow, "Maybe."

You grin victoriously, but Flowey's still thinking, and he follows up with a question: "You're sure there will be a next time?"

"Of course, why wouldn't there be? I always have time for a friend," you assure him. As expected, he blanches a bit at the last word you said, but even after his troubled expression hasn't changed.

Not to intrude, but I feel like the reason is obvious-

"Wait, did you think I was gonna go back?" You burst out. "Like, back back?"

There we go. Flowey's almost relieved that you caught on. "If that's how you wanna put it, then yeah, duh. Why would you come back and see me again, if not to say goodbye?"

So that's what he meant by "I knew you'd come back." You really shouldn't be as taken aback as you are.

"Because you're my friend?"

"Again with that word? Be real, Frisk. We were only close to friends for what, five minutes? And even then, that wasn't the me you're talking to now."

You run a hand down your face and let out a deep sigh. "Okay, Flowey. We don't have to be friends yet. But I want you to know..." You lean forward and carefully take his face in your hands. "I won't go all the back, not ever again."

"It's easy to say that," Flowey grumbles, but his eyes tell another story. One of disbelief, relief, fear, hope.

"But I mean it!" You exclaim, suddenly wrapping your arms around him and pulling him into your sweater. "I couldn't hurt everyone like that. And sure saving the Underground was fun, but now that everyone's free, there's so much more to do! I could never go back!"

After a few moments, Flowey stops squirming. It occurs to you that this could very well be the first conversation he's had since, well, he was "someone else".

Funny how leaving out the word "work" suddenly makes a full plate sound like the best thing in the world, huh?

Your body stiffens at the reminder. Your head lifts just enough to look behind Flowey at the flowerbed. Slowly, you lower one hand and reach it into your pocket.

Flowey pulls away at the first opportunity, but you aren't paying attention to him at the moment.

"Way to ruin the mood. What, is Toriel checking in on you?" he asks, the edge returning to his voice. "Wants to make sure you're eating your vegete-"

A glimpse of the locket is enough to stop him in his tracks. You go to polish it with your sweater, but stop when you remember how filthy it is. You put the metal heart down reverently in front of you, then place your hand upon it.

"Ask me, 'do you promise on this locket that you won't reset?'" You request, deadly serious.

Once he shakes himself out of his stupor, Flowey clumsily repeats, "Do you promise on that locket that you won't reset?"

Your fingers clamp down on the locket as you state, "Yes." Then you pick it up and stand, making a minimal effort to wipe the dirt from your jeans.

"Ooohkay. Wait, that's it?" Flowey exclaims. "That's what you came here for, and now you're just gonna-"

"No it's not. I still have something I need to do," you confirm, your tone sill uncharacteristically even. There's, someone you still need to talk to? You hold the locket to your chest, and, oh

"Chara," you whisper, just quiet enough for Flowey not to hear. And the world pauses.

I see.

Chapter Text

4 WEEKS PRIOR

On your way to the Ruins from New Home, you walked, stopping to talk to every monster you saw, taking in the sights one last time, reveling in how far you had come. On the return trip, you ran, eager to see the sun again. And yet to me, it felt twice as long. Each step away from what remained of my brother and towards a new family, away from my first home and towards the untested future, felt simultaneously like a betrayal and a rebirth. I could hardly process what I was feeling in the moment, emotionally exhausted from all that had come just before. The one thing I knew for certain, was that you were happy - elated, even. That's all I needed.

It was only as you made your way through the castle that I realized how tired I was, in more than an emotional sense. I felt like a rubber band being stretched out as far as it could without snapping. Then, halfway up the steps to the world that somehow represented both the worst of my life and everything I'd ever wanted for the people I loved, I hit the limit.

"Frisk."

You spun around (as if you could see me), not realizing how used you'd gotten to my silence over the past few minutes.

"Yeah, Chara? Are you ready?" You asked, your voice bubbling with pure excitement. "Or did I forget something?"

You had told the other monsters to follow after you in a few minutes, so there was no time for me to soften the blow. That's not something I worry about usually, but in this scenario, if I'd had the chance, perhaps...

"I cannot follow you out of here." I hated how formal the words felt as they slid off my tongue, but it's a habit I internalized a long time ago.

There was a moment of awful silence, where you tried to decipher my intentions. Then you started thinking out loud, the desperation in your voice rising with each phrase you sputtered out.

"What do you mean, you can't come? Aren't you tied to my soul? Or, or is it you just don't want to? Is it because Asriel's still here? I know it's hard, but we can come back to see him later, I don't want to keep everybody waiting too long-"

"What I want is irrelevant," I interjected. "I can feel our connection is on the verge of snapping. I am tied to you, but it seems I am also tied to this place or some aspect of it. I do not know what will happen to me when you leave, but I know that I will not be with you. So... so..."

I struggled to find more things to say, to keep my mind distracted from the implications of the words, to hold myself together. It was only in this moment of downtime that I realized you were falling apart, a heap on the stairway.

"Frisk, Frisk, breathe," I said, sinking as you had to your knees. I wished I could move the hair out of your face and take your hand like Toriel would, or wrap you up in one of your own airtight hugs, but all I had were my words. "Breathe," I repeated in rhythm, watching you slowly unfold your spine until you could spit out words again.

"I-I don't want anything to, happen to you," you blubbered.

"You don't have to worry about me," I tried to reassure you, but you could hardly hear me over your own haggard breathing.

"I, I can't just, leave you here, not-not after, e-everything, I-I wouldn't be here wi-without you! I..."

And then you stopped. Even in your meltdown, you couldn't bring yourself to say what you deemed the ugly truth. But I could feel it, in every resounding heartbeat.

"You do not need me," I said, making eye contact more for my own sake. "I mean it, Frisk. You have all the friends you could ever need and more. You are powerful, all on your own. Remember what Asriel said? 'Whatever you choose to do, you'll be great at it.'"

You took a deep breath and fiercely wiped at your face with your sleeves, then lifted your head, one neck vertebra at a time.

"But..." you quivered. "I, I wouldn't know how to do any of this without you. You're smart, and you're funny, and you care so much, and I know you, and I like having you around, isn't that enough? Isn't that enough to save you?"

"Oh Frisk," I sighed, smiling, genuinely, despite myself, "You already saved me. You have saved so many people. There are just some things you cannot undo. You have to let go. It's time for you to go live your own life."

You turned slowly to look at the seemingly endless stairs leading to the beginning of a new story, and then back at the end of this one. I knew there was more you wanted to say, but at this point, the footsteps of the first few monsters were echoing up to us, and you having to explain to them who I was right before you all had to leave was the worst-case scenario.

Your eyes drifted down to where your soul would be, and you muttered, "This feels wrong. I only got to know you for, a week I think, altogether? But I'm gonna miss you, so much. You were always there for me, and you never let me give up, even when I was ready to. You taught me how to be a good person. I don't... I don't want to get used to not having you around again."

I was lost for words. On one hand, I knew exactly how you felt. But on the other, I couldn't imagine how anyone could feel that way about me. Honestly, I still can't.

"I, I appreciate that Frisk," I stammered, "But really, I'd rather you not remember me as someone I'm not. I'm, I'm not really that great a-"

"But you are!" You cried, your deep brown eyes gleaming. "You're my best friend!"

Someone called your name, but I didn't notice who. I remained paralyzed there as you called down to them, then waved a hand in my direction.

"I'll come back for you, someday," you swore. "And As-Flowey too. We'll figure something out - together."

Of course you would. "I'll be here," I responded without thinking, only to quickly add on, "Just give me some time. I need a rest."

You laughed, your throat still hoarse. "Me too."

A chuckle bubbled out of my mouth in turn, as if to make up for my inability to cry.

"Goodbye, Frisk. Have a great time up there."

At last, your smile returned. "Goodbye, Chara."

Then your gaze shifted. I glanced behind me and saw a wave of monsters rising towards us, with your closest friends leading the pack. The ancient stairs themselves were shaking under their weight. I moved against the practically frozen stone walls, so I wouldn't have to experience the not-feeling of someone running through me hundreds of times over. You waited for Papyrus, then Undyne, then Alphys, and then Toriel to meet you. I couldn't hear what was said in the clamor, but I felt the admiration and affection all the same.

Asriel wasn't wrong when he said how weird monsters are for attaching so quickly to people... but how could they not love you? At least, this go around. Then again, if they knew all we do, everything you went through to get here, I'm sure they'd appreciate you all the same.

Then, with a shout, you turned and took off with newfound vigor towards the light of the setting sun. I found myself recalling what it felt like to stand in the sun with Asriel, to hear his awe in my own heart and soul, and I basked in that feeling as the pain in my core intensified and all other sensations faded until there was nothing but light.

PRESENT DAY

Well, it's nice to know that you missed me. I would say I missed you too, but, as you know, I didn't have the chance. I have to ask, is there a reason you chose to come back now?

*I think I might have figured it out. What keeps you stuck down here.

Beaming, you hold out the locket. The one you brought with you. From the surface.

With a huff and an eye roll, you clarify.

*Well not literally this one, duh, I mean its match. It's that or your literal corpse. Hopefully not that second one.

I... I suppose that makes sense. But then, why did you not just stop in the castle bas- oh, right. So, you think it got moved to...

You turn to face the mound and stare down at the golden flowers that broke your fall.

A memory bursts forth.

It was on your second run, after a couple of reloads, that you finally figured out how to spare Toriel. Your body was limp as she embraced you and brushed the hair out of your eyes. Though your lip quivered, and your throat tightened, you made no sound. When she pulled away, a vacuum forming where there had just been soft fur and oven-like warmth, your hand twitched, but your arm remained plastered to her side. You wordlessly watched her walk back down the hallway, remaining rooted to the spot until the echoes of her footsteps gasped their last. And then you ran, not through the exit you’d fought to preserve, but back down the corridor, through the empty house, re-investigating every nook and cranny of the Ruins, not stopping even to take a breath until-

There she was, kneeling before those same flowers. She was humming a vaguely familiar tune but hushed the second she heard you nearly tripping over yourself in your approach. Once you caught yourself and took some gulps of air, you walked up to her side. She gave no further indications of awareness. Her gaze was set on the crumpled petals. After a few moments, you pulled on her sleeve.

She took a sharp breath, then exhaled, “Do not worry about me.” Her head turned, and she gave you a smile that was all at once loving, proud, and anguished. “Someone has to take care of these flowers.”

My unmarked grave. It seems so obvious now. Good on you for figuring that out.

Flowey is frozen in place, still staring at your - his - locket.

Hold on, do you think he knows? Not that I'm here, with you, but that I'm... down there?

*I mean I kinda assumed he did. Why else would he be hanging out here? But I guess I can ask.

And with that, the world resumes. If Flowey noticed the brief flash of light from your chest, he doesn't comment on it.

"I came here to say goodbye to Chara," you tell him. His face instantly flushes with bewilderment. It's hard to imagine what you could have said that would have surprised him more, without him immediately shrugging it off.

"Chara?" he croaks. "That's... Not that I care, but it seems like an awful long way to come for someone you never knew. What, did Toriel put you up to this?"

"No, she doesn't even know I'm here. No one does," you assure him. Wait, you didn't tell anyone you were going back down the mountain? How did you get away with that?

"Not now," you grumble, before picking up where you left off. "I realized as we were leaving that I never really got the chance, and then I had so much other stuff to do, but it was something I felt like I had to do eventually, cause, you know, they were your best friend, and, they wanted to free the monsters too, I wanted to let them know it worked. And to thank them, cause if you think about it, this all wouldn't have happened without them, or without you of course, so..."

When you pause to take a breath, you notice that Flowey has broken eye contact. He's craning his stem towards the sun, laughing softly.

"I shouldn't have been surprised. That's just the kind of person you are, huh, Frisk? You have to at least try to help everyone, even the people who are already goners. Can't leave any piece out of place."

He looks back at you again, and it's with a sad smile that he says, "Maybe you aren't so different from Chara after all. I know I said they weren't the greatest, but I never doubted that they cared just as much as you do. They just..."

Both his eyes and train of thought lose focus. I don't know if I want to know what he's thinking.

You decide to cut the silence short by suggesting, "If you have something you want to say to Chara, you can come and say goodbye with me."

Flowey snaps back to reality, his face taking on a look of revulsion, and retorts, "I'm good. What's the point of saying things they'll never hear? I've been trying for, wow, it must be years at this point. If they were listening, if they had any response at all..." He pauses when he realizes how loud his voice has risen and does his best attempt at keeping a level tone to conclude, "...they would have said something back."

You bite your lip. Listen, now isn’t the time. As soon as he finds out I’ve been with you the whole time, he’ll- Wait, that’s not what you were going to say?

"I know how that feels, believe it or not,” you tell him. “I spent the first few years of my life thinking about what I’d say to my mom and dad if they ever came back for me. But I never got to talk to them." Your next breath is shaky, and you have to turn away from Flowey's, sympathetic?, expression, to continue, "When I got that I'd never be able to say what I wanted to anyone other than myself, I did that. I said it just for myself. And it hurt for a bit to let it all out at once, but I've felt better about it ever since! It's like, before I wanted to do it to make them react like you do, but then I just did it to let me let out all my feelings. If you don't want to do it for them, you can still do it for you."

Flowey's expression is unreadable. I can tell he's at least surprised - or maybe that's just me projecting. Multiple moments pass where he seems to be on the verge of speaking, but then zips his mouth shut.

You're busy stimming, repeatedly squeezing your hands into fists and then opening them again in your pockets, but careful this time not to grasp the locket too tight. This is the first time you've told anyone about that, isn't it? It's the most you told me about what your life used to be. Not that you need to tell me anything you don't want to-

Finally, Flowey spits out a barely audible word: "Thanks."

"Oh, uh, you're welcome!" You quickly follow up. You pull out the locket again and ask, "So, you wanna tag along with-"

"No," he insists, but in a softer tone than before. "If I'm ever going to do it - which I still might not - I wanna do it alone. It's not you or anything."

"Of course, I get it!" You reassure him with a smile. I can almost pick up on a sliver of disappointment, but it's overwhelmed by relief. He lets out a breath I didn't notice he was holding; clearly he's just as relieved, if for slightly different reasons.

"So, are you gonna head back to New Home now?"

"Why would I?" You inquire in return, only realizing as the words leave you why he asked.

"Well, I figured you'd want to want to say your piece..." his face wrinkles up as he searches for the best phrasing, but he quickly tires of the awkward silence and finishes, "...face to face, you know? I mean not literally, I don't think you'd want to open the coffin and see..." As he trails off, his expression shifts slightly as if he's second-guessing that assumption. I can't really blame him, you do have a knack for sticking your nose into other people's business.

Actually, that's literally what you're planning on doing, just with a lot more labor involved. I hope that doesn't become a habit.

Uh oh, Flowey's focused back on you again, and he can tell from your face that something's up. You better come up with something.

"I get what you mean, in fact, uh, that's where I went first!" You stammer, hands twisting together. "But uh, the other kids are there too, and like you said, there is something kinda... weird and creepy about the basement. But then I remembered about the flowers here, and I was like, wouldn't that be a more special place anyway? Like, it's where we both entered the Underground, and stuff, so, yeah."

Flowey's suspicious glare scans your face and posture for many painful seconds. You struggle to hold your innocent grin in place, hands still wrung tight. But eventually, he realizes you won't be leaving, and relents.

"If that's what you want, then I'll leave you to it," he sighs, "but I'll be waiting in the next room to see you leave, so you better not be up to something." And with that, he burrows into the Earth.

Alright, let's get to it.

"...Are you sure he isn't just, right under my feet or something?" You whisper as you kneel to the ground. "Could you see if he's really in the other room?"

I can try, I suppose. It takes a moment to recall how to move around in this form, and even once I do, I proceed down the hall at a snail's pace, anxious that I'll be pulled back to you - or worse, the connection will snap - at any moment. As soon as I'm able to peer through the doorway and confirm that Flowey is standing in the very spot we - well, you, technically - first met him, I hastily return to your side. You're still just staring at the flowers. What, did you not bring a trowel or...

You didn't.

Well. You know what you have to do.

"No, I can't," you groan. "My last save was when we split, I haven't been able to do it since, and of course I'm not gonna go all the way back to before-"

That- that's not even what I meant. Do you mean to imply you would be willing to relive that whole conversation again if you could go back just for a stupid-

"No Chara, come on. I mean, it wouldn't be that big a deal, would it? Going back just a few hours? We've done worse before-"

You have done worse before. And what about your promise to me? Have you forgotten already?

A few thoughts flash through your head, but you take a breath to clear your mind before I can examine any of them. It is only in this pause that I realize how much has been buzzing around in the back of your mind up to this point.

I understand, now is not the time to get into a fuss. Honestly, I am not sure why I reacted so harshly. I'm sorry.

"No, you were right, I'm sorry," you exhale, "I should've known that wasn't what you meant." You delicately place the locket to your side and grab ahold of the two flower stems right in front of you. "Guess I should start digging."

You flinch when you yank the first two flowers from the Earth. But after tossing them aside, your eyes take on that familiar crimson glow. One could say, the thought of getting to bring back your friend, fills you with determination - and you won't let it go to waste.

⁂

I feel the locket before I see it as if it's a star that has me in its field of gravity. You've been slowing down over the past few minutes, but the instant a glimmer of gold catches your eye, you get a second wind. A few seconds later, your hand brushes over the ice-cold metal, freezing you in place. Your fingers gingerly stretch over its edges. Only when you're sure you have a solid grip, do you ever so slowly lift your arm.

There's a broiling pulse repeatedly blasting through me, like the beat of an irradiated heart. It makes me feel like I'm caving in on myself. As it increases in intensity with each inch the locket raises, all I can do is force out sound, first a sharp cry but then something more like a laugh.

I don't know what's happening... but I know how it ends. It always ends the same.

I keep retching up laughs as my insides twist into knots, blood pools in my taste buds, a blizzard, a blizzard of dust envelops me, my ears are filled with screams and gunshots and sirens, "I can't breathe, I can't think, I can'tIcAN'TI-"

"Chara?!"

That is not his voice. That is Frisk's - that's "yours. You... you're holding the grime-coated locket out in front of you. I have to shake my head to be able to see it, and from there my vision focuses."

"Chara," you repeat, with a strange sense of wonder and amusement in your voice, "do you realize you're talking out loud?"

"What do you-"

oh.

"That's..." Sorry, I meant, that's gonna take some getting used to.

Now you're the one who's laughing. You even have to wipe tears out of the corners of your eyes. But when you lower your sleeve, there's something... off about your expression. It almost feels like you're, really, looking at...

"Can you see me now?!"

"Isn't this great?!" You murmur enthusiastically. "It's kinda weird, when I hold the thing farther away-" you stretch out your arm for effect - "You get kinda blurry? Or I guess it makes sense, since, you know, the thing kinda is you, in a way, but yeah, I can see you!" You take in a sharp gasp of air, and then more words pour out: "Do you think other people can too?! See and hear you? I mean you're still tied to my soul, but maybe if I gave them the locket? We'd have to give them the news, but once they're chill with it, you could talk to Toriel again, and I know you've always wanted to get to know Undyne, or there's-"

But then you remember the elephant in the room. Or rather, the flower in the next room.

"So... are we, or you, going to tell him about this?" I inquire. The quiet afterward hangs around longer than I had expected.

"I... I dunno. I want to, eventually, I really do, but... you said it before, didn't you? If he finds out you were here the whole time, it's gonna a whole thing, I'd probably say something that would make him even more upset, and..." The exhaustion in your voice morphs into fear. "Look, it's getting dark, there's no way I'm gonna go through those woods in the night." You point up to the fading spotlight to prove your point.

After a shiver passes through us both, you continue, "I was always gonna come back a second time for him anyway, so as long as we can get out of here now without him finding out, things will work out. Which means I should probably clean this up a bit."

You get back down on your knees before the mini mounds of exhumed dirt. The flowers lay farther off to either side, stems exposed. Not much you can do about those.

"It just needs to be good enough for now," you remind me, but then your voice takes on more weight. "I, I'm sorry about this, by the way. Maybe I can have Toriel come and fix it up someday?"

"Eh, what do I care? It's not like I'm sleeping in there," I joke, getting a hearty giggle out of you.

While you fill in the hole and reorganize the blossoms, I take another peek through the doorway, and... uh oh.

"He isn't there," I whisper-shout back.

You pause for a moment before responding, "Well, that's good, right? We can sprint through the Ruins and Snowdin, grab a ride with Riverperson, and we're home free! ...Unless he's at New Home cause he decided he wanted to talk to you after all - but then we just have to avoid the basement! Not like I'd ever, want to go there again..."

Same.

I stay silent while you finish up at the scene of the crime, scoop Asriel's locket back into your pocket, and eagerly stumble to meet me at the doorway. As much as I admire your optimism, there's no way it will be that simple, right?

You give me a wink-grin combo and say, with as much exhilaration as trepidation, "Only one way to find out. On to the future!"

A sudden sense of deja vu strikes me as you dash through the lavender doorway. But I know that, whatever happens next, it won't end like last time. This isn't an ending, but the start (for you, the continuation) of a new story.

On to the future indeed.

Chapter Text

The walk through the Ruins was uneventful, not a single monster to be seen. The air you took in felt stale and cold. The only sounds were crinkling leaves and the occasional tiny fragment of stone dislodging from the walls or ceiling. It was eerie, to say the least.

I had hoped I would feel more relieved by the time we got here, to... her house. But as you step over the threshold into the foyer, the lights still glowing if slightly dimmer; the crackles of fire magic and the aroma of pie disturbingly absent; the potted flowers next to the stairs dulled and wilting; every surface covered in a fine layer of dust...

Including your clothes and hands.

We are - we were - in Toriel's room. After nearly a minute of aching silence, I spoke. Well, thought aloud.

*Why have you not reloaded yet?

*I will, I just- I think I'm missing something, so I'm gonna look around. There's gotta be a thing I could show her, or remind her of, that would make her, uh, stop.

You were rummaging through her drawers, having already skimmed the closet, leaving not a single sock unturned. Your expression slowly shifted from focused with brief flashes of disappointment to sulking, and then frustration.

I commented on your efficiency at sorting out a dead person's belongings. You grumbled in response,

*You got any ideas? Cause if not-

*No no, take your time. I am sure you will find something to spark a conversation here when I could not come up with anything.

Of course, you did not know who I used to be at the time. I had thought you would just shrug the comment off, like so much of my early advice. Instead, you momentarily froze, then shoved the drawer shut.

*Why are you always like this? Acting like you're better than me for no reason, saying you'd know what to do in my place like you've done this all before-

*That is enough,

I growled. But your voice only grew louder.

*But you hate me for doing stuff over again, even when I'm trying my best to do things good, as if you got it all right the first time-

*Shut up and reload already!

*As if you're still alive! But, you're NOT, are you?

...

I...

I think my eyes are refocusing. We're in front of the hall mirror. It almost looks like there's something in front of me, but it's practically transparent, with a blurred outline. The shape is humanoid, mainly green with a... band of yellow...

"Can you see it?" You whisper beside me with gentle reassurance, holding out the locket. "Do you see you?"

For a few seconds, it comes into focus. The first thing I notice is my hazel eyes, with golden specks shining unnaturally bright, floating in ghoulish inky black pools. My cheeks stand out as well, now forever rose pink thanks to my rosacea. My cinnamon-colored hair, bangs swept to the right, is less messy than I remember it being right before I died, but it's filled with, golden flower petals? Looking down, I see my sweater's yellow stripe has also been covered up with golden flowers. Right above the stripe, in the center of my chest, is a heart-shaped hole, with a faint blood-red aura around the edges. I'm just going to move past that. Let's see, I'm still wearing my faded brown dress pants, though the mud stains are gone. Strangely, they seem to become gradually more transparent below the knee, until...

"Hehe, you don't have feet," you giggle.

That is certainly a way to put it. I fail to stifle a snort.

My focus lost, the vision in the mirror fades back to near invisibility. You hang the locket around your neck, hidden beneath your sweater, and look up at me, as if to say, You good now?

Yeah, I'm alright. Let us continue. Onwards, to our new home.

⁂

Thankfully, Snowdin isn't a total ghost town. Gyftrot was there to welcome us as we entered. According to the sign, the one bear who enjoys politics (somehow) has taken a position of authority and is operating from what used to be the inn. There were quite a few monsters I recognized through the windows of the diner: that mouse and jester pair; the leather-wearing monster with the yellow mohawk, who as far as I could tell is now running the place; the attention-seeking Glyde, putting on some kind of performance for a family of slimes; and the two newspaper editors, one of whom was clearly still working on their novel while the other was taking a smoke break.

I'm glad we didn't have to pass the skeleton brothers' house to meet up with Riverperson. Seeing that place without the lights on, knowing it's empty... that's not what I need right now.

Speaking of Riverperson, look at the distortions in the river. They must be close. If you squint, you can see their hooded form approaching from the left.

The ash-wood boat slows as it rides up next to the dock, keeping splashes to a minimum. The ferryman turns her head and gives a curt nod.

"Tra la la. I am who I am. You know as I know you. Would you care to join me in my boat once more?"

You carefully step on and sit crossed-legged with a small yawn.

"Tired little thing. You need someone to take you home. Remember to take a break every so often."

With that, the boat's legs grow back, and we're off.

"Tra la la. Tri li li. Tre le le. Hmmm... I should have worn a few million more pairs of pants today."

You chuckle, despite having heard the joke before, but it warps into another yawn. Even with occasional sprinkles of water hitting your face, you're struggling to keep your eyes open. You know, it's a while to Hotland... if you're going to walk back home from the mountain on foot, it might be best for you to let yourself rest here while you ca-

Your thoughts fade from my mind, replaced by gentle snoring. Well if you need it that badly, I'll be sure to stay quiet.

...

Riverperson turns her head, slowly. He's looking at me, somehow.

I stare back at the abyss, daring it to speak. And they do.

"Hum hum hum. The angel is among us. What comes next? To what lengths will they go to preserve their heaven? To make their dreams come true?"

...I- But before I can even conjure a response,

"What's my name? Oh silly, you know. It doesn't matter. Ah,"

[StAaTiC]

You step out of the elevator and walk downwards towards what I christened "The Last Corridor".

Wait, how d i  d     w   e------

"Don't think about this anymore."

But, why-I-

okay.

...

Here we are. In contrast to the last time we were together at the base of these stairs, I feel stronger than ever. Still, I cannot deny I'm afraid of what awaits at the summit.

I can feel your confidence surging in response as you take the first step, and it does more than I'd expect to put myself at ease. I don't know how you store so much energy in that soul of yours.

I do my best to distract myself on the long climb. In all the time I've been awake as a spirit, this is the closest approximation I've gotten to shutting my eyes. I use the opportunity to daydream. Memories of the surface bubble up, but I suppress each before I can dwell on them, so they cannot taint the sights that I know await me.

Instead, I try to imagine what all your monster friends are up to. Maybe Alphys and Undyne are holding a community anime movie night, passing around bowls of overcooked popcorn as the television blares. Or maybe they're snuggled on the couch in warm pajamas, just the two of them, enjoying each other's company. Maybe Papyrus is cheering his brother on at a comedy show, or maybe he's making Sans his first batch of genuinely edible spaghetti. Maybe Toriel's babysitting some of the neighborhood's kids, maybe she's hunched over papers working by firelight on something for the school, or maybe... she'd be looking for you.

"How long ago did you head out for the mountain, exactly?"

"Don't remember," you pant. "Can't this wait... until we're out? We're... almost there, I... I think I can see it, can't you?"

I shake the visions from my mind and, sure enough, spot the sunlight at the end of the tunnel. Slowly, I'm able to make out more: a sandstone cliff, overlooking countless treetops. To the left, another mountain scrapes the sky; on the right, a new towering structure, assumedly the result of further human development. You stop to take a breath a few steps before the end of the cavern, where the overhanging stone keeps one from seeing the horizon line, or just how tall the human's spire stands. The radiance of the setting sun is close to overwhelming.

"Whenever you are ready."

You take in one more gulp of air, then ceremoniously cross the threshold, quickly raising an arm to spare your eyes. Following right behind you, I feel a weak tug where my soul would be as if the Underground itself is giving one last feeble attempt at holding me. I pause, for a moment. I look back and see only a descent into the empty void. This place, I now recognize, has nothing left for me but well played out memories. It's the people, the monsters, that I truly missed, and they're waiting on the other side. Turning back to face them, I pull myself forward and-

My vision, my being, floods with a burning light. It takes at least a minute for the excess gleaming to fade, letting me make out the fiery waves of color surrounding the smoldering star. Already the farthest streaks of auburn and magenta are dissolving into shades of purple, and from there to deeper indigo. The deciduous below appear like a dark myrtle green carpet. At first, the manmade tower, which I can now see is actually a small cluster of skyscrapers, strikes me as an ugly scar on the landscape, a tear clawed through the canvas. However, when I try to picture it as something closer to aging castle ruins, it almost blends in on its own. At least this way it doesn't seem more out of place than the pointed peak at the other end of the horizon line. On the whole, the picture is still just as lovely.

"Well, Asriel, is it everything you dreamed of?"

"I... I don't think I ever could have made this up. There's... so much; it looks like it goes on forever! And, is that, the sun?"

"Yes, but you should not look directly at it, brother. Even a 'horrible beast with unfathomable power' is not immune to radiation."

"Haha!... Is, is that what we are?"

"No no, that is just what the legends say. In a short time, we will be saviors. Now, let me give you a tour of this new world."

"...Thank you, Chara."

"...Chara? How you feeling?"

My brain struggles to string together the words to describe the soup of emotions bubbling inside me. So I fall back on an old saying.

"Frisk, I'm on top of the world."

"Chara," you giggle. Just then, I feel a brittle breeze wisp through you, carrying just the slightest hint of saltwater. In comparison to the musty air of the Underground, this is like a jolt of determination. We had better get a move on, no?

You nod in agreement. We throw a wave in unison behind us to the mouth of the cave. Then you turn and head down the terracotta path, which seems to have been fixed up in the last four weeks. Still, I keep my eyes trained downwards to check for roots, peddles, and loose ground as we descend below the tree line.

I stay silent until we hit the forest floor, at which point I feel it's safe enough to voice my concern:

"It is strange that we avoided Flowey entirely on our way out. What do you suppose he's up to?"

"I dunno," you shrug. "Maybe he had something else to do that he almost forgot about? Or maybe he just got bored. It's not a big deal, I'm sure he's fine. We'll go back as soon as I'm sure I can take good care of him, don't worry."

"...Well, that's not what I'm worried about. Not anymore. What exactly is keeping you from taking care of him now?" I inquire.

"I'm busy, duh," you mumble. "I only just started learning about the stuff I need to be an ambassador for monsterkind a few weeks ago, and Toriel's trying to catch me up on my regular school learning at the same time. Plus part of being ambassador means getting to know as many monsters as possible, and really knowing them. I want Flowey to be friends with them too someday, but that's only ever gonna work if I'm friends with them first, you know?"

Interesting.

Your foot comes down hard on a branch, slicing through the muted chirps of crickets and rustles of windblown leaves that have been humming along in the background. It takes a moment for you to thaw and continue down the eroded, weed-infested path, the way ahead now almost completely shrouded in darkness. Only once you've regained your nerve do I offer my thoughts.

"That all makes sense. I believe you." I pause to let it sink in before continuing, "But do you think I did not notice how your body tensed up at my question? I know that is not the end of it."

"It was just the wind, you felt it too," you lie, biting down hard on your lip.

"Come on, no need to pout. I am not here to judge."

"Now who's lying?" You quip back.

"...Alright, I will give that to you," I sigh, "but you know that is not my only intention. I am concerned-"

"Don't say that, please-"

"It's true, and it will remain so until you tell me what is going on and we figure out how I can help," I insist.

"Chara, I'm so tired," you whine, hunching over. "Can't we go over it tomorrow morning?"

"You have been trying to push this issue off since you told Flowey you came back for me. Whatever you are trying to hide from me, you will not be able to keep it up for much longer. You might as well start explaining things now. As far as I can tell, we still have a ways to go before we get to-"

"NO."

Thunder reverberates in your anguished roar. Suddenly it's pouring, heavy enough to make the ground rumble. You let out a long, deep groan, and then bolt down the path, yanking me along. I cast my gaze upwards, and find that any shade of midnight blue once visible between blotches of pine green is now smothered by bulky clouds of iron and steel. The drops pelting the canopy above make for fitting percussion, but between them and the occasional outbursts of thunder, every other sound is drowned out. The pleasant smell of crisp leaves transitions to that of damp, week-old laundry. Your hair and sweater are soon soaked through, and it feels like the mud is seeping through your boots. With flashes of lightning now serving as our only light source, I can only hope that you know where you're goi-

"Do you ever shut up?" You seethe. "If you don't want us to get lost, please let me think!"

Really, after going through all that trouble to get me back-

You know what? Fine.

⁂

One hundred years ago, there was a winding road cutting through the woods on the other side of this mountain. I was strapped in the back of a car going down that road, in too-tight shorts and shoes. I squirmed inside my itchy sweater, an overly saturated shade of yellow with an olive stripe across the center. It was only marginally preferable to what they were going to have me wear; an outfit that would have been uncomfortable for, other reasons.

"How many people will be there?" I inquired, doing my best to leave out any trace of fatigue.

A response I did not bother to commit to memory, coated in unfiltered exhaustion and irritation. Why did I ever bother trying to be courteous in these scenarios? Right, because I would be the one at fault otherwise.

I went back to looking out the window, eyes hardly registering our destination as it drew closer. Back when I had first read about Mt. Ebott in books of history and mythology, I would have been overjoyed to take a field trip there. Perhaps they would have let us see where the barrier was purportedly formed, gaze down into the monster's prison, and, if we were lucky, get a glimpse of what of them remained. I could have stood in the same place as the hero from whom I stole my true name.

Would it have changed anything? Given me a sense of where I belonged, made me feel any more whole? I liked to imagine so, but I had had the same hopes about someday returning to the village of my infancy, and, well...

But this trek was not intended to be educational, not for me. The exotic location did not mean the events would play out any different than they had ten, twelve times before. Soon I would be introducing myself to another new extended family throwing too many questions my way, ones that they did not really want the answers to. I would wait for the adults to become more interested in conversations with each other than the "main event" so I could sneak off and explore. In time, the ones who had claimed me would call for their child, and I would comply.

Unbeknownst to anyone, this would be the last repetition of the cycle.

Dense clouds with payloads of sleet were creeping in, intent on encircling the peak and crashing the party.

This time, the call to return to civilization would come prematurely.

This time, I would refuse.

"Come on, sweetie, we're here. Get out of the car."

"We're here, Chara," you exhale.

You squeeze through the last line of trees and continue at a slower pace towards a one-story cottage at the bottom of the hill. The downpour has diminished to a mist. Your soppy sweater and jeans feel plastered to your skin, and your feet are practically swimming in your boots. As you carefully trudge down the muddy slope, I examine the surrounding area.

(I owe my above-average night vision to having spent nearly a year living Underground. Though I imagine being a ghost helps too.)

Not that there is much to see. The path continues past the petite house, but I can't make out any other settlements nearby.

"How far away is the village?"

"A few miles I think," you answer with hardly any emotion. "But some monsters have built homes closer to here. It's been good exercise for me, but I think I'm gonna ask for a bike for Giftmas."

I don't have the energy to address the implications of your statement. Not yet.

The stone cottage stands a few feet in front of us now, moss filling in the gaps in the wall. It looks... admittedly better kept than I had fretted. I try to peer through the windows, but the interior is void of light. You step around the puddles leading up to the entryway and stop right in front of the door to squeeze some excess water out of your sleeves. Your eyes are trained on the ground.

"Is there anyone, or anything, I should be prepared for?" I inquire.

"It's only me here," you murmur. "Once I get some light going, I'll explain everything. For reals."

"I know. Remember, I am here to help."

A thought springs up in your mind - "I don't need-" - but you wisely cut it off. Your hand grips the freezing, rusted door handle. You take a deep breath and then push, nearly falling over yourself into the dark. Once you're upright again, you're careful not to let the door slam behind you, using a rock on the floor to keep it slightly ajar for a sliver of light.

I elect to stay in the doorway while you walk confidently to the center of the room. After a minute of you fumbling around, a gas lantern flickers to life. You pocket the lighter you used, then pick the lantern up off the small table, holding it like the leader of an expedition into a subterranean cavern. I float forward and strain to make out details in the corners you direct the light towards. I don't notice any signs of criminal disrepair but am somewhat disturbed by the lack of furniture.

"Bedrooms are down the hall," you inform me, swinging your arm to my right so I can see the corridor, with two doorways on the northern wall. Your voice rebounds on the perimeters of the vacant room, but even magnified, it sounds frail.

"And at least one of them has a bed, I hope." Oh, I hadn't meant to say that out loud. Not that it makes much of a difference when it's just the two of us. Actually, I can almost make out a faint echo, but-

"There's a bed, mattress and all," you sigh. Good to know.

You lift your lantern to illuminate the wall in front of us, but I spot something on the sidewall as you move your arm. When you point the lantern at it, I realize that it is a large framed portrait of a middle-aged woman.

"I guess this is as good a place to start as any," you mumble, turning your head back in my direction. "You wanted to know more about what my life was like before the Underground, right? And it'll explain why I'm here."

"I am all ears," I interject flatly. "Still, do not feel the need to share anything you don't want to. I would rather not be on this topic all night anyhow."

You turn back to the portrait, biting your lip to keep the words from spilling out prematurely. After staring at the woman for another minute, trying to recall something, you set the lantern down on the table and sit cross-legged on the floor. I lower myself as well. The frosty, musty air feels perfectly still as if the world is holding its breath. I have been listening for mice, or bugs, any sound, any other creature living in this house frozen in time, but... it's still just you, Frisk.

You cough to clear your throat, and then proceed with the exposition.

"She was the last person who lived here, all on her own. She still has family, somewhere else I guess. Sorry, I was trying to remember her name, but I was only here for two or three weeks, right before, you know."

"You did not know her beforehand? How did you end up here then?"

"The same way I ended up anywhere else. Just wandering, looking for a place I could lurk. I'd known about the mountain from reading in the library, and at some point, I decided to head to it, without really deciding to. Found this place along the way, saw that only the old lady lived here, and wondered if I could get away with kinda living there without her even finding out about me. It didn't work for long, haha. But she didn't mind. She had some form of am-knee-sia or dimen-tion-ia I think, the brain thing that makes you forget stuff when you get old, cause some days she thought I was her kid or grandkid or whoever. She let me wear their clothes - actually," you briefly jump up so the lantern casts more light on your baby blue sweater, "this is one of 'em! There are other ones in the bedroom closet, but there used to be more shirts and more than one pair of pants. Been missing that lately."

You let out a dry, pitiful laugh, but I am not in the mood. Your expression sours on the realization. When you fail to elaborate, I take it on myself to push the conversation forward.

"Then what happened? Why is it all gone? Why is she gone?"

"Why do you think I know?" You grumble, anger quickly giving way to distress. "She wasn't here when I first came back, and nobody's been around since. Maybe she's staying with her family, maybe they threw her in a nursing home and sold her stuff, maybe she's in the hospital, maybe she's f**king dead! I don't know, and with how long it's been now, I probably never will."

You're already on the verge of tears. I instinctively lean forward and put my hands on your shoulders, but it does not appear to have any effect.

"I'm sorry Frisk, I should have known better than to make you answer that," I stammer. "I did not understand that you were so attached to-"

"But I'm - I wasn't," you cut me off. "I can't even remember that much about her, not that I bothered to ask. And that's the problem! I just..." You scrub the pinpricks of water from the corners of your eyes and stabilize your breathing before picking up somewhere adjacent to where you left off. "I wish I could have thanked her, you know? For being nicer to me than anyone else, anyone I met on the surface. But it's too late now. Nothing I can do. No going back."

You forced yourself to make eye contact for the last phrase, but you quickly avert it to gaze into nothing. Despite myself, I feel slightly reassured by those words. But this was only the first hurdle.

"So you told Toriel and the others you had somewhere to go, already planning on returning here to stay with this woman?" I ask, just to be certain. "You had no intention of living on your own?"

"Yeah," you quietly confirm, your voice still shaky.

My follow-up should be obvious, but I refuse to voice it. It's a question I have declined to answer for anyone, beyond a harsh general condemnation of humanity. So I give you the benefit of the doubt and jump ahead. I must be careful to ensure my tone is not accusatory.

"Then, when you found the house empty, you chose to continue using it as a solo dwelling, beyond the point where you assumed its previous owner would not return. This cottage with, from the looks of it, no electricity or heating, a decent while away from anyone. You have been lying to everyone else about your circumstances since, knowing they would provide you assistance if you were only to ask. Is this all correct?"

While I'm speaking, you pull your knees to your chest and begin rocking back and forth to help regulate your muffled breathing. I give you a few moments to dispute my inferences, but they pass in near silence, only colored by the faint creaking of wood beneath you and the distant hoots of an owl.

Softly, I voice my question: "Why?"

Your rocking slows to a halt as you gather your thoughts. A few inaudible mutterings slip past your teeth, but nothing comes of them. The gas lantern flickers, every few seconds plunging us into the void.

"You know this is not sustainable, Frisk. You are a child."

"Since when has that stopped me from doing anything?" You respond, with your tone somewhere between banter and bitterness. "Seriously, I'm being paid pretty well to be the ambassador of a whole species. Asgore had a bank account set up to keep it in for me, but I can take what I need from it whenever, and he doesn't seem to care. I'm a lot better off than the last while where I had to look out for myself."

"That does not make this acceptable! What will you do when winter comes?"

"I'll figure it out!" You insist, jumping to your feet. "It's not like I'm never going to let myself ask for help from anyone, but I don't want to end up relying on them for everything either. I'm in a place right now where I can take good care of myself, and I want to use that chance to figure stuff out."

"What do you mean by 'stuff'"? I prod, hoping my mounting aggravation doesn't show in my expression.

"Personal stuff. It's kinda hard to explain, but, you know how the monsters see me, right? I don't want to have to be that all the time. The happy-go-lucky pacifist, the patient peacemaker, everyone's best friend, the little angel who always knows the right thing to say and do the first time through. I could never explain to them how wrong they are about me, but it would be even harder to try and pretend that's the kind of person I am for the rest of my life. When I'm here, I don't have to do that. I need this, Chara."

"This is not what you need," I assert, waving my hands vaguely in the direction of the absent furniture cloaked in the oppressive darkness. "You do not need to live miles away from everyone else to have some space for yourself. Your friends would respect you enough to give you that; they must, or else they would have sought out your place of residence and paid you an unwanted visit by now. And Frisk, do you genuinely think the monsters' opinions of you would be inverted if they saw that you are not euphoric and amiable at all times? I was hardly an easy child, and yet, they..."

I stop before the memories monopolize my focus. Still, certain phrases infiltrate my defenses, the ones I once found comforting even as their weight suffocated me. The ones I parroted to you, every time your soul was on the verge of shattering.

"They loved you. They put all their hopes on you, and Asriel. You were their future. And then what?" You ask in a solemn tone. "You gave everything to try and make that future happen. I almost did too, and I would do it again - if I had to. But I don't want that to be my whole life. Ugh, that doesn't sound right. I want to keep making as many people happy as possible, because it's the right thing to do, and it makes me feel good. But I only figured out that's what I wanna do after doing a lot of, not that. I'm still figuring out who I want to be. Part of that comes from helping the monsters, but if I stayed with them on top of being ambassador, I don't think I'd have the chance to find out anything else."

"Is that it?" I exhale. "To me, this does not sound like a problem that comes from settling down with the monsters. They would not expect you to spend all of your time on nothing but working out their problems. They would support you in whatever you wished to do, as Asriel said."

You take a sharp breath, but before you can attempt to rebut my claim, I cut to the chase: "You are merely projecting your unrealistic expectations of yourself onto them. And do you know who could help you with that?"

"Not you, I guess!" You snap. "Remember when you told me it was time to 'go live my own life'? What about that?"

While I'm still recovering from the sting, I note how your expression has stayed uncannily blank throughout our exchange, though twitches of irritation are now popping up. I also realize that the light is on its last breath. Darker, yet darker.

You take no such pause for reflection, continuing with, "I thought you believed in me! I thought you would be happy to see me getting by on my own, but every time I've answered your questions, and I've meant everything I've said, you just find something else to get mad at me for!"

"Because you have not thought this through!" I shout back, quickly reigning in my volume. "You think you will have more time for self-discovery when you are also your sole caretaker? You think you will figure out who you want to be sooner, by isolating yourself, and never discussing what you have been through with anyone but your conscience, than you would, by interacting with others who have different perspectives on life?"

"Well, that's part of why I wanted to bring you back," you admit frustratedly, "because I know I can talk to you about this stuff. But if I knew this was all it was gonna be, you going back to not respecting me, always criticizing me and making it impossible for me to think for myself, finding the exact words to say that will get to me-"

"What, you would not have bothered to bring me back?" I finish for you, covering for my shock with inflated rage. "Well, you know what? I would have been happy to continue sleeping in the soil for eternity if I knew I would otherwise end up being such a burden on you."

As if I had said the magic word, something shifts. Your expression fractures. You take a modest step back, triggering a loud groan from the rotten wood below your boot. Deep in your whirlpool eyes, I can make out spirals of intense remorse, but the rest of your face soon twists into some unearthly combination of disbelief, agony, and pure ire that pains me to look at.

"You feel like you're being a burden? You're telling me, that you think you're a burden?" You sneer, a chuckle rumbling alongside your words. "I know what that feels like. You have no idea!"

Some shred of rationality still anchored in me calls for me to hold my tongue, or to use it to comfort my friend. But everything else has burned away, and I have always known that at my core, I will never be anything but human.

"No, no, you are the one speaking unfounded. Do you know how many families I was passed off between? Discarded the moment I showed myself to be too much for them to handle. They always seemed like the perfect fit for me, at least to those working in the system. Yet somehow, once I officially became part of the picture, everything would fall apart. I took every step I could to make their lives easier: did everyone's chores; stayed weeks ahead on schoolwork; learned to prepare meals; spent my free time reading quietly in corners; always honest and courteous, well-spoken and well-dressed. But all it takes is one failure to meet expectations, one public meltdown, one poorly timed question, one harsh word, even just a 'no', and, and..."

Time feels as though it is moving at a tenth the speed. All context has vanished. I am drowning in well-blended memories and the bile from newly re-opened, self-inflicted verbal scars. There is no sign of land, of relief. You are coming down with me. I'm sorry. Stop me, please. Why are you just standing there? Why are you not saying anything? What am I doing?

Out of my traitorous mouth pours the familiar chain of words, "But it cannot just be that, how could it be? They must have hated me from the moment they took me in and discovered I was not just any pretty flower, but, a buttercup, or some other toxic, thorny, weed-"

"At least they gave you a chance!" You cry out through waterfalls of tears. "At least they wanted you, or thought they wanted you! No one EVER wanted me!"

With that, I am thrust above water.

For a precious second, I can truly see you again, surrounded by pure darkness. Your entire body is trembling, and your lower face is caked in streaks of water and snot.

You look so small.

Then my eyes meet yours, blazing red, and it all slams into me at once.

We both double over in shared anguish. Our emotions coalesce in a torturous feedback loop.

Foreign fragments of memory impale me:

Staring out a barred window past midnight at a smog smothered sky, silently calling out to two strangers about whom you know nothing except that they birthed and then abandoned you;

Hidden just out of sight, listening to staff lamenting the orphanage's closing. One asks what will be done with "the child who was left here, the one no one ever took?" Before a proper response is proposed, another one jokes, "Who cares what happens to that little"-

Stuffing your tattered backpack with food at the next meal, tiptoeing down corridors in the dead of night, slipping through the door onto the street, and then running, running somewhere, anywhere but here;

Flagging down a stranger with your best puppy eyes for spare change, ready to make a hasty retreat if they pull out their phone or a cop comes into view;

Sprinting through an alleyway with stolen fruit;

Waking on the concrete covered in a thin layer of snow, immediately commencing a frenzied search for shelter;

Always on your feet, always exhausted, always looking for danger around every corner,

hardly breathing, muscles aching, bones splintering, heart close to bursting;

I feel your hands scraping at the chain around your neck, clawing through me. I cannot tell if the primal roars and thunderous percussion overloading my senses are just in my - our head.

Suddenly, I feel as though I'm being strangled by a giant hand. My vision blurs, only showing red blobs on black. Except for a glimmer of gold. You raise it over your head, clenched with fingers of steel. A savepoint? No, it's -

You turn to the hall and slowly pull your arm back, your face morphed beyond recognition by the unbearable pain.

I want to scream "NO", but my voice is ground to dust within your grasp.

Our hearts are beating as one, ablaze with the same need. Yet your arm is paralyzed.

The whole world is ending.

You can't move your body.

It needs to STOP.

You struggle...

FAILURE

You reach out...

*D e t e r m i n a t i o n

and

*You threw the locket away.

Chapter Text

"...Chara? You're still here, right? Can you hear me? Please, please say something.

...I didn't mean it, you know that, right? You're still my- oh gods, I - I f**ked it up, didn't I? Just like I f**k up everything. Chara, please, I need - I can't, I-I didn't - I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry i'm sorry i'm"

Sobs dissolve into static. Everything aches. No way to tell if eyes are open or closed. Faint, murky colors swirl in negative space. I can barely string together a thought. The idea of moving a limb only results in a wave of scorching pain, like trying to lift a foot that's fallen asleep. But without that, it's just perpetual fizzling numbness.

I'm dying. That's what this has to be, right?

No. No, that can't be right. I'm already dead. I know what it's like to die, and this is... familiar, but there's no sense of fading. I am stuck here, in this void, in this moment, in this state of watered-down agony.

I am not alone. I can feel the warm pulse of your soul, from an unknowable distance away.

I wonder if you can hear me.

"Frisk?"

The void shudders. Flares of your determination streak by me, their neon red trails illuminating the pitch black, but then the radiating warmth begins to weaken - as if you're retreating from this place.

"Frisk, it's me, Chara," I call out, but it has no apparent effect. The streams of light dissipate, and no matter how hard I strain my sight, I can't find anything else, no other traces of you. Are you already gone?

My throat is burning, but I have no choice, I need to tell you that... that... no, you must know I actually am who I say I am.

That's why you're pulling away.

Because I hurt you. Like an idiot [my head is splitting apart], I ruined the one relationship I had left [my throat is ripping open] with an assertion that wasn't even true [my - our chest is tearing at the seams], by ignoring your pain to weaponize my own against you [bullets bursting through fur, clouds of magic choking us] and now you're [we're dying, Asriel, listen to me please listen to me Frisk I-

I'm doing it again.

Stop. Breathe. Listen. For once in your damn existence, Chara, actually listen to someone else.

It takes a while to pick up on your presence again. I want to say it's because you realized the extent to which I will inevitably hurt you, I WANT to say it, but I won't. Because it's what sent me down that spiral in the first place, and it's not true. Not the full truth.

I remember now. You're the one who told me, when I was spending what may have been my last moments with you insisting that I'm not a good person, that I am. That I'm your best friend.

You saved me, in more ways than one. It's about time that I return the favor.

"Frisk, I'm sorry. I truly am. I did not mean it when I said I wished you had left me behind, I - I want to help you," I plead, my voice unable to project more than a splintering whisper. "Please tell me how I can help."

No response but the echoes of my own frail words. I want to give you time, but slowly I feel myself returning to that initial semi-conscious state, and have to force my throat muscles to move to stay awake.

"This is not something we cannot work through together. Talk to me. I promise I will listen to you this time. It will all be okay," I insist gently, "There is nothing to be afraid of. I am not going anywhere." After another minute of dead silence, I add a caveat, despite my terror at the prospect of you taking it: "Unless you don't want me here."

"No."

At last, your unmistakable voice rings through the vacuum, somehow both powerful and pitiful. My entire being goes tense, equally desperate for and dreadful of further elaboration.

"No, I do want you here. But that's the problem."

I hold my tongue before it can express any confusion. Instead, I offer a glowing, patient smile, banking on your ability to see or otherwise perceive it from wherever you are.

"Chara," you chuckle through your tears, "I'm right here."

I spin in place and find you, or perhaps more accurately a projection of you, floating in the nothingness behind me, hugging your knees in a fetal position. Your head drops the second I try to make eye contact. I inch forward, but your sharp inhale signals me to take it back.

"Do you," you heave, "do you really want to know, all the, f**ked up stuff in my head, cause I don't know if..." The rest of the sentence is lost in the folds of your sweater.

My first instinct is to mention the extent to which I have already shared my thoughts and traumas with you, but fortunately, before I say anything, it occurs to me what a terrible idea that is. For several reasons.

"Tell me only what you feel comfortable sharing," I suggest instead, "and we will see what we can do with that."

After a few grumbles and sputters, you raise your head, fixing your gaze somewhere behind me, and sigh, "Okay."

I maneuver myself to be sitting cross-legged so that I am not looming over you. It's another minute or so before you manage to get on a roll, after a few false starts.

"I've missed you Chara. I missed you so much. Not just cause we're friends, or cause I've been here alone, or the thing I said before, about being able to talk to you about stuff I can't with anyone else, everything we went through together... those are all part of it, but the thing is, the reason I came to bring you back as soon as I could, is cause I knew, or at least I figured, that once we were tied together again..."

Your eyes have drifted back to me while you've monologued, and now you lock your sights with mine as you confess, "I wouldn't have to be afraid of you leaving me. Even if you thought I was a burden on you, a waste of space, even if you hated me, you wouldn't give up on me. You wouldn't, couldn't, abandon me. And I needed - I need that so badly." Your voice starts collapsing in on itself, but you keep pushing the words out, unable to stop the current now that the dam has been demolished. "Isn't that awful? That I dragged you back here just for my happiness? That I can't trust my friends to keep caring about me unless they literally can't leave me? Doesn't that make me an awful, awful person?"

"No, no Frisk, of course not," I interject instinctively, pushing myself onto my knees and tactfully closing the gap between us. "You're just a kid, a kid who's had a lot of unfair things happen to them and hasn't had anyone to help them deal with it."

"And kids can't be awful?" You retaliate, your tone remaining more defeated than accusatory. "What about when I hurt, killed people? What about Flowey?"

I wait for you to say, "What about you, Chara?" But it doesn't come.

As I scramble for an answer to your conundrum, you grab my sleeve and pull me forward so I have nowhere to look but your quivering, waterlogged eyes.

"Come on, Chara, I, you're always honest with me, with how you feel about this stuff. Just tell me!" You cry. "Tell me whether I'm bad, or, or, or just too much of a f**k up to tell the difference!"

"I - This is not my place, Frisk," I stammer, "You know I am far from an arbiter of morality, and, I'm no therapist either. That being said-"

With a hopeless look, your head droops once more, and you let out a strained, muffled wail. The overstimulation paralyzes me for a moment. Then I recognize that I have the chance to do something I've wanted to do for you before, but never could, and I take it. With my free arm, I pull you into a tight embrace. Your body shudders before collapsing into me. I rub your back at a steady pace to help you regain control of your breathing.

When your sobs have softened enough that I know you will hear me over them, I whisper, "Let me tell you my opinion, as a friend, and another kid who's done, bad, stuff. I think that you are a human - no, a person. A person who didn't have a real home or family growing up, who learned to rely only on themself. A person who, when thrown into a scary, dangerous situation with powers they couldn't fully understand, made bad choices that hurt people. A person who then decided to dedicate their life to making people as happy as possible, and would give their all to help others, even when they feel undeserving. A person who's still struggling with the bad things they did, and the way that the circumstances of their life have affected who they are now."

"You're, you're not, answering the question," you blubber into my sweater, but I sense your tone is lighter than before.

"I do not think you were asking the right question," I counter, the words I summon as revelatory to me as I hope they will be to you. "Badness is not something inherent to a person. Or, even if it were, that does not mean you could not grow beyond it. What matters is what you do, or try to do. Maybe you brought me back for the wrong reasons, but I forgive you for it. I'm glad to be here. And now that I am, the question is: what next? What do we do to make things better?"

I give you time to realize my question is not rhetorical. When the silence persists, I cautiously free my other arm from your grasp, so that I can brush some of your tightly wound curls of hair away from your eyes. Almost automatically, both your arms wrap themselves around me and weakly squeeze.

"It's okay. Talk whenever you're ready," I hum. It's not a tone of voice I'm used to utilizing, and to my ears, it sounds like a facsimile, but it seems not to bother you.

Eventually, you let out a soft laugh. "You know what Chara? I think you're right, like usual."

"Oh please," I scoff jokingly, "Since when?"

Your laugh transforms into your usual bubbly giggle, but, unfortunately, the joy is fleeting. In the quiet that settles in, my touch aversion rises to the surface. Beginning to feel uncomfortable in our cramped embrace, I drop my arms and lethargically pull back, then return to a cross-legged seated position. After taking a few deep breaths, you do the same.

"Do you get it now?" You exhale, wiping tears and their imprints from your face. "You see why I didn't want to stay with them? I have so much sh*t to work through, not even really to do with what happened in the Underground, and being with them all the time would just make it impossible."

"But is it not so much better to have someone else helping you through it?" I argue, instantly regretting it. It's if the spirit of Toriel herself had possessed me. I suppose it was inevitable.

"I know that," you frown, "but... it's a lot of stuff, okay? I don't even know if I know all the reasons I don't want to. It's confusing and icky and it hurts to think about."

"Your feelings do not have to make perfect sense to be valid," I reassure you. "Feel free to ramble, if that will make it easier for you."

You give a nod, then pause to gather your thoughts, signaled by the way you start absentmindedly fiddling with your hands.

"How long..." you mutter, "how long did you live underground, with the Dreemurrs?"

"Almost a year," I answer nonchalantly. "They were just starting the month-long preparations for the grand celebration of the anniversary of my arrival when I..." Seeing you wince, I elect to cut myself short with just a "Nevermind."

"It's fine, anyway," you push on, "I've only known them for like, a month-ish, maybe two counting resets, and, you know, my first impressions of a lot of them weren't, uh, great? But that's a whole other thing, I know none of them would ever want to kill me now, haha, uh, it's more that, it feels wrong for me to, force myself into their lives more than I already have. They're not my family, not like Asriel and Toriel and Asgore were for you. They're just people I managed to help out, thanks to my determination and you pushing me in the right direction, and a lot of dumb luck. You know, if I wasn't the seventh kid after you, it wouldn't matter what I did, they'd still be behind the barrier and I'd be... and, and if one of those other kids had come after me, who knows, maybe, they'd be friends with everyone on the first try, and they'd be living with all those friends right now, and there wouldn't be any problems with the humans, and, and, and-"

"Stop, Frisk, breathe," I interrupt, seeing your face redden and your eyes swell. "Breathe. Now is not the time for what-ifs. I understand how tempting they are to indulge in, believe you me, but there is nothing to learn from interrogating the scenarios you proposed. Much of that was entirely out of your control, and presuming someone else could have done everything perfectly is, I think you know, not reasonable."

You murmur something to yourself on repeat in between breaths, your chin tucked to your chest. I cannot tell if it is because of something I said.

Just in case, I offer a quiet apology: "I'm sorry. I just... I do not want to see you keep tearing into yourself like this. I cannot allow it."

Your breath has stabilized, but you're still talking to yourself. I manage to pick out the words "sorry", and "truth", then "deserve", from among your utterances, and something clicks.

"Frisk... love, like mercy, is not based on deservedness." I pause, caught off guard by a twinge of rebellion flaring up somewhere deep inside me. I force myself to swallow the flames. Even if I cannot fully believe it yet, it is what you need to hear.

"Love is a basic need. Of course someone like you or I, who went so long without it, will need a lot of it. That does not make you, as a person, a burden on the world. On the contrary, I think you have a lot of good to offer it. But you need to believe that about yourself. That you are enough, and that you can do good, and that it's okay to be vulnerable and ask for help."

You're looking at me again, with an expression that I cannot parse, yet registers as oddly familiar. Some mixture of disbelief, relief, hope, and fear.

"I... I want to believe you, Chara. I want to believe you so badly. And it's not you, I trust you, but I can't - I-I," you stutter, voice crackling, "I'm so, I'm so scared! I'm scared that everyone will keep coming to me with their problems and I won't know how to fix them, or I'll have to pick which friends I care about more, and I'll leave people behind, and then they'll leave me! I'm scared that the things I did to them, and what they did to me, it'll all come up and undo everything I've done to make up for it, or it'll just stay there in the background, and I, none of us will be able to move past it!

"I'm scared I'll break down like this in front of them and they won't know what to do with me! I'm scared they'll decide, that they'll have to, cut me out of their lives, replace me with someone better, maybe an actual f**king adult, and at least if I would have kept my distance I wouldn't have to deal with feeling like I lost the only family I ever had!

"And it's not like I'd be able to go back to before the sh*t went down and try again, nope, I don't get to do that anymore, I guess! It's not even that I would if I could, because I wouldn't want to break my promise to you, but gods, just knowing the option was there would make it all so much less scary. I'm scared of consequences I can't undo, I'm scared of losing everything, even though I know, I should know, that they wouldn't, of course they wouldn't do that to me, they wouldn't abandon me like that... because they're good people, even the ones who killed me, and I'm... I'm just, a dumb kid."

With your back hunched over and your head in your hands, I can barely make out the last few words accompanying your rain of tears. My mind is still struggling to process every fault you've laid out, like faultlines on a map, to know where it's safe to proceed.

When I'm fairly certain you have nothing left to add, I make an apprehensive offer: "Do you, perhaps, want another hug?"

You haltingly lower your hands, clasping them in front of you, and raise your head so that your gaze meets mine. Your eyes are bloodshot and your face sags, but something about your expression suggests a weight has been taken off your soul. Briskly scanning me over, you pick up on my deeper discomfort at the proposition, and straighten your back.

"No, I, I think I'm okay, for now," you smile sincerely. "It's funny, it's like what I told Flowey, about the night I let out my feelings about my parents. Just saying it all out loud makes you feel better. I mean, it didn't fix everything for past me, I just said I'm still afraid of being abandoned, but it helped for a bit, and I think this did too."

"I am glad, truly," I smile in return. "For the record, I do not think you are 'dumb'. And it is okay to be afraid. A wise monster told me and Asriel once, true bravery is not the absence of fear; it is recognizing your fears, and choosing to act despite them."

"I like that. ...Which is why you think I should go live with the monsters," you sigh.

"And find a therapist."

"Ugh, I guess," you roll your eyes, "but where am I gonna find someone who will have anything helpful to say if I spill my guts to them about my messed up use of time travel?"

I almost suggest Flowey as a joke, but rather than risk ruining the at last non-depressing mood, I opt to say, "We'll have to find someone. There are a lot of people out there; who's to say you are the only human in recent times to possess - er, have possessed - the ability to bend time to your will? Perhaps there's a whole branch of human therapy for handling just such cases!"

That comment brings your infectious laugh back out again, and I cannot help but snicker as well.

When I regain control of my voice, I pose a query: "All jokes aside, do you truly have no one else to live with? Nowhere else to return to?"

You confirm with a vigorous head nod.

"Do you think you could handle living with the monsters, if you had someone - other than just me - to help you work through your anxieties?" I push.

You bite your lip and fidget with your hands for a few moments, before nodding more cautiously.

"Would you be willing to talk to your monster friends about what worries you? Not necessarily on that deeper level, but enough so that they know how they can work with you to make things better?"

Another, more confident nod, as if you're swearing to an oath. Your body is shivering, but it seems to be more out of excitement than out of fear. I suppose I've succeeded in getting you on board with my primary objective, but I want to see if I can go one step further.

"Good," I say, ardently but calmly. "Now, if you feel comfortable telling me, I want to ask: Do you want them to be your family? It does not matter whether you think you are deserving of it. It only matters what you want, what would be best for you. Do you want it?"

You freeze.

"If, if I knew, it would, all be okay?" You stammer, eyes darting about the null space. "If I knew it would last?"

I take a deep breath, then respond in a neutral tone, "No. No such reassurances. Those risks are part of the deal. Remember, that is what being brave is. If you can stare down a god and win through sheer stubbornness, you can do this."

"I... I dunno, this is, different," you mumble, hands folding in on themselves. "...Do I have to answer now?"

"...I suppose not," I surrender, as exhausted by this point as you look to be.

"Oh. Thanks," you exhale, looking back at me. "I... I just want to go home."

"And, where is home?" I prod. "Whom would you prefer to stay with?"

You open your mouth to answer, only to zip your lips shut again with a quizzical look in your eyes.

"Would it be easier to say who you don't want to be your caretaker?" I propose.

"...Well, if I'm being honest," you admit, "I don't think most of the monsters I'd call good friends would be good parents - not that I've had many examples to compare to, heh, but, like, Mettaton's busy all the time with shows and stuff so that's a big no; I couldn't stay with Asgore even if I wanted to because, like I told Flowey, he's being kept at the embassy for his, uh, crimes; Sans is Sans, and Papyrus, actually he might be good but, he has so much other stuff he wants to do now that he's on the surface, can't really do that much if he has to learn how to raise a human child; Alphys is still working through all her personal problems while trying to get humans to recognize her science stuff, and Undyne's, uh, intense - I know you love her, but after the whole cooking fiasco, I don't know if her house is the safest place to be..."

As you pause for air, it becomes crystal clear which candidate has yet to be discussed.

"And Toriel?"

"...She's probably my best bet, huh? And I'm sure she'd be good, great even, in a lot of ways..."

You leave your tacit endorsement to fend for itself. Your face is slightly scrunched like you bit into something sour. There's something on the tip of your tongue waiting for permission to leap out.

"But?"

"But," you dispense, "I don't think she... like, if I had been staying with her already, I don't think I would have been able to go back for you, not without her making it into a whole thing. I've seen how she is with the kids at the school, and while I was her 'child'... It sounds awful, but the only way I can say it is, I'm worried she'd care too much. Especially if I told her anything about my life before Mt. Ebott. She'd coddle and baby me, she wouldn't let me try anything 'dangerous', she'd expect me to trust her judgment on things and wouldn't listen if I shared how I felt, she'd take away any sense of independence or control I only just got in the last few weeks... I'm probably overreacting again, huh? You knew her, Chara - was she like that? To you or Asriel?"

Some memories come to mind. Asriel would complain about such things on occasion, whenever Toriel would stress the importance of his role as heir to the monster throne as a justification for making him participate in simulations of boring royal duties or preventing him from engaging in extended play with other kids. I would not hesitate to call her strict or even overbearing in retrospect... but in comparison to almost every other family I had known before then, parents who were either criminally neglectful or controlling to a suffocating extent? She was pretty wonderful.

Then again, that was before she lost two, no, nine children. I could only imagine the extent to which that trauma caused a heightening of her protective traits.

"...I would say it's an exaggeration," I eventually explain. "I would hope that, through standing up to her when she tried to keep you in the Ruins and then going on to save all of monsterkind, you have proven yourself to her in some of those areas. If not, learning to convince her to take you seriously sounds like it would be an invaluable skill for an ambassador. And, not to disparage you, I think that if she had been in on your plan to bring me back, or agreed to some more ambiguous version of it, you at least would have come with a trowel to dig with."

Thankfully, you pick up on the sarcasm in my last comment, responding with a giggly grin and a "what can you do?" shrug.

"If nothing else, she will make sure you are well taken care of," I conclude, "and I have plenty of experience as her child that I could advise you with."

"Well, I guess I don't have a choice," you laugh half-heartedly, wincing as you free yourself from your cross-legged position and rise to your feet.

"There are plenty of other older monsters out there," I remind you. "It is your choice to make. Would you be happy to live with her, truly?"

"I'll give it a try," you assure me. "I think I'll be happy staying with her. And if it doesn't work out, I'll figure something else out. Anything but this, for sure."

"We'll figure it out," I grin, standing as well. "Now, do you have an idea for how we can get out of here?"

"Uh, hmm, no. Don't even know how I got here, now that I'm thinking about it."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"...If, say, I floated my offer for a hug again," I drawl, gulping air to swallow my rising panic, "would you-"

"You really want one?" You ask, somewhat incredulously but also enthusiastically.

"It is supposed to be for you, not for me," I retort. "...That being said, yes I do."

Beaming, you bound across the space between us and enfold my torso in your surprisingly strong arms, nearly sending us toppling backward. Once I regain my balance, I wrap one arm around your back and use the other to ruffle your hair some, releasing some giggles from your chest. Exhaustion clawing at me, I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. I can feel the pulse of your soul now, reverberating between the two of us, its warmth alleviating my panic.

That is until I open my eyes again and see the red flares flying out from your chest, encircling us.

"Chara," you whisper, as their brightness increases exponentially, "I'm so lucky. I'm so glad you're my friend."

Forced to shut my eyes once more, the light and heat from your soul becoming overwhelming, the only words I can muster in response are,

"Me too."

⁂

I come to staring at the wooden ceiling. It takes a minute to realize that I'm floating on my back. Rolling over, I see you faintly snoring in a small bed with a threadbare blanket.

"Not even a pillow," I sigh.

Lowering myself next to you, I notice that your hands are clasped around my locket.

There's a large dent in the top-left corner. A tiny bit has even been chipped off.

Staring at it, I feel my limbs returning to that fizzling numbness. Blobs of murky color creep into the corners of my vision, and-

I practically throw myself out of the bed, and my eyes dart around the alien room for anything else of interest. The only thing they have to settle on is a horizontal poll on the opposite wall, from which hang a few striped shirts, and a dirty lavender backpack on the ground below them.

I float out the doorway to confirm that we're still in the abandoned cottage. After heading down the hallway back to the main room, where the portrait of the mysterious old woman dissuades any doubt, I return to find you sitting up in the bed, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. The locket is back in its rightful place around your neck. As soon as you see me, your face breaks out into a relieved smile.

"Well, are you ready to go?" I ask, smiling back.

"Almost," you yawn, "At least let me eat something first."

You slide off the bed, get down on your knees, reach under the bed, and pull out a box of granola bars.

"Only one left. Good timing," you muse to yourself while you toss the box aside and unwrap your meal.

An awkward silence settles in while you munch on the bar. In the vacuum of sound, I can barely make out the chirping of birds some ways off.

"What... what flavor is it?" I inquire. "Or, brand?"

Through a mouthful of granola, you answer, "Bad." After swallowing the last bite, you continue, "Why does all the food that's good for you have to taste bad? Except for fruit, but that spoils, so... whatever, let's go!"

Crawling back under the bed, you first grab and put on your boots. Then you pull out an extra pair of pants, which you throw into the backpack. I notice there are two notebooks and a textbook inside it already, leaving no room for any of the shirts. After tossing the lighter from your pocket into the bag's smaller pouch, you hoist all your belongings onto your back.

"It's not all my belongings," you clarify. "Alphys moved and expanded the box system to the surface, it was her first project up here, and I can still access it with my phone at any time. Not gonna bother with the shirts though, they hardly fit me anyway."

"No need to worry, I am sure Toriel will take you on a day-long shopping spree when you tell her. And then she will spend the next week knitting scarves and hats for you for the winter."

Your eyes sparkle at the prospect. With one quick look back at the sparse room, you dash out the doorway and down the hall, skidding to a stop in the main room.

"Hey, thanks," you call out to the portrait. "Sorry I didn't thank you before I left... or remember your name... but you were nice, and that meant a lot. I hope you're doing well."

You remain there for a moment as if waiting for a response. I use the time to send a psychic thank you of my own to the woman, wherever she is, for what she did for you. It's reassuring to know that good humans aren't as hard to come by as I once believed.

"GOODBYE, HOUSE!" you suddenly shout, before running out the door, emerging to the nearly blinding light of the early morning. The sky is a lighter tone of blue than usual, the lingering aftereffects of sunrise. You take a minute to breathe in lungfuls of fresh, post-rain air. I attempt to as well, then remember that, unlike in the weird dream or soul scape, I can't breathe, being dead and all. Which means I will not be able to hug you again either. A shame.

You turn to face away from the forest on the hill, down the muddy path to the monster's village.

"Do you feel up to walking to the village right now?" I ask. "How far did you say it was from here, a mile or two?"

"More like two or three miles to Toriel's," you specify, looking back at me with a twinkle of determination in your eyes. "It usually takes me more than an hour, sometimes a lot more. But I'll be fine, I promise."

"I know you will, Frisk. I know you will."

⁂

Knock, knock.

A mother's voice calls out from the other side of the door.

We wait.

When it opens, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls wafts through us, instantly making your mouth water. The woman standing before us is wearing a daffodil yellow apron with a white checkered pattern over a lilac purple short-sleeved nightgown. She looks down at you (not me, understandably) through her dainty reading glasses, seeming entirely surprised, welcoming but somewhat concerned.

"Frisk? What a lovely surprise! Come in, come in! May I ask, what are you doing here so early in the day?"

Her expression shifts when she realizes that your eyes are watering.

"Child, is something wrong?" She inquires gently, kneeling to your level.

"Nothing's wrong," you smile through your tears. She reaches out a hand to wipe them away, but you intercept it, grasping tight, rubbing your thumb across the warm, soft fur. You take a shaky breath, and before you've even exhaled, she's wrapped her other arm around you and pulled you into a snug embrace.

"I'm home."