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How many timelines had Frisk gone through before they finally succeeded in saving monsterkind? At this point, it was impossible to tell.
They hadn’t understood anything the first time around. Unsure of what else to do except give Toriel what she wanted, Frisk had fought back against her, not realizing the extent of their own strength. Toriel had died.
Shaken, Frisk had deliberately tried not to kill from that point onward, but Undyne had proved too much for them. They didn’t know how to defeat her without killing her. Frisk’s soul weighed heavier in their chest when it was over.
And… Asgore. Asgore had destroyed any chance of Frisk giving mercy. They’d had literally no choice but to fight him. When it came to the end, Frisk refused to kill him, but Flowey had shown up and done it anyway.
Their battle with Flowey’s horrific godlike form just about scarred them for life. But even once that was over, Frisk would not kill. As Flowey begged for death, they grew to pity him, but felt completely unable to finish him off. Flowey disappeared, everything went black, and Frisk woke up on the other side of the barrier.
At first Frisk had thought their journey was over. They went back to their home—a rather hellish environment for them, mostly because of bigoted parents. For a few months, they simply endured life.
But the more they thought about the monsters, the more they felt it couldn’t end there. they simply couldn’t live knowing what they had done, and knowing that the monsters were still trapped.
They remembered how they had managed to bring themself back to life every time they had died. They didn’t quite understand this power, nor how they had come to possess it.
But, they thought, maybe, if they tried hard enough, they could reset far back enough in time that they could save everyone.
And they were right.
Several more timelines passed before Frisk finally figured it out. The second time around, they were able to get past Toriel without killing her, but it took them several more timelines to finally figure out they could just run away from Undyne’s fight.
After that, they had to figure out how to save Asgore. That took another several resets before they decided to go back into the Underground before his battle. Undyne called them right outside the doors to Mettaton’s resort.
That ended up being the last timeline—the one they lived in now.
Frisk often went through this thought process when they were with their new family. They still felt guilty over killing Toriel and Undyne those first few times, and though they had convinced Flowey to stay with them, they sometimes held mixed feelings about him and what he had done.
Frisk’s therapist had told them it would likely take a long time for them to come to terms with everything that had happened. So they tried not to worry about it.
In many ways, they were already at peace. They had no plans to end this timeline.
It was turning out to be the best one, after all.