Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun is bright as it rises over the horizon, and as you lean forward to look down your line of friends, you smile.

The air is crisp and cool on your skin with the same early morning briskness that you remember well from the several days you spent camping up here before your food ran out and you made your decision for good, and you tug a bit on the sleeves of your sweater to pull them over your hands for warmth. Not that you especially notice the cold, of course, given the way that everybody is distracting you with their usual antics – Papyrus running off into the distance to make his mark as a mascot, Sans going to catch him by walking in the opposite direction, Undyne and Alphys both going the direction Papyrus actually went to do who knew what, followed shortly by Asgore trying to escape Toriel's inimitable wrath. You think he probably would have been fine staying, really, since you doubt Toriel would tear into him too badly with you around, but it's still kind of funny in a strange sort of way to see such a gentle giant try and subtly flee.

You grin at his departure as his cape disappears around the curve of the road with a flash of blue, and you wonder how long it will take him to find a good place to get tea for when his underground supply runs out. You know the moving process will take a while, never mind the politics, but you think that will still be a first priority for him. Asgore is a King, to be sure, but he is also a father, or had been, once. The instinct to care for and listen to people's problems over a nice cup of tea had clearly never left him.

You're distracted from that train of thought when Toriel clears her throat, and you look to her instead. Your smile returns in full, broadening even. Without her, you never would have gotten this far. You'd have died in the ruins a dozen times, or else fallen to Asgore's hands in your refusal to fight. You're glad she was around to save you, that you could return the favour.

"It seems that everyone is quite eager to set off," she notes with a smile, and she looks down to you. "Frisk…" she begins. "You came from this world, right…?" At your somewhat confused nod, she continues. "So you must have a place to return to, do you not?"

You hope you don't freeze at the question, but you're not entirely sure you want to think of the answer. Of course you have a place to return, since everyone comes from somewhere. But you also have a reason for why you came up to this mountain, why you fell into the Underground, and they both come from the same source.

You shift a bit, tugging at the sleeves of your sweater as you nod. Toriel's face is open as she continues. "What will you do now?"

The response that tries to escape your mouth is instant, a plea to just leave with her. You bite it back only barely, feeling somewhat bothered by how close it came to falling out without your permission. As soon as you bite it back, the thoughts start to rise from the dark of your mind with your alternative option, the option of going back to the beginning, to your real home.

You think of your father's face, the grey cast of his eyes. They always looked like storm clouds when they were focused on you, and you remember the way they held lightning when you weren't a good child, when you spoke too loudly, when you stepped out of line. You think of the striped sweaters hanging in your closet and the way some of their hems were soiled because they hung too low and you got your tears and snot stuck in them if you weren't careful about how you positioned yourself hiding under where they hung. You think of the harshness of the voices around there sometimes, and the memory makes you cringe.

You look at Toriel, see the question in her eyes, and you remember her words when you'd spoken to her in the Underground, once, before you'd all left. "You were very brave, my child," she'd said, "and I am very proud of you for being so. You've done a wonderful thing."

He would be proud too, right? You think he would. Maybe. He always said that you made him the way he was because you never did anything, but you'd done this.

He will be proud of you. He will be. You're sure of it. And even if he isn't, well. He's your father. There has to be rules about this sort of thing, rules about closure and coming back. You know what it feels like when people leave and don't come back. It doesn't feel right to make him go through that, no matter what he's done.

"My child?" Toriel's voice pulls you back to the present, to the question at hand.

You swallow, shaking your head slightly. "I'm sorry," you say. "I have…I have places to go."

"Ah." It's a quiet sound, really only a syllable, but you're sure you can hear the disappointment in it. Except Toriel would never be disappointed in you, right? She'd been mad with you, for a little while, at the start, but she'd never been disappointed. You weren't going to hurt her with this, you hoped. You didn't want to. "Well, I hope that I am not keeping you." She turns to leave.

You feel like there's something you should say, but you don't know what it is as she pads quietly away, then pauses. She turns to look at you, smiling again, and you try to force your face into a smile, not entirely sure when it had stopped being one. "Frisk," she says, and her voice is light again, full of a happiness that some little wisp of you notes as sounding forced before you push it away. "See you around," Toriel tells you cheerily, and then turns to go again.

You make the decision spontaneously as she starts to walk away. "Wait!" you call out, instantly regretting it. You don't want to give her false hope, but you don't want to be alone yet either.

She turns around, looking at you in concern. "What is it, my child?" she asks. "If you have second thoughts…."

You shake your head. "No," you assure her, perhaps a bit too quickly, and when you think you see a flash of hurt in her eyes, you wish you'd found better words, and you bite your lip a bit before speaking again and holding out a hand. It's a long way to the police station, almost an hour once you get off the mountain. You don't want to be alone yet. "Can you walk with me?" you ask.

Toriel smiles as she takes your hand in a great white paw. "Of course," she assures you. "You need only lead the way."

Somewhere around five hours later, you're sitting in the police station of your hometown, kicking your feet in the air because your legs aren't long enough to reach the ground. The chairs here are tall and ancient, even though the station itself is almost modern in comparison to the rest of the town, and they reek of dust and mold. You try to distract yourself from the smell as you push off the chair, heading to the board of missing posters.

They're all kids, really, or most of them are. There are some adults who haven't been found yet, but the oldest notices are the children, their posters still hanging even though it's been years and the paper is turning yellow and curling at the edges. You think maybe one of the pictures looks familiar for a second, but before you can investigate, you hear a door opening behind you.

Toriel comes out, side by side with a police officer who looks vaguely alarmed by her appearance but is nevertheless polite. Toriel beckons you to come stand by her side, and pain flashes momentarily across her face as she sees what you were looking at, but you don't think much of it.

The officer crouches down to your height and flashes his teeth at you. "Hey there, Francis," he says, and you wince a bit because you really, really hate that name and you've always been Frisk, but you don't say anything as you summon up a quick smile. He keeps smiling back. "We've got all the paperwork sorted out now, and the story straight as we can get it for the moment. Your daddy's been notified, and he'll be here real soon."

You nod your understanding. "Thanks," you say, and you hope it sounds grateful, because you really are, or that's what you tell yourself.

"No problem," the officer says. "We just like seeing kids get reunited with their folks, and you're the first in a long time to get that far." He smiles at you, and you smile back on instinct as he straightens up again. "I'll leave you folks to your farewells then," he announces, nodding politely to you and Toriel before making himself scarce again.

Toriel crouches down to your height to stare you in the eyes. "Would you like me to wait for your father, my child?" she asks, voice laced with concern. You pause for a moment, then shake your head. It's probably for the best right now if your father just knows that you came here with some friendly monsters rather than letting him meet them himself. Toriel doesn't look surprised by your answer, but there's still something sad in the way she smiles. "Very well." She leans forward, wrapping her furry arms around you. The sleeve of her shirt brushes your faces and the fabric is smooth as you bury your nose into her neck for a moment and inhale the scent of her. She smells like fire and lavender with a hint of butterscotch thrown into all of it. It's a very distinct smell, and you think you'll remember it for a long time, that you'll know it anywhere.

Toriel pulls away and looks you in the eye again. "You will keep in touch, Frisk, will you not?" she asks.

You nod without hesitating. "Of course."

"Then I will look forward to hearing from you." She smiles again, looking totally nonthreatening despite the fangs. "Thank you for all your hard work, my child. I will speak to you soon."

And then she stands, and then she's gone.

You watch the doorway she disappears through for a long series of moments, and you swallow back the lump in your throat, feeling it make its way to your stomach where it ties into a knot. You tell yourself it's just because you've never been good at goodbyes.

As you sit back down to wait, you almost believe it.

It's nearly an hour and a half later before your father shows up, and you tell yourself that he was just cleaning up the house rather than ignoring you. Besides, he hurt his knee when he was a kid and he still limps a bit sometimes. It takes him a while to walk places, even if your house is only a mile or two away and you heard him parking the car outside.

When he comes into the station and steps into the waiting room, you push off the chair quickly and run to him. He's too tall for you to properly hug, and he doesn't bend over, so you settle for just hugging his leg instead until he twitches it irritably and you get the message to let go. "Hey, Daddy," you say, voice quiet.

He grunts and doesn't return the greeting. "Where's this Officer Williams I need to speak to?" he asks, and before you can respond, the officer from before comes through a door on the far wall behind the unmanned receptionist desk as if in answer, a clipboard in his hand.

"You must be Francis's father," Officer Williams says. Your father grunts out a greeting that passes as an affirmative, and Officer Williams smiles. "Francis is one of the most patient children I've ever seen," he notes, nodding toward you and sounding impressed. "Not so much as a peep all this time. Hard to remember the kiddo was out here."

Your father nods. "Yeah, she can be that way when she wants to be. Makes it hard to notice when she runs off."

You stiffen a bit at his phrasing and tone, but you don't think anybody notices because Officer Williams laughs. "I can see where that would be true. No blame here, of course. All's well that ends well, and all that." He laughs again, but your father does not, and after a moment, he clears his throat. "Anyway, the paperwork's all been cleared up. If you could just sign here…" He holds out a pen and his clipboard.

Your father takes both and scribbles out his signature, and Officer Williams takes it back. "Right then," he says, "that does it. You two have a nice day," he says, and then looks down at you with a wink, "and no more running away, Francis. You had everyone worried."

You barely manage a nod before your father is turning you away, taking your hand and gripping it so tightly it's almost painful. You smile back over your shoulder at the Officer, and he returns the gesture before you reach the door and you're dragged outside, into the sunlit blue sky and the air that's still cold.

Chapter Text

He doesn't let go of your hand until you're at the car, and you're a bit thankful when he does because it really was starting to hurt.  You subtly rub your hand to return some of the feeling to your crushed fingers, but you're careful not to take too long doing it before opening the door.  He gets mad, sometimes, if you're too slow.

You buckle yourself in just as he gets in the driver's side and yanks his door shut behind him.  He doesn't say a word, and the silence hangs heavy and threatening in the air as he jams the keys into the ignition and backs out of the parking space.  As you watch him shift into drive, you expect that he's going to say something now that you're out of pleasant company, but he doesn't.  He's stone silent, and it makes everything worse because the air is far too thick with tension for you to think that he's just being quiet.  You knot your fingers together in your lap and turn your focus to the window, distracting yourself before you can squeeze your hands too hard.  You watch the world pass by in colourful blurs and try your best not to think too much of what's bound to come.

He holds to his silence all the way home, and you expect that it's going to be like that for a while.  It's not always yelling with him, not even most of the time, but it happens a lot and you're used to it by now, or you were before you left.  That's why the silence is worse for you, because he's only ever quiet like this when he's really mad and you've really screwed something up.  He just shuts off and doesn't give any hint of what's happening in his mind, and you're left alone in quiet dread to try and guess what will set him off and when so that you can at least make an attempt to be prepared for it.  Regrettably, the time spent away from him in the company of people like Toriel and Asgore has made you somewhat numb to knowing your father's cues, and you're a bit rusty on the guessing game, so as he parks the car in the driveway and you get out, you realise with numb horror that there's no way for you to plan ahead this time.

You bite your lip and count down from ten in your head in an attempt to calm your nerves as you follow him up the front steps and wait for the door to be unlocked.  You have no idea why you're so anxious.  This is home, right?  Homes are safe.  But as you step through the familiar doorway, you can't help the sense of unease that floods you.

Everything is just as it was the night you left, really.  Perhaps there's a bit more trash on the floor, a bit more of a build-up of mail, but really, nothing drastic has changed.  The air smells smokey and familiar, and the couch looks no more marred by cigarette burns than usual.  To your right, in the kitchen, there's a pile of dishes in the sink, and a half-eaten tray of microwave dinner abandoned on the counter.  A jacket is thrown across the table, and it looks like it's been shoved out of the way more than once to make room for something or another.  Your father goes to the right and drops his keys off on the kitchen counter, and they clink as they connect with it.

You pause for several long moments, standing in the entryway between the living room and the kitchen, and you look longingly toward the steps ascending from the floor a few feet in front of you before turning to face your father.  His face is carved and stony, and you flinch a bit when you see it, though you try not to.  The silence hangs.

After several seconds, you shift, tugging the sleeves of your sweater down so you can grip them under your fingertips as you rock from the balls of your feet onto your heels in slow, looping succession.  When still nothing is said, you bite your lip.  "Should I...get cleaned up?"  you ask quietly, even though you don't think you're especially dirty for somebody who's spent the last month or so up in and under a mountain.

"No," your father says, and his voice is so cold in its response that it startles you into jumping slightly at the sound.  There's lightning in his eyes as he pulls the jacket off the kitchen table and tosses it to the ground, then yanks the chair nearest to you back and points at it.  "What you should do is sit down right now in this chair and tell me what the hell you think you were doing."

You try not to flinch, but you can't help your own stiffness, the slight shake to your voice as you open your mouth and close it again, hesitating.  "I-"

"I said, sit down."  It isn't a request.  You shuffle forward and sit where indicated, hiding your hands in your lap and hoping your sleeves are long enough to hide the fact that your fingers are pressed flat against your legs in tense little lines.  "Now tell me what you were doing, and look at me while you talk."

You look at the ground.  "I-"

"At me," he orders.  "Does it look like my face is on the floor?"

You shake your head, forcing your gaze upward, willing yourself not to flinch even though his face is like thunder now, cold and unyielding and filled with a dark, stormy rage.  You swallow once, then try again.  "I thought...I was..."  You shake your head, shut your eyes.  You need to say this right the first time.  He isn't the type to readily endure stretched-out stuttering explanations.  "I'm sorry," you say.

Your father growls low in his throat.  "I didn't ask for an apology.  Do we need to go over what a goddamn explanation is?"  You don't answer, and he slams his hand on the table in front of you, making you jump.  "I asked you a question, Francis."

Your voice is small.  "No, you don't."

"Then answer my question, and knock it off with this half-mute, incapable-of-speech bullshit," he demands.  "What the hell were you doing?"

You look up at him, focusing on inhaling and exhaling slowly.  Under the table, you tap a pulse on the inside of your wrist with a thumb and it helps a bit.  "I was scared," you say, and you think it's the truth, mostly.  "I was scared that I was in your way, and I, I was scared that I was a burden.  I didn't want to be one.  I didn't want to hold you back or hurt you or anything.  I just wanted to help."

His eyes narrow in a challenge.  "You wanted to help," he says flatly, like he can't quite believe it, then shakes his head.  "So logically, you thought you'd be some great help to me by...what?  Running off into the great unknown?  You think that didn't hold me back or get in my way?  Who the hell did you think was gonna notice you were gone and have to do all the legwork to get everybody else noticing and looking for you, huh?  The tooth fairy?"

You bite your lip, sensing that there's a right answer and it probably isn't the one you're about to give.  "I didn't think it would matter," you say.  "If I was gone, then I would be out of your way and-"

"And then truancy officers would be after me when you didn't show up for a week, and the cops when they thought it was some kind of neglect issue, and then half the town because everybody here has to talk about everyone else's problems," he snaps.  "You think that was getting out of my way?"

You shake your head.  "I'm sorry," you say, lowering your gaze to the tabletop and looking down, "I didn't mean for-"

A hand grabs your chin and yanks your head up, and you close your eyes instinctively as if to cringe away from a blow.  "Look at me when you're talking, goddammit," your father growls, and you flinch, opening your eyes before he can find a fault in their being shut.  The hand on your chin tightens for a second before pulling sharply away.  You don't dare reach up to touch the skin it just left behind.

Your hands are shaking under the table.  "I didn't mean for you to worry," you manage, looking at your father's face.  "I just wanted you to be happy."

"Happy?" he spits out.  "You want to know what makes me happy?"  You nod quickly, forcing yourself to keep looking.  "What would make me happy is a daughter who listens when I speak to her and does what she's supposed to instead of getting under my feet and living life in some fantasy land and running off every time says boo to her to go hide on some damn mountain for a month and a half because she's scared.  You think the world is gonna give a shit if you're scared?"  You shake your head, and he growls.  "You got a goddamn mouth, Francis, use it," he orders.

"No," you say, quietly.

"Speak up."  His voice is strained.

You obey without question.  "No," you repeat, louder this time.  "No, I don't think that."

"Then why the hell do you think being scared is a good excuse for just up and disappearing on some hare-brained campout for a month and a half?" he demands.  

You can't feel your fingers anymore.  At some point you stopped tapping your wrist and now your fingers are just folded up into fists and clenched tight around themselves, grounding you with the pressure of it.  "I wasn't camping," you say in an attempt to correct him, because really it's the only answer you can manage right now that doesn't seem like an excuse.

"Oh, really?"  The question is mocking.  "What would you call it then, Francis?  Exploring?"

You shake your head.  "I was only on the mountain for a week or so," you explain hurriedly before you can run out of courage to say anything as you edit a few minor details to avoid making him even angrier.  "That was all I brought food for.  I... I tripped and fell into a hole into the Underground.  That's where I was for the rest of the time.  I just got out with everybody, all the monsters that were trapped there.  I freed them and they want me to be their ambassador and I told them I would be-"

"I already heard this story out of Officer Williams on the phone," he says, cutting you off short with a sharpness in his voice that you can't mistake.  "Said he heard it all from some goat lady who called herself Toriel."

You nod quickly.  "She's the first person I met down there-" That's technically a lie, Flowey had been the first "-and she helped me get started and learn how everything worked-"

"I don't care what she is," your father says bluntly.  "I don't need a character reference for some talking goat in a dress.  I do need to know where you get off though, thinking you can just accept something like that.  Do I look like I've got the time to cart you around hell and kingdom come so you can talk pretty about a bunch of farm animals in costumes and keep everybody and their mother from attacking them?"

You swallow, shaking your head.  "I didn't think-"

"You didn't think, you didn't mean it, Christ, Francis, have you got a brain in your head?"  He's yelling now, having pushed off from the table to pace to the wall and back.  You don't look away from him and you try to make sure you don't stiffen up too much as you nod.  "Then what the hell do you use it for, dust collection?"

You bite your lip, swallowing hard again.  "Toriel, she and Asgore could probably come pick me up," you say.  "If they knew where I was-"

"Stop it right there," he orders.  "You aren't telling any monsters where we live.  I don't need some goat picking through my house."

You pause, take a deep breath.  You look briefly at the table, then back at him.  "They could meet me at the park.  I wouldn't tell them where I lived.  You...You wouldn't have to do any extra work, I promise.  I can take care of all of it," you say.

"Yeah?" he laughs.  "You're not even seven years old for three months yet, Francis.  You've got no place being ambassador for anybody."

"They need me to do it," you insist.  "Everybody's going to be scared of them at first, but they're all really nice and they need me to explain for them."

"You think anybody important's gonna listen to a kid?" he asks.

You straighten proudly, and for the first time, it feels almost real.  "Asgore did, and he's their king," you inform him.  "I know how to make people listen to me."

The look on your father's face is dark as he turns toward you and smirks a bit, not looking remotely amused.  "Then maybe you should teach me, so I can get my daughter to listen for five minutes instead of talking back like she wasn't ever taught any goddamn respect," he growls.

Your pride dissipates instantly, and your eyes fall to the table.  "I'm sorry," you murmur.  "I wasn't trying to talk back."

You watch from the corner of your eye as he glares, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.  He turns away, muttering something you can't make out under his breath, and every inch of his body is lined with tension.  When he speaks a few seconds later, his tone is bitter and cold with anger.  "Yeah, not trying to talk back, my sweet ass."  You open your mouth, but he's not interested and cuts you off before you can begin, voice flat.  "Go get a bath," he orders.  "You smell like you've been rolling in dirt for six weeks.  I want those clothes in the trash and I want you quiet until I tell you to speak up again.  Not another goddamn word on all this monsters and mountains business.  Am I clear?"

You want so badly to disagree, to shake your head in protest and try again to explain, but you know what happens when you push him too far.  Instead of following your instincts, you nod.  "Yes, Daddy," you confirm.

"Then get your ass moving," he says.  He grabs his keys from the counter and his coat off the ground, slinging it over his shoulder and stalking past you with his usual limp as you stand up and push your chair in.  You hear him open the front door and it slams shut behind him with a bang that makes you flinch.

For a few moments, you stand there in the kitchen as you hear the car start up and pull away, screeching down the street to some destination you don't know of.  You look down at your hands and blink for a few seconds, wondering why your vision is shaking before realising that it's just the tremors of your hands, and you swallow hard.  

This was a good idea, wasn't it?  You bite your lip a bit, contemplating.  Sure, your father's mad, but he has a point.  It had been dangerous to run off, and he must have been worried.  Toriel had been mad in the Ruins too when you wanted to leave.  Sure, she hadn't yelled like that, not really, but you can't fault your father for being less patient.  Nobody is like Toriel, especially not when it comes to talking to children.

After several moments, you decide it doesn't matter.  You don't know where he's going and you don't know how long he'll be gone, but it'll be best if you're out of his way before he gets back.  You head toward the stairs toward the bathroom, and you're halfway up them when a cheery ding sounds from your pocket and you remember your phone, opening it up to see a new text from Sans.  

It's a picture of Papyrus, standing near an enormous tree and grinning broadly, excitement practically radiating off of him from within the pixels.  'you wouldn't be-leaf how happy papyrus is to be here', the caption notes, and you shake your head a bit at the horrible humor as you hit the button to reply.  'Glad he isn't being over-elmed by everything', you type out quickly, because you can't help returning fire, and you smile as you hit send, glad to see your friends so happy.  Then you turn down the volume on your phone and stick it back in your pocket.  You'll text more later, but for now, you don't need the distraction.

You'd rather not test your father's patience today.

Chapter Text

Several days pass and it’s early in the morning when you wake up, the first rays of pre-dawn light starting to tease the edge of the horizon from outside your bedroom window.   You don’t know what time it is exactly – there’s no clock in your room, and it would be too dark to read it even if there was – but you decide that you may as well stay awake since you’re already up.  Swinging your legs out of your bed, you stretch quietly, then move to walk toward the door before stopping abruptly as you remember the layout of your house.  Your father’s bedroom is downstairs, not far from the kitchen, and he’s a light sleeper.  If you go down there and turn on any lights or make any noise, he’s going to notice, and you think it’s best not to irritate him too much if you can avoid it, especially this early in the morning, especially today.

It had taken a considerable amount of effort (most of which involved not speaking at all and being very careful how you phrased the few words you did say), but you’d finally convinced your father to let you try being the Ambassador.  If you’re being honest with yourself, you can admit that it’s probably the idea of you not being around for several hours to get in his way that convinced him more than anything you said, but you don’t really want to dwell on that thought or its repercussions for too long, so you don’t.  Instead, you make your way over to the window, bringing your blanket with you and wrapping it around you as you lean toward the glass, making sure not to touch your face to it and leave any marks for your father to be upset about.

You’ve always liked watching the sunrise.  It’s your favorite time of day, the witching hour between the stillness of the night and the quiet bustling of the world waking up.  Once, when you were younger, you’d even watched it with your family, or you thought you had.  It had been a while ago, back when Mom was around, and you hadn’t been very old.  You’re not even entirely sure that it’s a real thing that you remember happening or just a nice dream you never forgot, but you like to believe that it was the former, and you’ve never asked your father to confirm its reality because you’re a little afraid that he won’t.

You rest your head on your arms and bite your lip a bit.  It’s been almost a week since you got back, and his mood hasn’t improved much.  Outside of a few required interactions when you’d been talking about your position as the Ambassador or he’d been telling you to get out of his way or things like that, you’ve barely spoken at all.  It’s not unusual, but you have to admit, it’s a little lonely.  In the Underground, everybody had always been willing to strike up a conversation, even if your half of the conversation was usually upheld while dodging some friendly fire that the other monsters hadn’t realised would hurt you.  Being back in this house where there’s almost never anyone around but you and the one person who is around doesn’t talk is almost depressing in its quietude, and you’re glad Alphys let you keep your phone so that you can stay in touch with everybody.  Watching their first few days of life on the surface has been priceless, even if you’ve had to do it from the sidelines.

A faint smile drifts across your face as you recall a conversation you’d had a few days ago with Alphys and Undyne about the number of people up here who knew about anime and how amazing it was to talk about their favourite shows with other fans.  You’d barely been able to get a word in edgewise between Undyne’s passionate yelling and Alphys’s hurried speech, but you hadn’t minded.  They were adjusting well, and so far nobody had tried to start any riots in reaction to the sudden presence of so many monsters, so it was hard not to be happy for them.

As if reading your mind, your phone buzzes in your pocket with a new text, and you open it up, recognizing Papyrus’s number and his speech style, because the message is in all capital letters and spliced with exclamation points.  ‘FRISK!!’ it reads, ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THE SUN TODAY?  IT HAS COME TO MEET ME AGAIN AND SAY HELLO!!!’

You can’t help grinning as you respond, and in between watching the sun dye the sky red and pink before fading to blue, you text Papyrus for the better half of forty-five minutes before you hear your father starting to move around downstairs.  You’re torn between thinking you should probably go try to talk to him in case he has any last minute questions or well-wishes to make and wanting to keep chatting with Papyrus, and you hesitate for a long minute before deciding that you’ll be seeing Papyrus and the others soon enough anyway.  You stand up, shaking some of the feeling back into your legs from where they’ve gone a bit numb, and bid Papyrus a quick farewell.

 After taking a few minutes to fix up your bed, you head downstairs, poking your head into the kitchen.  Your father has the window open and a cigarette between his fingers, and he taps the ash out into the tray beside the sink as he glares into the morning light.

“Morning, Daddy,” you say, voice balanced between being respectfully quiet and loud enough to hear.  His glare intensifies, and he doesn’t respond.  You think it’s probably better for you that he doesn’t, and you swallow hard, biting back the sudden feeling of awkward discomfort that washes over you and focusing instead on putting breakfast together.  You don’t mind skipping meals, but you think you should probably eat something so your stomach isn’t growling when you’re talking to important people, so you crawl up onto the counter, opening the cabinet and pulling out a bowl and a box of Apple Jacks.  You don’t like them much – you’ve always been more of a Froot Loops fan – but you know your father has better things to spend money on than getting your favourite kind of cereal, so Apple Jacks it is.

You swing your legs from the counter and look over to your father to find that his glare has shifted to you, and you freeze briefly, the bowl in one hand and the box in the other, eyes locked together with his.  His voice is gravelly and harsh when he speaks up.  “You some kind of goddamn monkey?” he asks sharply, and you shake your head.  “Then don’t climb on the cabinets.  You’ve been raised better than that.”

You don’t mention that that’s the only way you can reach anything that you need, or that he doesn’t like it when you ask for help.  Instead, you nod your understanding and murmur an apology.  He grunts in response, and you bite your lip as you proceed on in your morning routine, trying not to cough when the breeze outside makes the smoke from his latest cigarette blow into your face.  It scratches your throat as you inhale, but you don’t comment and you don’t make a sound.

You’ve mostly finished your bowl of cereal and are just picking it up to tip the milk back and drink it when he grinds out his cigarette in the ash tray and turns to face you.  Slowly, you set the bowl back down, deciding the milk will still be there in a few minutes, and wait for him to make the first move.

“You got that Ambassador shit going on today?” he grunts out.   You nod, and he echoes the gesture almost contemplatively.  You don’t miss the way his jaw tightens in obvious disapproval, and you think again that you’ll have to make sure you don’t screw this up and give him any reason to change his mind.  “How long are you gonna be out playing princess?”

You ignore the jab, shrugging slightly and looking down to your milk before remembering how much he hates that and looking back up to him.  “I don’t know for sure.  Probably a while.  There’s a lot to talk about, I think.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he says, words dripping with doubt.  There’s a brief pause, and you wait for him to continue because you know he has more to say.   It takes several moments, and he scowls as he scratches at the stubble growing at the edges of his jawline, then looks away and shakes his head.  “To hell with it,” he mutters, “I don’t got time to waste planning around your damn social life.”  He returns his angry gaze to you.  “I got someone coming over tonight and I don’t need you interrupting.  I don’t give a damn how long you’re out with this stupid shit today, but you better be home before the night’s over, and when you get home, I expect you to get yourself cleaned up and stay out of the way.  I don’t gotta let you do this, and if you want to get pissy about it and start acting like a brat, I won’t let you.  That clear?”

You nod slowly, swallowing.  “Yes, Daddy,” you say, making sure to not stutter or look away.  You’re all too aware of just how much your ability to be the Ambassador hinges on keeping your father happy, and you’re not stupid or brave enough to see how far you can push your boundaries.

He grunts, clearly not happy with the arrangement, but leaves the kitchen without another word.  You hear him head down the hall to his bedroom to get ready, and when he emerges a few minutes later as you load the dishwasher, he’s wearing his work clothes and his usual scowl. 

He takes his coat and doesn’t say goodbye when he leaves.  You watch him from the window for a long time after he disappears before you let the curtain fall.

 When you walk into the park, you can’t help feeling a little bit of unease wash over you.  It’s not the size of it that bothers you, even though it’s massive and you’re not, it’s the memories.  The last time you were here, it was the middle of the night and there’d been nobody around but you, and you’d sat on the swingset for several hours, kicking your legs in the air as you tried to convince yourself to go home and unpack the food from your backpack and sleep off the sorrow weighing heavy on your shoulders before failing and continuing toward the mountain that everyone said took little kids and never gave them back.  It’s a lot different now, with the sun glinting off the metal chains of the swings and people wandering around walking their dogs and chatting on their cellphones, but it takes you several seconds to shake off the discomfort enough to keep going.

Your favourite bench is taken by a couple that’s feeding the birds, so you make your way to the playground, climbing onto the wooden structure and sitting on the edge of it, legs dangling over the side and leaning back, palms resting on the sun-warmed boards.  You tilt your head back to look at the sun, and hum a little to yourself, smiling when you realise that the song is actually the music that played in the lobby of the MTT Resort.  Mettaton had been a little bit scary to you before you really got to know him when you fought on his show, but you had to admit, he had an impeccable taste in music. 

You’ve started tapping out the tune on the boards with your fingers when the sound of approaching footsteps and someone calling your name snaps you out of your reverie.  “Hey, punk!” a loud voice yells, and you smile broadly as you lower your gaze to see Undyne barreling toward you, face split with one of her famous grins.  You jump off the playground and run toward her, and she meets you only a couple dozen feet away from the playground, picking you up and swinging you.  If it were anyone else, you think the gesture might make you feel a bit nauseous, but it’s Undyne and you know this is how she communicates so it makes you laugh instead as she tucks you under an arm and starts giving you an affectionate noogie.  “What have you been up to, huh?”

“UNDYNE, PLEASE DON’T BREAK FRISK!” You hear Papyrus request, sounding slightly concerned as he approaches not far behind her.

Undyne lets out a bellowing laugh that you feel resonating through her from where you’re still pressed against her like a living football.  “Frisk will be fine!” she bellows.  “They’re tough enough to handle this!”  All the same, she sets you down on the ground, and you take the opportunity to hug Papyrus.

He picks you up once again, and you wrap your legs around his waist, hanging onto the battle body that he’s still wearing even now and giggling as you hug him.   You can almost see an orange blush rise to his cheek bones as he lets out a nervous laugh.  “FRISK!” he declares, “WE HAVE MISSED YOU!!  OF COURSE, WE ARE VERY POPULAR HERE AND HUMANS ARE FREQUENTLY DISTRACTING US WITH REQUESTS FOR PICTURES, BUT EVEN THOUGH WE ARE ALL SUPER-COOL AND I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM ESPECIALLY COOL, WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN YOU, OUR ALSO SUPER-COOL FRIEND!!”

You can’t help laughing.  Papyrus is loud and people are staring, but you’ve missed him.  You’ve missed everybody, actually, and you grin as you see Sans shuffling casually across the grass toward you while Alphys hurries as fast as her tiny lizard legs will take her, followed shortly by Mettaton of all people.  You figured he’d be long gone exploring the human world by now, but against all expectations, here he is, smiling blindingly at you in his EX form as he overtakes Alphys and approaches.

As soon as he gets over to you, he takes you from Papyrus and hugs you tightly.  It hurts a little, pressing against all the metal plates, but you don’t mind too much given how good the intentions behind it are, and he shifts you to rest against his hip and holds onto you with his other spare arm.  “How are you, darling?” he asks, voice heavily inflected with his usual ringing and dynamic overtones.  “We haven’t seen you in ages!”

“It’s actually only been about a week,” you correct, looking up at the robot’s face.

Mettaton rolls his eyes and heaves a dramatic sigh that makes you grin impishly, and the smile you can see flickering across his own face serves to further prove that he’s really not annoyed at all.  “Yes, yes, human time is strange, I know, but it feels like ages!  It feels like forever!  Whatever have you been up to?”

You shrug a bit, smiling.  “Not a whole lot,” you admit, shifting a little.  “How about you?  Are you liking the surface?”

He blinks at you for a moment before shaking his head as he spins around with no warning, taking you giggling along with him.  “What do you mean, liking it?  Frisk, darling, I’m loving it!  The surface is everything I imagined it would be, and the humans all look so different!  I can barely believe I’m up here!”  He spins you again, and you laugh.

“C-careful, Mettaton, you don’t want to make them sick,” Alphys cautions as she finally makes her way over to you, Sans not far behind.  “It’s a b-big day, you know.”

Mettaton sighs.  “Of course I do,” he admits, looking to you.  “It’s your big debut, Frisk!  Do you think it will go as well as mine did?”

You shrug, smiling.  “Hope so,” you admit.

He smiles, the same blinding smile from before.  “Of course it will, darling,” he assures you. “With you around, it couldn’t go any other way.” 

He looks like he’s about to say more, but Undyne cuts him off with a loud roar.   “Come on, Mettaton,” she calls, “put the kid down and let Alphys have a turn!  She needs a chance to smother Frisk with hugs and affection too!”

“N-no, it’s okay,” Alphys says, suddenly nervous, but Mettaton’s already conceded and is setting you down, ruffling your hair with an affectionate grin and spinning you around to face her.  She gives you a nervous smile, waving.  “H-hey, Frisk, good seeing you again!”

You grin, running forward and hugging her.  “Good seeing you too,” you mumble into the collar of the anime t-shirt she’s wearing, smiling as she freezes up, then wraps her short little arms around your back.

“hey, is this free hugs day?” Sans asks, and you pull away from Alphys to grin at him.  “if it is, i wouldn’t mind some myself.”  You’re all too happy to oblige, slinging your arms around him and pressing your face into his jacket.  Your cheeks are already starting to hurt from smiling so much, but it’s the good kind of hurt, and you don’t mind at all.  “hey, kiddo,” he says, “doing good?”

You smile as you pull away, nodding.  Things aren’t easy at home by a long shot, but this moment now, being here with your friends, it’s more than enough to negate the tension of the previous week.  “Where’s Mom and Asgore?” you ask, looking around.

Sans shrugs.  “they’re coming,” he says.  “we all just ran ahead.   they’ll be here in a couple minutes.”

You nod in understanding, relieved that they haven’t forgotten, and look to all the smiling faces around you, too happy to care about the staring passerby.  “How are all the others doing?” you ask.  “Everybody adjusting well?”

Alphys nods a little bit.  “Y-yeah,” she says with a pleased smile that paints her voice with shades of genuine happiness.  “Everybody’s doing really well.  I mean, some of the smaller monsters are still a little scared of things, but Whimsun finally stopped crying last night and was actually talking to Moldsmal this morning for a couple minutes, so we’re working on it.  Everybody’s great.”

You smile, nodding along energetically.  “That’s really good to hear,” you say.  “How about all of you?  Has anything exciting happened?”  You’ve been in touch with them regularly throughout the week, but you’re sure there’s something you’ve missed in the hours you haven’t been speaking.

Sure enough, Undyne grins.  “Hell yeah, it has!  Alphys and I found a whole bunch of nerds and talked about magical ninja princesses for almost an hour!  It was AWESOME!” she yells.  You’ve already heard the story, and you wouldn’t mind hearing it again, but Alphys nudges Undyne to tell her that repeating it would be redundant, and you go with it. 

You turn to Mettaton.  “Have you already started getting fans?” you ask, and are surprised by the expression that crosses his face.

Undyne chortles with glee.  “Oh yeah, he has!” she roars, and Mettaton shoots a glare at her that’s far from subtle in its encouraging her to not continue, which she ignores entirely.  “We ran into a group of nerds yesterday who saw him and started freaking out!  They all thought he was just some super cool robot and wanted to know how he worked and Alphys had to explain that he was really alive!  It was HILARIOUS!”

Mettaton shakes his head, dropping his face into his hand with a dramatic sigh.  He makes the gesture with such accuracy and poise that you think he’s probably practiced it, and you laugh at the thought.  “Of all the things I planned for when I reached the surface, that was nowhere near being at the top of the list,” he admits with a groan, and you grin.

Before you can comment further, Papyrus interrupts.  “I THINK I SEE ASGORE AND HIS CLONE!” he announces loudly, and sure enough, when you turn around, you see them.  Asgore is decked out in his royal robes, his trident thankfully nowhere to be seen, and Toriel is wearing her typical far of the dress imprinted with the Delta Rune as she walks pointedly ahead of him without looking back.  You think you should probably be a little more concerned by that, but you’re too busy being flooded by excitement to really care, and you charge across the field toward the both of them.

Toriel crouches down as you approach, and you all but tackle her with a hug, burying your face in the fur of her neck.  It’s only been a week, but Mettaton is right when he says that it feels like much longer.   She still smells like fire and lavender and butterscotch and home, and you never want to break away but after several seconds, you do, grinning and surprised at how overwhelmingly happy you are to see her.

She smiles warmly back at you.  “It feels far too long, my child,” she says.  “Have you been doing well?”

Much like before, you nod.  Now that you’ve had some exposure to people outside your house, it’s actually true.  You are doing well, a lot better than you have been for the past few days when the silence has been choking you with your father’s cold rage.  “Really well,” you say, and mean it.  “I’ve missed you guys.”

“And we’ve missed you, little one,” Asgore comments, voice rumbling deep in his chest.  You smile at him over Toriel’s shoulder and pull away to give him a little hug too.  “It has been strange, trying to adjust to this world.  It’s so very large, and there are a great many people.”

You nod your understanding.  The vastness of your world makes the Underground seem almost small.  “I’m just glad everybody’s been pretty accepting so far,” you admit.  Humans could be really good, but they could also be pretty nasty if they wanted to be.  You were glad they hadn’t taken the chance.

“And today should help keep that peace,” Asgore comments with a look to you that’s heavy even as it remains gentle and warm.

You nod.  “If all goes well,” you agree.

“It will be a big day,” Toriel cuts in.  She raises a paw to your face to direct you to look at her.  “Are you ready for it, my child?  It is alright if you are afraid.”

You look at her smiling face, at Asgore standing near but not next to her, and you look over your shoulder to see your friends laughing and joking around.  By the intense irritation on Mettaton’s face and the way Papyrus is groaning, you’re pretty sure Sans just made another pun.  Undyne is suplexing Alphys like it’s nothing and grinning while she does it, and Alphys looks torn between being flattered and somewhat terrified, and you smile as you look back at Toriel.  “I’m not afraid,” you say, and it’s true.  With all this support, it’s hard to be afraid of anything.  Not even a real monster could scare you right now.

Toriel smiles gently at you.  “That is very good,” she murmurs, and pulls you in for a hug. 

You stay like that for several seconds before she lets you go and stands, extending a huge paw down to you.  You take it readily and smile, and Asgore beckons for the others to come over by the three of you.  “Then let us be off,” Toriel says, “to see what may come.”

Without even a moment of hesitation, you follow.

Chapter Text

The day passes in a bit of a blur.  From the time you arrive at the hall where you’re supposed to be meeting up with all the leaders of the town and from the larger area – there’s still a while before you have to meet with anyone as important as the leader of a country, thankfully – to the time you walk out of it, it feels like nearly every moment is passed in some sort of kinetic insanity.  It’s all motion and movement and talking, and you don’t know how many times you explain various parts of your journey throughout the day because eventually you lose track, and you’re grateful that there’s water bottles around to keep hydrated with because you don’t think you’ve talked this much ever, much less within a twelve-hour period.

You think you’d be a lot more nervous about messing everything up if not for your friends’ antics distracting you throughout the day.  Toriel had cautioned them to be careful of their actions before you’d all arrived, and for the most part, they had been.  Still, the moments where their control lapsed had been hilarious, and since the mayor had been surprisingly nonchalant about a lanky fish monster trying to give him a noogie when he’d said shown himself to be especially understanding and accepting of the situation, you think everything’s probably alright in the end.  The humans had all been appreciative of the monsters, by and large (there’d been one in particular who had been awed by Alphys’s obvious brilliance, and it seemed like Sans had hit it off pretty well with the governor once he’d discovered, to his brother’s frustration, that they shared a proclivity for bad puns) and even though there had been one woman who had looked vaguely disturbed when Mettaton had provided entertainment through lunch and had been joined by an enthusiastic and off-key Papyrus, you felt like it had been a good experience for all involved parties.

As you head toward the park where you’d all met up in the morning, you smile sleepily, face pressed against Asgore’s hair.  He’s carrying you on his shoulders, his hands gripped with gentle firmness around your legs so that you know you won’t fall off, and you prop your arms up on his head and rest your chin on them, quietly content with the arrangement as you watch Papyrus bounding ahead of everyone and speaking excitedly with Undyne, both of them still in high spirits despite the vaguely exhausting day.

You’re surprised when Asgore speaks up, voice a low rumble that you can feel vibrating through his chest.  “Are you awake, Frisk?” he asks quietly.

You nod a bit into his hair, then remember that he may not be able to comprehend the gesture based on sensation rather than sight.  “Yeah, kind of,” you murmur.

He gives a slight, careful nod, and you know he’s trying hard to not jostle you too much.  It’s a sweet gesture, and you appreciate it as you nuzzle your face further into his hair.  This is nice, you think, and then you focus your attention on Asgore’s words when you feel them rumbling through his body again.   “Today was certainly interesting,” he observes.  “I had not expected that humans would have such an appreciation for keeping the peace as you do.”

You shrug a bit.  “We’re not too bad in general,” you admit.  “Some of us aren’t so nice, but most of us don’t want to start any fights we can avoid.”

Asgore nods again.  “I see.  Then it would seem there are not many differences between humans and monsters beyond the physical.”

You hesitate a bit before responding as you consider the severity of what humans have been known to do in comparison to what you’ve seen monsters do (which has, at worst, been attack you accidentally in reality or in self-defense in the nightmares you’ve had once or twice since falling into the Underground), but after a moment, you concede the point.  “There really aren’t,” you say, and you’re a little bit glad that Asgore’s noticed so quickly and accepted it, given the sort of damage humans have been known to inflict on monsters in general and him in specific.

Another minute or two passes in silence, and you yawn.  Asgore hears you and chuckles a bit.  “Will you be able to make it home after we drop you off in this park?” he asks.  “You seem very tired.  We could walk you back, if you’d prefer.”

You shake your head, thinking back to your father’s rigid stipulations when you’d finally gotten him to concede letting you take this position.  He’d been incredibly emphatic about letting you know that you were not to not let any of the monsters follow you home, or walk you home, or know anything about where home was.  He hadn’t specified consequences for disobedience, but you hadn’t needed or wanted to ask.  You knew what they’d been in the past, sometimes, and that was enough to persuade you to not test your luck.  “I’ll be fine,” you assure Asgore, pushing yourself up and straightening so that you’re no longer resting your head on his, because even if you know the route from the park to your house by heart and it isn’t that far, he has a point and you need to be awake and alert when you’re walking it.

All the same, you’re content to stay on his shoulders.  It’s nice seeing the world from up high, and while your friends’ love for picking you up at the slightest excuse ensured that you spent little of today being on the ground, you’re okay with staying tall for a little longer.  It’s a little cold out now anyway, and even with your sweater you’re starting to feel it.  Asgore is big and warm and furry, and he’s not going to let you fall on your face, so you’d rather just stay with him as long as you can.

“Toriel tells me that you chose to return to your human family,” Asgore mentions as he walks, pulling your attention back to him.

You feel a little knot of unease tangle up in your stomach at the reminder, and you pick a bit at the sleeves of your sweater as you nod out a confirmation.  “I thought it was probably the right thing to do,” you confess quietly, pressing back the regret that pangs briefly in your chest.

Asgore nods.  “I believe you may be right.  Most parents would want to know what became of their children, especially if their child is one as special as you,” he notes, and you shift in sudden discomfort even though you think he’s right.  Most parents would want to know.  In his own way, your father did too, you were sure of it.  The problem was that he’d never been the best at expressing his emotions, or really any emotion that wasn’t angry and aimed in your direction.  Asgore either doesn’t notice your silence or doesn’t think much of it, because he continues.  “Has it gone well?” he asks, voice light and curious.

Your immediate answer is ‘not really’, since you don’t count a lot of anger and glares and harsh silences as positive progress, but you stop yourself before you say that out loud.  After all, your father let you come today, so you know that has to be some sort of good sign, doesn’t it?  “It’s been okay,” you say instead, shrugging.  “I think he’s still a bit mad about me leaving to begin with and scaring him, but that’s kinda fair.”  You pause.  “He’s working on it.”  You think.

Once again, Asgore nods.  “These things do take time,” he admits, “but I’m glad it’s gone well so far.  How has your mother responded?”

You freeze at the question, looking down to your hands and shrugging again, even though Asgore can’t see it.  You bite your lip and are silent for a minute before you manage to find a response.  “She isn’t around,” you say quietly.  “She left when I was little.”  And oh, how she’d gone.

“Oh,” Asgore murmurs in understanding.  “My apologies for asking such an insensitive question,” he says after a moment.  “I should have gathered from your choice of words that she was not living with you.”

You shake your head, smiling and nudging his head gently.  “It’s fine,” you reply, “I’ve had time to get used to it.”  You think that maybe you could change the subject and keep talking with him for a while, but you recognise the scenery now and you know it’s about time for you to leave.  That hollow feeling returns to your stomach, and you ignore it as you tap Asgore on the shoulder to indicate that he should let you down. 

He does so with a practiced gentleness that makes you wonder if he frequently gave Asriel and Chara rides on his shoulders when they were young, but you don’t ask.  Instead, you smile gratefully at him, holding out a hand for him to take while you walk to catch up to the others, who are stopped a little ways ahead.  You already miss the presence of his body heat as you start to move, but you don’t complain, focusing on how grateful you are to still have a hand to hold for a few more seconds.

When you reach the rest of the group, they all look to you.  You see that you’re not the only one who’s starting to get cold, if the way Undyne and Alphys are starting to inch closer to each other in a way that looks a bit too survival oriented to be romantic is any indication, and you think you probably better make this quick so that they can get back to someplace warm.

“T-this is your stop, isn’t it, F-Frisk?” Alphys manages as she looks at you, and you nod.  “A-are you going to be okay getting home?”

You nod again, smiling in reassurance.  “Yeah,” you tell her, “I know the route pretty well.  I’ll be fine.”

“But what about the weather, darling?”  Mettaton asks.  He shivers theatrically, and you think he pulls it off pretty well for someone who has no idea what being cold actually feels like.  “It’s getting chilly out, and while you would make a precious popsicle, I really don’t think that’s the best idea-”

“I’ll be fine,” you repeat, butting in gently.  “Really.  I’m okay.  I’m used to the weather up here.  This isn’t even too bad.”  It’s true, to a point.  It’s gotten downright freezing out here a few times in the past, and you know what that feels like so in comparison, this is almost balmy.  Almost.

“chill out, everybody,” Sans says with his usual boney grin, eyelights focused on you.  “frisk can handle themselves, snow problem.  just let them do their thing.”

While Papyrus yells about Sans making puns in rapid succession, you look toward Toriel.  She’s smiling fondly at you and crouches down.  “Are you certain you will be alright, my child?” she asks, placing her hands on your shoulders and scanning your face.

You nod once again.  “I’m fine, Mom,” you say, feeling a bit guilty about the slight lie but seeing no way around it.  “It’s pretty ice out right now, really.”

She smiles at the pun, finally seeming to accept your answer.  “If you are sure,” she agrees, wrapping her arms around you.  You return the gesture, pulling away after a few seconds before you can adapt to someone else’s body heat again, and you smile at her, nodding.  With a slight sigh, she lets you go, standing up, and you look toward the rest of your friends with another smile that you have to fight to maintain as you realise that for now, this is goodbye and you have to go home to silent rage.

“Hey, punk!” Undyne yells, interrupting your thoughts as if she's read them.  “What’s with the long face?  We’re not going away forever!”

“UNDYNE IS RIGHT!!” Papyrus agrees.  “THERE’S NO NEED TO LOOK SO SAD, FOR I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM NEVER MORE THAN A PHONE CALL AWAY!”

“None of us are, Papyrus!” Undyne points out with a loud laugh that makes your smile feel a bit more real. 

“OH.”  Papyrus sounds surprised by the reminder, but his voice remains upbeat.  “EVEN BETTER!  NONE OF US ARE MORE THAN A PHONE CALL AWAY!!  THERE’S NO NEED TO BE SAD ABOUT ANYTHING!!”

“I know,” you nod, smiling even though you get the feeling that it will still be an awful lot like forever in terms of feeling before you see them again.  You decide you’ve waited long enough, and smile faintly at your friends.  “I’ll see you all later,” you say, and there’s a chorus of agreement.

With nothing left to say and no more excuses to wait, you resign yourself to what’s coming as you turn and walk away.

Forty-five minutes later, the sun has long since set and the temperature has plummeted by the time you finally see your house rise up along the street.  You can’t really feel your fingers or your toes anymore, and you keep your jaw locked to prevent your teeth from chattering.  You realise in hindsight that you probably should have anticipated the potential temperature shift and planned ahead since the weather here always has been a bit temperamental around early spring, but the realisation doesn’t do you any good now, so you wrap your arms around yourself as if it will protect against the cold and focus on moving forward.

You force your footsteps to be steady as you approach the front door, willing yourself to act less cold than you are.  You don’t know what company your father has over, but whoever it is, you don’t want to interrupt anything and risk his wrath.  You fully intend on just slipping in, getting cleaned up, and hiding in your room until whoever it is leaves and you’re safe to make some supper, but when you go to open the door, the knob doesn’t turn, and you sigh.

This isn’t the first time your father’s forgotten that you weren’t around – or intentionally locked you out, for that matter, though that had only been once and you think that it was probably better that he wasn’t near you at the time given how angry he’d been – but that doesn’t really help you now, considering.  You bite your lip, hesitating as you bounce on the balls of your feet, trying to retain some sort of body heat through movement while you contemplate your options.

If you had a key, this wouldn’t be a problem, but he’s never trusted you to take one and not lose it or give it to strangers or forget to lock up the house after you enter it, so that thought doesn’t do you much good.  You know how to climb up into your window, but you’re pretty sure you locked it this morning and even if it was unlocked, you doubt you could grip anything long enough to climb up anywhere with your fingers as frozen as they are.   With that circumstance being as it is, you have two options left – you can wait for whoever it is to leave, and they can come out and find you and let you in then, or you can interrupt now and face the punishment for breaking your promise to not be a bother later. 

You think it would probably be a bit easier to weigh your options if you knew who was in there, since your father tends to be a little more lenient about interrupting his conversations with any of his few male friends than he is about you ruining his dates, but after a few minutes, you realise the knowledge wouldn’t do much good in this situation anyway.  He’d told you not to interrupt, and if you knock, it’ll be an indisputable act of disobedience.  That alone would be enough to get you silence and possibly worse on a good day.  When he already hasn’t talked to you for almost a week and you’re breaking a direct order, you don’t really want to think about what it will mean.

You shiver and wrap your arms tighter around yourself, deciding to wait it out.  This is just a little cold, and you’ve dealt with worse.  Maybe they’ll finish up soon, and you can get inside without breaking your word and making him mad.  Maybe he’ll even be proud of you, for keeping to what you said, and he’ll stop glaring at you for a couple days until you do something wrong and make him mad again.

Maybe he won’t react at all and everything will be as it always is, but you don’t like to think of that.

You think that you should probably keep moving, so you shove your hands in your armpits and walk back down the steps, pacing on the sidewalk to try and keep your legs from going as numb as your fingers and toes, but it really isn’t doing much for you.  After twenty minutes, you’re pretty sure you’ve somehow made things worse, so you decide to try and preserve core temperature by finding a spot that’s relatively out of the wind and compacting yourself as tight as you can around yourself.  There aren’t that many great spots to do that, but you make do with the corner right by the door, or you try to, curling up with your knees against your chest and your arms locked around them, shivering so hard you can almost feel it rattling in your chest now.  You don’t want to knock but this is getting painful and you swear, the wind is so biting now that it has to have gotten colder still.  You half expect a blizzard to start up out of nowhere, but none is forthcoming.

Another twenty minutes pass and you can’t take it any more.  You feel bad, but you know he’ll probably be more upset if you freeze than he will be if you interrupt, and honestly he’ll probably be angrier now that you’re half frozen and interrupting than he would have been if you’d just knocked and let it be done, but it’s too late to change that now, so you resign yourself to your fate and rise on numb legs to knock on the door.

It hurts badly, hitting the door with your frozen knuckles, and the pain scissors through the numbness like a siren but you don’t feel it enough to react.  It’s your own fault, for sitting out here so long instead of just owning up to your own inability to stay out of your father’s way and going in before you’d turned yourself into an ice cube.   You knock once, and only once, three hits in quick succession, and then you wait for someone to come.

It’s several minutes before anything happens, you expect to see your father’s face glaring down at you with rage and staunch disapproval as the door opens.  Instead, you’re met with an unfamiliar face, a woman’s.  She’s young, probably a few years younger than your father, and she has big full lips that are covered with lipstick that’s so pink it hurts your eyes to look at it.  Her eyes are blue and shadowed with expertly-done makeup, and she has blonde-brown hair that falls straight down to her shoulders in a way that looks far too deliberate to match the naturally messy style she was clearly going for, and when she looks down at you, her eyes widen and her mouth falls open.  “Oh my God,” she says, and the way she says the words makes the vowels bend strangely and sound funny in your ears.

You can see the shadow cast by the lights in the living room shift as your father stands up to come to the door.  “What is it?” he asks, a rough, if vaguely annoyed undercurrent of civility to his tone.  “Did somebody leave their shit on the doorstep?”  He comes past the entryway and looks out, and you see the exact moment he registers who it is knocking because you watch the lightning flash in his eyes and the way his jaw tightens.  “Francis, what the hell are you doing?” he snaps, and the blonde moves out of the way as he moves forward and unlocks the screen door, shoving it open.  “Get your ass in here.”

You duck under his arm, all too happy to oblige.  Your house always feels a bit cold to you, but in comparison to the outside, it’s like walking into heaven as the warmer air wraps around you, and you rub your hands up and down your arms to try and speed up the process of reheating.  You barely notice your father closing the door behind you and locking it back up again.  “What were you doing out there in the cold?  Why the hell didn’t you knock?”

You shake your head, teeth chattering as you look up at him.  “I did knock,” you explain.  “I knocked a few minutes ago.”

He snorts.  “What, did you tap the door?  Wind’s howling out there, Francis, and I wasn’t listening for you.  How the hell did you think I was gonna hear you?”

You shake your head.  “S-sorry,” you say, “I thought I was loud enough.  I didn’t mean to-”

The woman interrupts you.  “Oh, never mind that, honey,” she says, ducking down to your level with a smile and eyes so wide with concern that you immediately don’t trust them or their intentions.  “You look like you’re frozen solid,” she says, reaching to put a hand on your face.  You want to flinch away instantly because you hate it when strangers touch you, but you know that if your father sees you react like that, it’ll make him even angrier, so you will yourself to stay still.  Her skin smells like too much perfume and cigarette smoke, and it gives you a headache.  “How long have you been standing out there?”

It doesn’t take even a moment for you to decide it’s better for you to lie.  “Only a couple minutes,” you say, “I knocked once I came back.  S-sorry,” you repeat, “I really didn’t mean to interrupt.”

She smiles again, teeth too white and too straight, and you wonder how much time and money she’s spent on that smile.  “Oh, sweetie, it’s no problem.  I’m just glad I was leaving and found you.  I’d hate for you to have been out there all night.”

You nod, slowly, sensing that it’s the closest to a right answer you can get.  “Thank you,” you say, because it seems like an appropriate response.

“Of course, you precious thing,” she laughs, putting a hand to her chest in some mockery of sympathy before her eyes widen in surprise.  “Oh my, I just realized I didn’t introduce myself.  I’m Emily, your daddy’s girlfriend?”

You feel your stomach sink when you realise that the circumstances really couldn’t get any worse, and the feeling of dread intensifies when you remember the way most of your father’s other girlfriends had ended their relationships with him, and the nights you spent hiding in your closet with your hands clamped over your ears to block out the noise, but you smile anyway.   “Good to meet you,” you say, nodding.

After a second, your father gives you a tense look and shakes your shoulder hard.  “Where’s your manners, girl?  Introduce yourself,” he orders.

You wince at the misstep, and it only worsens when Emily smiles reassuringly at you.  “Sorry,” you mumble, barely holding back a flinch when you realise that it’s probably not earning you any points with your father.  You force yourself to look up at Emily, and smile.  “I’m Fr-Francis,” you say, correcting yourself immediately before you use the wrong name.  You hope it will pass off as just you stuttering, but from the way his eyes narrow, you’re pretty sure your father caught on to what you were about to say, and that you’ll hear about it in full later. 

Emily’s eyes widen in surprise that seems as fake as the rest of her.  “Oh, so you’re Michael’s daughter!  Oh my God, it’s so nice to meet you – I’ve heard so much!”  She moves to wrap you in a hug, and you return it as best you can, trying to follow the right script to lessen your father’s anger.  You’re improvising, but you think you have to be at least close, or you hope you are as you smile in agreement with what Emily says, keeping your mouth shut and your thoughts about what it is she’s heard to yourself.

Emily looks like she’s about to continue the conversation, but your father touches her on the arm and she looks up at him, smiling in a sickly-sappy way when she sees the expression on his face.  To the untrained eye, you think it probably looks like a genuine smile of a sort, but you can see the twitches of anger in his jaw and you know he’s barely holding back rage.  “Hey,” he says, “what do you think of going out and getting some food before I take you back to your place?  Are you still up for some pancakes?”

Emily smiles again, straightening.  “Sweetheart, I’m always up for pancakes,” she smiles, and you wonder how that could be possible when she’s so incredibly skinny, like the Barbie dolls some of the kids you went to kindergarten with brought in for show and tell.  “But what about Francis?”

Your father shakes his head.  “Francis has had a bit of a long day,” he says.   “Probably better let her get some sleep.  If you want to head out to the car, I’ll be out in a minute.  I need to talk to her for a moment.”

She nods enthusiastically.  “Oh, sure thing, Mikey,” she smiles, and she takes the keys from him when he offers, pecking him on the lips as she does so before looking to you again.  “It was so nice meeting you, Francis, sweetheart – I’ll see you around.”  Her voice is like syrup, sickeningly sticky and sweet, and she winks at you before opening the door and disappearing.  As soon as she’s gone away, you look toward your father and feel your heart stop for a second at the sheer and utter rage in his eyes.

You open your mouth to stutter out an apology, heart pounding a tattoo against the inside of your ribs, but he doesn’t let you get the chance as he grabs you hard by the upper arm and drags you away from the door and any chance of Emily hearing, hands white knuckled around your arm.  You don’t dare to try and escape his grip, and when he shakes you hard, you try not to flinch.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls, and you shake your head desperately.  Angry at your lack of verbal speech, he raises a hand, and you hear it connect with your face with a loud crack before you feel it.    “What part of ‘don’t interrupt’ is so difficult for you to comprehend, huh?”  He barely waits a second before shaking you again.  “Answer me right now, Francis!”

You shake your head.  “I didn’t- I’m sorry- I-”

He shoves you away, and you fall to the ground, desperately crawling backward to try and get away from the thunder in his eyes.  It doesn’t do you much good, because you back into the couch within a few seconds, and he approaches you too fast for you to find an escape, crouching down to your level and grabbing the front of your sweater.

His face is inches away from yours, and you can smell the smoke on his breath.  “This is not over,” he hisses.  “If Emily wasn’t out there, you and I would be having a discussion right here, right now about what manners are and what it means when I tell you to do something.  Now you get your ass up off this floor, and you get yourself cleaned up, and you get into bed, because so help me God if I come home and see your face tonight yet, you’ll wish I hadn’t.  Is that clear?”

You nod, fighting to hide your own shaking.  “Yes, Daddy,” you say instantly, and he lets you go, shoving you back as he does so.  Your head connects with the soft backing of the couch hard enough to hurt, but you don’t comment as you watch him stalk toward the door and pull it shut behind him.  Maybe it’s just you, but it sounds like he slams it, and you flinch at the noise, fighting to make your heart return to a normal rhythm that isn’t full of panic, that isn’t painful and threatening to choke you into unconsciousness with fear as you hear the car door open as if at a distance and the sound of the engine starting up.

You don’t waste the time you have, and force yourself to stand up on shaking legs and gather your things for a bath with trembling hands.  You feel your phone vibrate in your pocket, and you jump at the sensation.  When you pull it out, you almost drop it on the bathroom tile and realise that you really, really can’t talk to anyone right now, and you don't even read the message but you spend the better half of five minutes trying to type out a reply about going to bed early before you cross the hall to get to your room and turn the phone off, burying it in a sock pile and going back to the bathroom, closing the door and sliding to sit with your back against it.  Unable to do anything else, you curl up, gripping your arms as tightly as you can and making sure not to touch the spot where he’d held you, where there’s already an ugly bruise flowering.  You rock yourself back and forth and count down in your head, humming lullabies absently under your breath or trying to before you crawl, still shaking, into the bathtub, because you don’t have time to waste on being scared and trying to put yourself back together.

You try very hard not to think of anything as you clean up, and once you're done, you head straight to your room without even trying to make dinner.  You think that maybe there are dishes to be cleaned up, but you know that if you try to do so, your father will think you're trying to make it up to him and it'll just make him more mad, and if he comes home and sees you still awake, still terrified, you don't know what he'll do, so you crawl under the covers and clamp the pillow over your ears because even if you know that you can't block out the sound of your own head, you need some sort of pressure to ground you.

It's a long time before you fall asleep.

Chapter Text

When you wake up the next morning, your head is pounding and the blankets are strangling you.  You feel uncomfortably warm as you kick them off, and like last night, the air of your house is a blessing, though now it’s far colder than you are and assuages the heat you feel crawling on your skin as you sit up and squint painfully at the sunlight drifting through your window.

You look away from it and lay back down, curling up and shutting your eyes.  You don’t think your father came home last night, because if he had you were pretty sure you would have noticed, even if he didn’t specifically come seeking you out for your ‘discussion’, and you wince a bit at the thought of it because as beneficial as his absence is for you now, it also means he has more time to stew and get creative in his reactions. 

You don’t want to think about it.  To be honest, your head hurts too much to think about it, and it isn’t the only thing.  Outside of being sickeningly, uncomfortably warm despite the chilly air of your house, you feel like you just got into a long battle of endurance with a cheese grater and came out on the losing side.  Your body aches with a dull pain that resonates in your bones, and even the thought of moving hurts almost too much for you to consider it, but you force yourself to suck it up because you need to do…something.  You don’t know what time it is, but you can’t spend all day in bed.

You drag yourself to your feet on leaden limbs that don’t really follow your command, and the world spins around you like some sort of crazed top, setting your stomach to churning.  You close your eyes for several seconds, finding respite in the steady blackness as you lean against your bed to steady yourself, and it takes a minute before you feel stable enough to open your eyes and move.  Your stomach lurches when you do, and you focus on breathing, in and out, in and out, trying to find a rhythm that will calm your stomach and make the world stop tilting, but it doesn’t do you any good.  You only get a few feet away from your bed before your legs give up altogether, and you barely catch yourself on the dresser as you slump to the ground with a painful thump that jostles you enough to almost make you throw up right there on your bedroom floor.

You groan a bit, but it comes out as a whimper, and you’d really thought this situation couldn’t get any worse last night, but somehow it’s found a way.

You’re sick.

You lay there for a while before it occurs to you that you’re not going to get any better by doing so, and if your father comes home and finds out that you’ve been laying around feeling sorry for yourself all day, he’ll make things even worse, so you force yourself to try moving again.  Every inch of your body protests when you try to stand, and it hurts too much for you to push the issue, so you settle for crawling across the floor to get to the bathroom, thankful that it’s just across the hall.

You know there’s cold medicine in the cabinet somewhere, but you don’t know where it is or how much of it you’re supposed to take, and you don’t want to take too much because you have bad memories of watching the news when you were a kid and seeing what happened when people took more things than they were supposed to.  You’ve always toughed it out before, and while this is the sickest you’ve been in a long while, you think you can probably tough this out too, at least until your father gets home.  He gets mad when you get sick and he has to take care of you, or he has in the past, but he usually does it.  You hate to think of making things yet again worse, but options are somewhat limited, so that’s the end of that.

The tile is cold on your skin from where the legs of your pajama pants have shifted up (or maybe you pulled them up, you’re really not sure) and the temperature shift is comforting in comparison to the fact that you feel like you’re literally burning up, so you curl up a bit, pressing your cheek against the floor and trying to melt into it so that you can find some sort of comfort.

It doesn’t take long for the tile to absorb your heat and stop being comforting, and you groan as you try to find a fresh spot that’s still cold, biting your lip to stop from whimpering.  Your stomach hurts and everything hurts and you know you need to eat or drink something, but your father doesn’t keep anything sick people can eat around and even if he did, it wasn’t stored in your reach and even the thought of eating makes your stomach lurch-

You barely manage to get your face over the toilet before you’re emptying the contents of your stomach, gagging so hard that it hurts and makes your stomach contract again, and you spend several minutes retching before you finally relax, having nothing left to give up.  You tried not to make a mess, but you hadn’t quite been able to get all your hair out of your face in time so now some of the ends are sticky and gross and you kind of want to be sick again because of the way it smells but you have nothing left to be sick with, so that’s that. 

You grab some toilet paper and wad it up, pressing it against your mouth to clean your face off, scrubbing a bit at the ends of your hair before giving up and dropping the makeshift towelette into the toilet bowl with the rest of the mess and flushing.  Your mouth tastes all gross, but you can’t reach the sink and you can’t go downstairs, so you decide you’ll get some rest for now and see if you can get some of your strength up enough to get a glass, and you’re asleep again almost before you slump back against the tub.

You wake a few hours later to the same feeling of nausea, but when you go to throw up, nothing comes up and the gagging just burns the back of your throat.  You’re still not feeling up to going downstairs, so you decide you’ll just get it straight from the sink, and you crawl onto the toilet cover and lean over, cupping your hands under the faucet and drinking from them.  It’s a bit messy and you drip a lot between moving your hands from the sink to the edge of the counter you’re leaned against, but the water tastes cold and relieving going down your throat, and you drink it greedily, wiping up your mouth with the sleeve of the pajama shirt you still haven’t changed out of.  When you’re done, you try to clean up the sink a bit, then press your damp hands against your forehead, flinching at how hot the skin feels to you.  The water makes it feel a bit better, but it’s still startling.

You crawl back off the toilet and sigh, leaning up against the bathtub and closing your eyes.  You think you better try to change your clothes before your father gets home, though how long that’s going to take is a mystery you since you have no idea what time it is, but that requires moving and moving doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, so you curl up miserably into yourself and decide you’ll rest a few more minutes before giving it a shot.

It’s a good idea, in theory, but by the time a few minutes have passed, you find yourself leaned over the toilet again and puking all the water you just drank right back up.  It hurts and burns the back of your throat, and your cheeks are wet because somehow, you started crying without your own permission, and when you curl up on the tile again, you whimper.  You feel hot and cold all at once and you hate it, and you want someone to be there with you to help you to bed and hold back your hair and distract you from the fact that you feel like you’re dying again, but nobody’s here but you and nobody ever has been, not here, anyway, and you know that, so you may as well get used to it.

You think about your friends anyway as you fall back asleep, and through the fevered dreams, you imagine that you’re not alone, that Toriel is here with you and stays by your side with a cold cloth against your head while Asgore makes you herbal tea, that Sans tells you jokes to make you laugh until you forget you’re sick while Undyne and Papyrus fight over who is the ultimate Caretaker For A Sick Human, that Alphys tells you you’ll feel better soon and Mettaton tells you stories about his performances and you’re surrounded by people who make you think you’ll actually be okay.

The next time you wake up, your mouth is dry and your head is pounding.  Your attempts to sit up yield little progress, and you just want to go back to sleep because the world is spinning violently, like an out-of-control carousel, and you would probably be throwing up if you had anything left to give but you don’t, so you settle for just being incredibly nauseous again as you try to blink stars out of your eyes and make the world solidify. 

You can no longer even garner any relief from the cold of the tile, because you’ve been curled up on it so long that it’s almost the same temperature as the rest of you, and everything’s burning.  Your clothing is damp from sweat and your skin feels gross and dry and sticky, but that’s hardly the worst of your problems.  Through the distant fog of your mind, you can hear the sound of your father’s car pulling into the driveway, and you curl up tighter into yourself as you hope he’ll hear your explanation and save his leftover anger for a later date, because you know you won’t be able to answer any of his questions at all when you feel like this. 

The door downstairs opens and you hear him shuffling around, throwing his keys on the counter and taking off his boots.  The sound encourages you to try sitting up, but it takes a ridiculous amount of effort that makes you highly doubt it’s worth the attempt, even if it will look better to your father when he comes in if you’re on your feet or getting that way or anything but lying here in a comma of pain like you are now.  You think that maybe you should be less concerned about making your father happy and more concerned about how to stop being sick, but you know better than to believe that priorities really go that way in your family, in your house.

Your father calls your name loudly downstairs, and you wince.  You can tell from the tone of it that he was definitely planning on having that talk tonight, but you can’t participate in any capacity and you can’t even respond to the summons.  Your heart is pounding and you’re not sure if that’s just because you’re sick or if it’s because you’re afraid, but you renew your efforts to try standing up, even though doing so makes everything twirl around in blurry kaleidoscopes.

Your father calls again, louder, angrier, and your stomach tangles up tight with nausea despite already being knotted with guilt and fear.  You should have found a way to get to the phone before now to let him know instead of curling up here all day.  You should have just fought through it.   You should have found something to eat, you should have found some medicine, you should have, you should have, but you didn’t and it’s too late to change that, so you just try to stand up but your limbs aren’t following your orders and your legs are numb and aching and you slip as you try to lean on the bathtub and wind up falling back to one knee and smacking your arm on the ceramic.

Your father hears the noise, and the sound of him cursing gets louder as you hear his feet on the stairs, pounding up toward you and you swear, you can feel vibrations from how hard he’s stomping but you try not to focus on it because the ground is unstable enough without you thinking about it.  “Francis!” he yells as he reaches the landing at the top of the stairs, and you will yourself to find one last burst of energy, shoving yourself up and leaning heavily against the tub.  Everything’s tilting and you’re breathing too hard to focus on anything as you look to the door just as your father appears in the entryway, and even though he’s too blurry for you to see him, you can still sense his rage, and if you weren’t already shivering with cold heat, you think you would start now.  “Francis,” he demands, “why the hell are you still in your pajamas?  What are you doing in the bathroom?”

You shake your head slowly at him, and the words process through fog.  God, you’re really tired.  You feel your lips moving but the syllables are distant.  “Sorry, Daddy,” you manage, voice raspy and slight, “I don’t feel good.”

Your legs go out from under you, unable to take the stress, and the smack of your knees against the tile and the words your father is saying and the lurching of the world is too much for you to handle all at once, and when everything goes black at the edges, you welcome the darkness.

Chapter Text

When you wake up, the room smells like air freshener and antiseptic instead of smoke, and you know that you're not at home.  You open your eyes to a room with pastel walls that try to be cheery and ceiling tiles with painted fish on them that you register instantly as belonging to Saint Mary's Children's Hospital, and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief at the familiar environment even as you bite your lip with the realisation and the thoughts it brings to mind.  You figure your father brought you here, and you like to think he did it out of worry for your general health but you know that worried parents tend to sit by their children's bedside and your father is nowhere to be seen.  You try not to dwell on that thought too much since it's not his fault that he's never been good at knowing how to take care of you when you're healthy, much less when you're sick, and you focus your attention instead toward your right arm and the needle puncturing the vein, instantly starting to pick at the tape holding the needle in your skin.

"probably better leave that alone, buddy."  A voice sounds from somewhere to your left, and you jump about six feet into the air, startled by the fact that you're not alone as you look over to see Sans shuffling over to you from the direction of a chair in a corner, wearing his typical boney grin as if nothing is amiss.  You hadn't noticed him in the room - to be honest, you hadn't even been looking, given your zero-visitor track record in visits past - but here he is anyway, bright blue jacket juxtaposing violently with the yellow of the wall.  

You duck your head and stop picking instantly, letting your hands fall to your lap and folding them up there.  "Sorry," you mumble, "habit."

“you’re fine,” Sans replies, voice light as he winks.  “wasn’t trying to be sharp with you.”

“I know,” you mumble, the corners of your mouth barely even twitching at the attempted pun.  Normally, you’d at least manage a smile of some kind, even though that one had been extraordinarily bad, but right now, it seems like a bit too much effort.  As glad as you are to see Sans, you know that all is far from well, and even though you no longer feel like you’ve been hit by a train, you certainly don’t feel good either. 

You’re not surprised when he notices your lackluster response, and his next words are still light, but they’re laced with an undertone of concern that you find impossible to miss even though it’s obvious he’s trying to keep it subtle.  “jeez, kid, no light hearted jabs to make back?” he asks.  You shrug slightly, and his face falls into a frown as he leans around to look at your face.  “hey, frisk,” he says, and you don’t respond.  “buddy, you okay?”

You shrug, moving your head to look as far away from him as you can without making it obvious that you’re avoiding his eyes.  “I feel fine,” you murmur quietly, even though you don’t really believe it yourself and you doubt he will either.

He doesn’t, and you hear the sound of the fabric of his jacket rumpling as he shifts.  You think he puts his hands in his pockets but you can’t really tell from where you’re focusing intently on the patch of sunlight on the wall because looking at bright things always helps when you don’t want to cry.  “that, uh... that really wasn’t what i asked.”

You can hear the worry in Sans’s voice, and it takes considerable effort on your part to not start crying anyway as you shake your head, unable to provide any other answer than the one you’ve already given.  “Sorry,” you mumble, and you are.  You realise it as you swallow hard to bite back your fear and guilt and sadness, how sorry you are, sorry that you worried him and everybody else, sorry that you can’t answer the question, sorry that you became their friend instead of just letting Asgore take your soul and free everybody himself without having to worry about you, sorry that you went through so much with them and then went back home right to the beginning and now you can’t take it back.

Sans shuffles around to be in front of you, and he taps you lightly on the arm.  “hey,” he says, “i know that you’re shy sometimes but you really don’t gotta hide behind your knees around me.  i don’t bite.”  That’s strange, you hadn’t even noticed that you’d pulled your knees up to your chest and buried your face in them until he pointed it out, but you really don’t want to let go.  He taps your arm gently again.  “kid,” he says, “i like a good joke and all, but uh, holding your arms like you wanna break ‘em isn’t really that humerus.”  You don’t respond, you can’t, and Sans sighs, tugging gently on one of your fingers.  “frisk, come on.  let go.”

You bite your lip, clamping your eyes shut as you count down slowly from ten, then loosen your grip, letting your knees slip a little bit away from you.  You see Sans in your periphery, and he sighs when you don’t look up and you can’t help finding that a bit ironic since he doesn’t have lungs, but you don’t comment on it.  There’s a brief silence that settles in, and neither of you breaks it for a while until you finally find enough words to do so because you can’t take the staring anymore and the silence sounds like home.  “How did you know I was here?” you ask quietly, frowning.  You know your father wouldn’t have been sending out email notifications and you’re certain it didn’t wind up on the news, so unless one of the monsters is psychic, you doubt that they found you by coincidence.

Sans shrugs.  “papyrus,” he explains shortly.  “he uh, thought it was a bit out of the ordinary when you weren't answering any of his messages the day after the meeting, so he went to that park where we met up to see if he could find you there.  guess he found some guy carrying you out of a house before he got that far."

You close your eyes and try to not wince visibly at the thought of Papyrus encountering your father.  Judging by the fact that Sans is speaking to you and not pleading with you to either load a save or reset, you figure that it must have gone decently, or at least well enough that Papyrus is still among the living, and you take some comfort in that at least.  You're just glad there wasn't a physical altercation.  Even if Papyrus couldn't summon up the willpower to hurt a fly, your father most certainly can, and you have the scars and the memories to prove it.

You shake your head to chase away the thought before it can settle in. "Where's everyone else at then?"  You know there's no way Asgore and Toriel can be hiding in the room, and no way Undyne or Papyrus would be.  Between the four of them, they're both too loud and too massive to overlook.

Sans shrugs.  "downstairs, or wherever the waiting room is here.  your dad put some pretty tight rules down about family only for visitors and how monsters didn't count."  He closes an eyesocket in a parody of a wink, but his tone is too flat for you to be fooled.  "something about you being none of our business, i guess."

You shake your head and pull your knees tighter against you almost thoughtlessly, barely biting back the urge to bury your face in them again.  "Sorry," you mumble biting your lip.  "I know he's harsh.  He's still trying to get used to the idea.  It's kind of a... a work in progress."  

Sans nods.  "yeah, i figured you'd say something like that."  You don't think you can really call whatever is in his voice amusement, but you don't want to address what it is either so you settle for pretending that it's some sort of jaded humour and nothing more, and Sans looks at you for a long while with an expression you can't read before his eyelights flick toward the IV stand by your bed, where a bag is still hanging and attached to the needle in your arm.  "y’know, it’s pretty good that humans have stuff like that.   wish i could eat without having to chew.  sounds like a lot less effort.”

You manage to force a little smile at that, nodding.  “Yeah,” you say, “it does come in kind of handy sometimes.  I think this is too clear to be food though.”  You’ve never had reason to have food in a tube during any of your stays at the hospital, but you don’t imagine it would be see-through.

“probably,” Sans agrees.  “besides, i don’t think you really needed food as much as you need water.  you were pretty dehydrated, from the way it sounds.”  He pauses and looks at you with that same expression from before, the one that you have no idea how to read and no idea how to respond to, and his voice is quiet when he speaks again.  “your mom and dad were pretty worried about you, kiddo.  we all were.  pap said you looked really bad and he, uh.  he really wasn’t kidding, was he?”

You shake your head, not wanting to picture your appearance at the time if you’d looked even half as bad as you felt.  “I don’t think so,” you mumble.  “I kinda spent most of the day throwing up and sweating a lot.”  You pick a bit at the edges of the hospital blanket, not wanting to meet Sans’s eyes, and you frown.  “It wasn’t really fun.”

“i didn’t think it sounded like the healthy experience everybody needs,” Sans comments, and to your own surprise, you manage a little bit of a chuckle at that one, and you watch his smile broaden.  “what is it, frisk?  do you like my sick sense of humour?  i can start making chicken broth jokes next.”

You nod your head and smile a bit.  “Yeah,” you agree, “I think that would be soup-er.”

Sans grins, nodding in approval at you.  “not too bad,” he commends you.  “you’re picking it up nicely.”  You accept the compliment with a quiet nod, and for a second, the air is almost breathable.  You take in a deep breath, sighing contentedly as you cross your arms over your knees only for the sigh to turn to an immediate wince when you accidentally grab at the bruise left over from whenever the conference was.  You try immediately to hide it, but Sans notices anyway, and he frowns at you.  “what’s up, kiddo?”

You shake your head quickly.  “It’s nothing,” you murmur, trying to keep your hand over the ugly shade of purple, but your father’s hand is significantly larger than yours and it doesn’t really do you any good.  You bite your lip and frown.  “I just…fell.”

Sans notices the bruise and you see recognition flash in his eyesockets.  “oh yeah,” he mentions, “i’d heard the doctors talking about that.  your dad mentioned a flight of stairs.”  He winks at you, and you can’t tell if it’s innocent or knowing.  “never pegged you for the kind to fall that hard, frisk.  you always seemed pretty agile in the Underground.”

You get the feeling that the question he doesn’t ask is a test, and you’re not entirely sure if you can fail it or not, so you settle for being noncommittal.  “I do,” you say with a shrug, not meeting his eyes.  “Fall a lot, I mean.  My father, he’s…he’s always said I’m clumsy.”

There’s a moment that comes, a long one laced with something not entirely unlike tension as Sans looks at you, then nods slowly.  When he speaks, his voice is even with a calmness that you don’t know that you’ve ever heard from him before.  “yeah,” he concedes, “i could see you being a bit clumsy.  those stairs at your house really give you troubles, i bet.”  There’s something in the way he emphasizes your house that makes you uncomfortable, and you finally look up to see Sans staring at you with a pleasant expression that seems almost neutral, if not outright happy.  For a second, you freeze entirely at his expression, a deer caught in the headlights as you wonder just how much it is that Sans knows, but the moment passes with a blessed sort of rapidness and you’re more than happy to look away and move onto another conversation when Sans doesn’t comment further.

You’re about half a breath away from doing just that when you notice Sans’s posture shifting.  The change is slight at best – maybe a slight lift of the head or square of the shoulders – but to you, it’s obvious, even if the reasons aren’t.  You open your mouth to ask and he beats you to it.  “sounds like it’s time for me to head out of here, kiddo,” he says, and you’re surprised at how much the sentence hurts, but then Sans reaches forward to ruffle your hair and smile and you return the expression with one of your own, unable to help it.  “i’ll let everyone know you’re fine,” he assures you as he steps back.  “just, uh.  do me a favour, would you?”  You look at him in confusion as from somewhere down the hallway, you hear a voice that you recognise distantly and try to ignore.  Sans's voice is strange when he speaks. “don’t make a liar out of me,” he says, and the next time you blink, he’s gone before you can ask any questions, leaving you to gape briefly at where he just was.  You’d figured he’d used some form of magic to get himself here despite all the apparent anti-visitation specifications your father had made, but it’s still weird to see him teleport, and it’s even more unsettling when his last words are a riddle that you’re uncomfortably sure you know the answer to.

Sans has barely been gone for half a minute when the door to your room opens quietly, held open by a woman in scrubs with short, brutally chopped brown hair and dark eyes as Emily steps in, looks at you, and melts her face into some expression of absolute joy that you don’t feel at all.  “Oh, Francis, you’re awake!” she shrieks, and she hurries forward to hug you.  Her shoulders smell like they’ve been washed in about fifteen different perfumes and left in an ashtray, and you hate the scent of it so much that you make a point of not breathing until she pulls away, still holding your shoulders as you try not to wince when her fingers stray too close to the bruise on your left arm.  “Your daddy and I have been so worried!  How are you feeling, sweetie?”

You shake your head.  “I feel fine,” you assure her.  “A lot better than I was.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Emily fawns, “that’s just so good to hear.  You’ve been asleep almost three days, sweetheart.”

You flinch at the time slot and immediately try to cover it up.  Three days for your father to contemplate his grievances, three days for him to stew.  You’re pretty sure he has to be pushing nuclear by now, but you’d rather not think about that, so you focus your attention on the nurse who’s currently smling at you.  “It’s nice to see your eyes open, Francis,” she notes.  “They’re very pretty.”  You shrug, nodding a bit in an attempt to take the compliment, and she continues onward.  “Are you thirsty or anything?  You were pretty dehydrated when you got here, and that stomach bug you had wasn’t doing you any favours.”

You shrug a bit, shaking your head.  “It’s okay,” you assure her.  “I’ll be fine.”

The nurse nods thoughtfully.  “That’s nice to hear,” she smiles, “but I have even better news for you.  Once I get all your numbers checked out and your mommy here signs some forms, you can go home and sleep there instead of this hospital.  How’s that sound?”

Your first response is to flinch and tell her it sounds like a nightmare, but you do neither.  You don’t comment on Emily not being your mother and you don’t comment about home, instead just smiling and nodding.  “Really good,” you murmur with a smile and hollow reassurance because that’s the answer you’re supposed to give, that a good kid would give, and you’ve always wanted to be a good kid so you’ll just keep trying until you can’t anymore.

It doesn’t take long for the nurse to pronounce your numbers as sound and call in a doctor to remove the needle from your vein and clean up the mark where it was inserted, putting a little band-aid over it that you can’t help finding a little bit cheery in its colour scheme even as you feel your heart sink a little more every second that the clock ticks you closer to home.  Emily and the nurse leave you alone to change for a moment, and you try not to take too long to figure out how to best conceal the slight tremor shaking into your left hand before heading out to meet them.

They lead you down a series of hallways to the waiting room where Emily has to sign all your discharge paperwork, and when you enter it, you’re not sure if your friends see you first or if you see them, but when Alphys points you out, both Toriel and Asgore have the same expression they wore when they saw the sun for the first time in several centuries, and you feel something inside you break a little at the sight because your name has no sooner fallen from their lips than Sans is saying something to both of them and the group at large that you can’t make out from across the room.  You see rage and something confused flash across Undyne’s face, and you think if Papyrus was more aware of the situation, he’d have the same expression, but as it is he’s far too busy waving frantically at you from across the room and asking loudly how you’re feeling to be concerned with the problems at hand.

You think you see tears at the corner of Toriel’s eyes, catching in her fur, but you try to convince yourself it’s a trick of the light as Emily hands the clipboard full of signatures back to the nurse and takes your hand the way your father does, smashing the fingers together so hard it hurts, and you don't look back as you leave the waiting room because you can't take seeing the faces of your friends as you walk away and leave them behind, again,  and you're grateful that the sun is shining when you step outside.

Looking at bright things always helps when you don’t want to cry.

Chapter Text

The clock on Emily’s dashboard says that it’s 1:15 in the afternoon when you pull up by the sidewalk in front of your house.  Emily idles for a moment before putting the car into park and turning her keys to shut it off, but when she doesn’t pull them out of the ignition, you tear your eyes away from where they’ve been focused intently on the hands you’ve been folding and unfolding in your lap to look at her instead.  There’s a sort of almost-hesitation on her face, then she looks to you and smiles in a way that looks a little bit sad to you for reasons you can’t quite place.  “Francis, sweetheart, can you open that glovebox for me?” she asks.  “I need the bag from it, the purple one with the zipper.”

You nod quickly, leaning forward to do as she asks.  You can find the bag easily enough, the only neon object in a sea of patterned lighters and cigarette packs and old receipts for gas, and Emily gives you a broad smile when you hand it over.  “Thanks, doll,” she says, and you nod as you close the glovebox without saying a word.  She pulls down the visor on her side of the car, opening it up to reveal the little mirror, and she frowns at what she sees before unzipping the bag and rifling through it until she produces a little compact of eyeshadows.

You’ve never put on makeup, and you’ve never wanted to, but you think there’s something mesmerizing about watching Emily do it, or at the very least distracting.  She’s deft with the brushes as she layers powdery blues over her eyelids in mirror images, and you think distantly that her hands remind you a bit of your teacher in Preschool, the one who painted on the side.  There’s a sort of confidence in her fingers, a sureness that doesn’t seem at all fitting when you match it up with the uncertainty in her eyes as she winks one shut to check that the colours are blended right and there aren’t any breaks in the eyeliner.

It takes a few minutes before she’s done touching up, and when she zips the bag and hands it back so you can put it back in the glovebox again, she smiles, lips a blindingly bright pink and her eyes bright.  You think it’s a bit much for her face, but she still manages some sort of weirdly extravagant beauty.  “You look nice,” you tell her, and you mean it.

Emily smiles at you with her mouth barely open to show the teeth, reaching over to put a hand on your face.  “You’re such a peach, Francis,” she says, patting your cheek gently.  “Thank you.”  She smiles more broadly as she lowers her hand and winks at you, reaching over to pop open the driver’s side door.  “Now let’s go get you inside to your daddy.”

You hope your face doesn’t fall too much as you unbuckle yourself and open your door, stepping out onto the sidewalk with a quick little stretch and a twinge of fear in your stomach that you try hard to ignore.  Emily walks around the front of the car, clicking as she goes, and when she takes your hand, the grip is crushing again.  You’re not entirely sure if she knows, but you’re not about to point it out either.  You’ve always been the type to suffer in silence.

Emily does the knocking, a series of sharp energetic taps on the wood, then looks down at you with a smile as you wait for the door to open.  “Aren’t you excited, Francis?” she asks.  “You finally get to come home.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you nod instead, finding it far easier to look convincing when you don’t have to worry about your tone of voice giving you away.  Emily looks like she’s about to say something more, but before she can, the door opens and she drops your hand to wave as your father appears through the glass of the screen door.  “Hey, Mikey!” she greets, and he nods shortly.  “Francis was finally able to come home today, isn’t that great?”

Your father grunts noncommittally as he holds the door open for the two of you to come through, and for the brief second that his eyes rest on you, there’s a familiar cold fear that floods your veins and it takes everything you have to not shudder at the sensation.   You curl your toes inside your sneakers, locking the tension inside them.  You won’t break down in front of company, you won’t.  The three of you stand just inside the entryway, and Emily chatters on obliviously about something you’re really not paying attention to for several minutes, and you feel the weight of your father’s gaze pressing coldly on your shoulders as you keep your eyes trained carefully on the floor.

“Emily,” your father says, cutting her off in the middle of whatever it is she’s saying.

She blinks suddenly, then gives a smile that you think is mostly fake even though it looks fairly real.  “Yeah, Mikey?” she asks, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes.  “What do you need?”

“I think Francis needs to lay down some.  Doesn’t she look tired to you?”  His eyes haven’t moved from you, and something cold slithers up your spine.

Emily looks at you, biting her lip for a second in confusion since you look as alert as you ever are, but she smiles anyway.  “You know, I think you’re right,” she agrees.  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble.  I can go tuck her in if you-”

“No,” your father says, “that’s not necessary.  I can get her myself.” 

There’s a silence, and Emily’s fingers flutter at her side.  Her smile flickers briefly before returning as strong as before.  “No, really, it’s no trouble for me to-”

“No,” your father repeats, and you think Emily hears the firmness in his voice this time because she flinches, just a little bit.  “Francis and I have some things to talk about anyway.  Best that I do it.”

Emily’s smile is faltering, eyes flickering between you and your father.  “Well, I…” Her voice trails off.  “I mean, I suppose I can leave then, if you want me to.  I just thought I’d stay a while and-”

“Thursday,” he says, cutting her off with a glance in her direction, finally looking away from you long enough for you to take a breath.  “We’re still meeting up for dinner at that place downtown, aren’t we?”  Emily nods, and he smiles at her in a way that you hadn’t realized he could, a way that seems wholly and utterly false.  “How about catching up then?  It’ll just be the two of us, and we can talk about whatever you want to.”

There’s another brief pause, then Emily nods.  You watch her paste her smile back on as if she’s holding it there with duct-tape.  “Yeah, of course.  That sounds great, Mikey.”  She winks at him and leans toward him with the obvious intent of stealing a quick kiss, but he barely pecks her on the lips, and she pulls away with a certain darkness in her eyes that you struggle to miss.  “I’ll see you then.”  She rests her hand on the door handle, then smiles back at you.  “I’m glad you’re alright, Francis,” she tells you, and with one last wink and a grin, she’s gone. 

Your father watches from the doorway as Emily walks to her car and climbs in.  You hear it starting up and pulling away, and then your father moves to close the door and you feel your stomach drop and tie itself into a knot.  He turns to face you, and once again, you can’t help flinching at how enraged his expressions can become the second an audience leaves.

You shake your head instantly, inching backward into the kitchen and opening your mouth to apologise – you’re not sure which part you’re about to apologise for, but whatever it is, you’re sure you should feel remorse for it  - but he’s already cutting you off.  “I don’t want to hear your excuse,” he growls bluntly, “or anything else you've got to say other than an answer to the questions I’ve got.  Is that clear?"  There's no room in his tone for you to disagree, and you nod compliantly, quickly.  He doesn't even wait for your verbal affirmation before stepping toward you with such a force in his movements that you flinch.  "Now what the hell is your problem?"

You shake your head.  "I don't know, Daddy, I-"

"I don't know isn't an answer," he snarls.  "What's the big goddamn issue, that you can't just do like you're told?"

You swallow hard, taking a step backward again.  This house is used to the silence, but the rage in his voice, the ringing of his yelling, it's swallowing everything whole and ripping the silence apart, choking the air out of the room and out of your lungs, and your hands are shaking with fear as your tongue trips over the explanations you try to say too fast.  "I don't- I don't mean to- I didn't-"

"Don't feed me that bullshit!"  Your father slams his hand down onto the kitchen table with a resounding bang that makes you flinch, and you feel your shoulders curl up as if to protect yourself but you force them back down because you know that if he gets too tired of your flinching, he'll make things worse.  "If you don't mean to, then why the hell do you?"

"It's an accident," you insist, head still shaking and your voice trembling.  "I don't want to get in your way or make you mad, I'm sorry, it just-"

He cuts you off sharply with a wave of his hand and a glare that could cut steel, his voice dripping ice.  "You don't want to make me mad, huh?"  He steps toward you, and almost without thinking, you step back.  "That why you keep playing these games then?  Freezing yourself sick, telling everyone you're not a girl?  You think that's gonna make me happy?"  His words are snarled through gritted teeth.

You shake your head.  "No, I-"

"Then it isn't a goddamn accident!  Why do you do it?"  He steps toward you again and you step back in response, but your back is against the wall now and there's nowhere left for you to go.  

Your panic is a fist around your lungs and you swear you can hear the fear pumping blood through your veins to echo in your ears.  "I'm sorry," you plea, "I'm so sorry, please don't-"

"Answer the question!"  He roars, and he raises a hand.

"I don't know!" you say desperately, and the hand connects, sending you stumbling.  The wall against your back throws you off balance and you wind up on the floor, but you don't hold your cheek, instead taking advantage of the fact that there's no longer anything in your way and scurrying back on all fours in a desperate attempt to get away.  You know it makes him mad, you know he hates it when you flinch and when you act afraid, but you're not acting and your heart is pounding and you want to go anyplace that's away from here, anywhere where he isn't, anywhere with air.  Your father steps toward you and you close your eyes as words fall out in a frantic rush, wincing visibly. "I'm sorry I got sick, Daddy, I'm sorry, I just wanted you to be happy!"

"And you think that being sick will make me happy?  Who the hell do you think has to pay for those hospital bills now because you had to run around with a bunch of goddamn freaks and get yourself frozen, huh?"  You've never seen him this mad, and the rage twisting his face burns your eyes, or maybe that's the tears you're trying to fight back.  "Answer me, Francis!"

You're not even thinking about what you're saying anymore.  It's like being back in the Underground except that the enemy in front of you doesn't want to be your friend and the only command you have is to act because you can't fight or flee, and so you're talking desperately like it will save you somehow.  "You told me that you had company and you didn't want to be interrupted and I told you I wouldn't and I know you don't like it when I get in the way of you dating and you haven't been happy since Mom left because I always mess it up, but when I got back the door was locked and I couldn't climb in and I didn't have a key so I waited for a while but the company didn't leave and I was getting too cold and so I had to come in and I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry, I didn't want to get in your way, I'm sorry, I-"  There's heat stinging at the back of your eyes, and you watch your father's face go white.  The colour change is bad enough, but then you notice that his expression is no longer enraged.  You don't know what it is, because you know shock doesn't belong on your father's face and even if it did, that's not what's there, and you flinch because it's unfamiliar and you don't know how to act anymore, if talking will even still help.  "I'm sorry, Daddy," you whisper.  "I didn't mean it."

He looks at you for several seconds, and there is total silence.  You see his hands clenching and unclenching into fists.  Your heart is pounding, and you can hear both of your breaths.  When your father speaks, his voice seems calm, but you immediately recognise the undercurrent to it, the way it pulses with disbelief, and you swear you feel the world stop.  "So are you telling me," he hisses, "that everything is my fault?"'

You freeze, closing your eyes as the panic closes off your airways again and you shake your head, frantic, and you start to back away again.  "No, I didn't mean-"

He notices your movements and it breaks the dam.  All the rage comes flooding back with twice the intensity, and he reaches for the plate on the counter beside him.  You barely duck out of the way in time to avoid being hit squarely in the face by it, and your heart is pounding and your lungs aren't working and you can't breathe, can't breathecan'tbreathe and he's yelling so loud you can't hear anything else, not even the pumping of the blood in your veins as the plate shatters into the wall beside you and one of the pieces of glass that flies away from the wreckage cuts across your arm and you feel little shards of it grinding into your palms as you keep moving backward because there's nothing else for you to do.  "Am I supposed to be happy that my daughter can't take care of herself?  That I have to raise an ungrateful goddamn brat by myself?  IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME HAPPY?"  You can't escape this, can't plug your ears and drown him out, can't run anywhere. 

"I'm sorry-" you gasp out, but he isn't listening, and he's crossing the room toward you but you can't get up and you can't get away because there's nowhere here that's safe, nowhere for you to go.

He grabs you by your arms, and you gasp in pain as his hands wrap tightly over the bruise to paint a new one across the skin, and you don't taste the air sawing through your lungs as he lifts you bodily off the ground and shakes you so hard that you feel your brain rattling against your skull.  "What happened to your mother isn't my fault! You are not! My! Fault!" he roars, and you gasp with the agony of your brain pounding around and his grip on your arms.  "If you want so badly to make me happy, then why don't you stop fucking everything up?"  You can't take this, you can't.  You try to kick away from your father in desperation, and he roars loudly, yelling white noise instead of words as he throws you to the ground, and you curl up into yourself among the shards of glass, covering your head with your arms and shaking.  "Get out!" your father bellows, and when you don't move instantly he steps forward you with his foot pulled back as if he's prepared to send it crashing into your ribs.  "I said get out, you little bitch!"

You scurry to a standing position as ceramic slices into your palms, but your legs are shaking so much they give out underneath you until you force yourself to put them back to use, and you scramble to your feet and bolt for the door, pulling it open and ignoring the pain as you run outside, not caring that that's what started this mess, and you're thankful that there are no neighbors to see your fear and make things worse as you run down the street, as far away as you can get from the place where you know you've ruined so much and you know you'll have to return.

Over an hour later, you're still biting back fear when you make your way down to the edge of the little creek that runs behind the elementary school you attended for the few months you went to kindergarten before running away.  You used to come here a lot, when things would get really bad and the park didn't seem like it was far enough away from your house to be safe.  There's a plastic house on the playground that you slept in once and the jungle gym was always a good way to spend time, but whenever things were at their messiest, you always bypassed the school playground to come here to the creek, to the sounds of quiet isolation and rushing water and being safe.

You tuck your legs carefully underneath you as you sit down, and you bite your lip hard to keep from crying out when the movement sends a razor of agony shooting up your right leg.  The adrenaline pulsing through your veins had mostly concealed the pain when you'd first started out and the need to get away had filled in when the adrenaline wore off, but the time you've spent walking to get here has alerted you to the fact that you must have twisted your ankle when you'd fallen, or maybe when you were trying to get up.  The logistics don't really matter to you, but the pain does.  As accustomed as you are to hurting, it's a bit harder to hide that hurt when its source is a part of your body that you use conspicuously every day instead of a wrist or something similarly easy to conceal.

Deciding that you'll worry about that later, you turn your attention to your hands, examining the scratched up palms carefully.  By some miracle, it doesn't look like there's any glass wedged in the wounds, which saves you the trouble of having to pick it out later with tweezers, but air still burns against the open skin and you know you'll have to be careful about keeping them clean for a while until they heal up.  You bite your lip as you look over at the creek and the cold water rushing through it, contemplating just dipping your hands in to wash off the blood before deciding that it may not be the best idea.  The last thing you need right now is an infection, so you settle instead for carefully dipping your fingertips into the water and scrubbing a bit at your hands, wincing when you come too close to the wounds and put pressure on them.  You think that once upon a time you might have done more than wince at the sharp flutter of pain, that you might have even cried, but those times are long gone, and now this hurts about as much as a scraped knee would, even if it's still considerably more traumatising than tripping on the sidewalk ever was.

You try not to think about it too much, try to focus on being careful as you clean instead, and soon enough, your hands are well off enough that you can turn your attention to the last area that's still in need of attention, cautiously examining your right arm.  The lone scar that stretches across the skin as a reminder of the one time somebody who hurt you apologised is neatly bisected by a thankfully clean cut from where the glass sliced across it, and you poke at it experimentally.  You don't feel this one nearly as much as the others and you don't really know why, because it's long and gross and still bleeding a little bit, but you decide to just go with it.  You've found it's best not to question your good luck, and besides, the rest of your body hurts more than enough to make up for the relative numbness of the arm. 

As you dip your fingers back into the water so you can clean off your arm, you bite back a wince.  Everything aches, and every movement is enough to make you want to find a nice back corner of the universe and sleep until either everything else disappears or you do.  The thought of going back home is almost unbearable, but you have no idea of where else to go, where else you can go.  Even if you knew where all the monsters lived, you couldn't just walk in and take up residence.  They'd ask questions.  They'd have the right to.  They'd ask questions and then they'd find out the truth because you've lied a lot for your father's sake but you've never thought that you were really that good at it and you know you're not good enough to hide it from Sans, and then between him and Undyne they'd probably both get themselves sent back behind a new barrier after making headlines for turning the ambassador's father into a human pin-cushion.  

It's your own fault, you think.  If you had just done things the easy way and given up on the mountain, this wouldn't be a problem.  Even if you had just never come home, it wouldn't be a problem, because you know your father and you're pretty sure he'd be more than happy to give you up to the lowest bidder if he could find a way to do it without repercussion, but at the same time you know that even if you could load a save and go back to a week and a half ago, you'd still make the same choice, would still go back because you've always managed to find a way to save everybody else and you think there has to be a way to talk things out with him too.  He's the last living parent you have.  There has to be something.

It doesn't matter, you decide.  Living or not, the choice was made and you can't undo it, so you have to get past it instead, solve the problems you create, but the last place you want to go is back to that house, especially now, especially with his anger still likely to be crackling through the air.  You think it might be safer to wait until nightfall, but you doubt it would do you any good, because then whenever your father calmed down enough for the sight of your face to not send him into the throes of unstoppable rage, he'd still be mad about the fact that you ran away for almost twelve hours again because you couldn't just get over things at home.  You're pretty sure there's not really any answer to this situation that comes out with you being the victor and everyone being happy, and distantly, you realise that you're not surprised.  This is all you've ever expected out of going home, really.  It never has mattered what you try, because all roads lead to the same ending.

You hear a sniffling noise that pulls you from your wandering thoughts, and you look around briefly, barely noticing the way your hands have stilled in the water as you search for the source of the noise.  It takes several moments for you to realise that you're the one sniffling, and you feel your shoulders twitch a few times with painful spasms of emotion that choke off in your throat.  You reach up to touch your face, but you're not entirely sure if the wetness you feel there is the creek or actual tears, because you're pretty sure that if they were tears you'd be feeling something beyond the hollowness that's hanging limply in your chest, the fear from before having taken over and left no room for anything else in the hole where you know your emotions are supposed to be resting.  It's probably not a good sign, but you think not feeling anything is a bit nice for now, because if you feel anything at all you know it will landslide all too quickly into feeling everything at once, and you don't think you can take that, you really don't.  Not on top of your father.  Not on top of your guilt.  Not on top of the knowledge that you have people who care about you but you can't tell the truth and you can't go home to them because that isn't how this works and it never has been.

You're not sure how long it is that you sit there feeling miserable, but it must be a while because the sun is casting long shadows across the ground when you finally feel your shoulders stop shaking and the numbness settling back over your entire body, its monotony broken only by the murmuring aches that spread through you whenever you move.  You lean over the creek, looking down at your reflection, and frown when you notice that your eyes are red and puffy and you must have been crying after all, not just wanting to cry like you usually do, and you stick your hands in the cold water and press them to your face, finding refreshment in the pleasant chill and the knowledge that the cold will help hide the blotches.  You hold your hands there until you can see your own reflection without any hints of crying when you look down, and you try to fake a smile at the face that looks up at you from the water, but you don't think it believes you and you know that you don't believe it.  You try a few times more to get the smile right, and then you give up because you know it's going to look just as fake no matter how many times you try, and it doesn't matter anyway because it's not like you've really got anybody to fool.

You stand up, brushing your knees off from where you've been sitting so long on the grass, and you look up to the sky.  If you hurry, you might still make it back before night falls and the weather gets really cold, and if you're lucky, your father will be passed out and he won't notice you and he won't try to scare you away again, and you'll have plenty of time to change into a shirt with sleeves long enough to cover up your arms and your palms.  It's not really much of a hope, but it's all you have.  With one last, despondent look at the face in the creek and the smile it's wearing that it doesn't feel, you nod to yourself, determined to keep going, to keep fighting until you find a way to make this mistake right as you square your shoulders or try to and you start the long walk home.

Chapter Text

You wake up a week later to darkness in your room and the sound of movement downstairs.  It’s early in the morning, and you know that your father hasn’t been up at this time since the first few weeks after everything happened with Mom.  The knowledge makes something twist uncomfortably in your stomach, but curiosity pushes you to kick away the tangled covers of your bed and pad quietly across your room to open the door.

There’s no lights on downstairs, but you can hear somebody anyway.  Even though you’re a bit scared to go down since it could still be a thief or worse, your father, and you’ll probably either have to run or try to explain why you’re awake once you meet up with whoever it is, you can’t deal with the thought of not looking and just letting whoever it is have their way.  Steeling yourself, you tighten your grip around your phone in case you need it for a flashlight, then carefully start down the stairs, one step at a time, making sure to avoid the creaky boards.

You’ve only gotten a few steps down when you hear, much to your own surprise, the sound of breathy giggling.  It shocks you just enough to make you freeze for a moment, and you hold your breath as you wait without moving until you hear it again, quiet laughter from the area of the kitchen. 

You’re considerably less nervous as you take another step down the stairs, but you maintain your silence, careful not to make a noise.  A few steps more, and you can make out the quiet murmur of voices in between the giggles and the occasional quiet thump of someone bumping into the cabinet. 

“C’mon, Mikey…enjoying this but…”  You instantly recognise the voice as Emily’s, and you raise an eyebrow.  Your father had been out with her when you’d gone to sleep, but he never brought her back here after their dates, and he certainly didn’t bring her here at this time in the morning.  This is unfamiliar, and you’re not entirely sure you like it as you hug yourself and make one last step down so that you’re as far as you can go without risking being seen.

“What’s it matter?”  That’s your father’s voice this time, low and rough and you think almost happy, and the idea of it startles you, because you’ve never heard anything like that in his voice, not even from when Mom was around.  “…not like she’ll never…”

There’s more giggles, another thump against the cabinet.  Emily again.  You listen intently, but the words are still blurred.  “I know, but…really think…”

There’s a sharp intake of breath that cuts off what Emily’s saying.  Your father’s voice is a low rumble.  “Forget about her…just down the hall…”

Another thump.  “Doesn’t seem…you sure?  Francis…”

Your father’s voice is louder this time, and you flinch against your own will even as you tune in closer.  You know better than to ignore when your name comes up in a conversation, even when the conversation isn't about you, even when you're not involved in it and don't want to be.  “She’s got things," your father says as you focus on his voice.  "She's not even here...ambassador shit today…to hell with her.”

Something pangs hard in your chest, and you straighten, tuning out of the conversation as soon as you pick out the familiar degradation, deciding that if you don't have to hear this, you won't, not this time, not this early, and you don’t wait to hear Emily’s response as you slip quietly up the stairs.  You’re still not entirely sure what’s going on, but you know it’s not anything you care to be a part of and you know you’re not especially comfortable with whatever it is, but both thoughts take a back-burner to the echo of your father’s words as you carefully avoid the creaking boards and disappear silently into your room once again, to fade into the floor-boards as if your dreams could maybe be real and make it so that you were never there.

You leave early that morning, or at least earlier than usual.  It's only about an hour or two after your father and Emily had woken you up, and you know from looking at your phone that it's still several hours before you're supposed to meet up with the monsters at the park for another stint as the ambassador, but you can't make yourself go back to sleep and you really don't want to anyway.  Things have grown quiet downstairs, but you still don't want to go down and stumble across anything, and you don't want to face your father's indifference any more than you want to face Emily's overzealous concern.  In fact, you really don't want to talk to anybody, which is exactly why you're slipping out of your bedroom window at 3:48 in the morning and closing it behind you without a sound.

You can't lock the window, but you can't lock the door either, and since you figure you have to get out without interrupting your father - he'd made it clear, once again, that you weren't to bother him with your comings and goings as they related to the business of being an ambassador - you'd rather leave your window unlocked than the door.  At least the window is high up, and it's unlikely anybody will notice or be able to subtly climb in through it.

You climb carefully down the wall of your house, holding onto the notches in the bricks and cautiously gripping the gutter on occasion as you slip toward the ground, trying to not make any noise.  You almost manage smoothly, but you wind up catching the toe of your left sneaker on one of the chips in the wall as you're working your way down, and it throws you off balance enough that you fall the last few feet to the ground and have to lie there on the grass for a few seconds, gasping for the air that was just ripped out of your lungs.

When you have your wind back enough to stand, you do, heading for the sidewalk and making your way straight toward the park, hugging yourself tightly.  It's nowhere near as cold out as it was the last time you made this journey - it's almost warm now, in fact - but the pressure of arms around you calms you down a bit, even if the arms are your own and they still ache from the cuts that haven't quite healed and the bruises that are still blossomed across your arms like bitter weeds or dead flowers.

You’ve long since cleaned up the glass from where your father threw the plate at your head and the silence at home has returned as normal, but the aftermath of your father’s tirade last week is still consistently alive for you, the echoes of his rage following you around, haunting you like inescapable phantoms.  The cuts on your hands have mostly healed up to the point where it truly does look like you just tripped and scraped your palms, but your other injuries are a different story. 

It feels like your back is made up of one enormous bruise, and the entire right side of your torso is a mottled ink-stain of blues and blacks and yellows from where you’d hit the ground when your father had tossed you down.  You feel it constantly, a tiny little pang every time you breathe, and it’s taken a week for you to finally adjust enough to the pain to no longer react to it.  Your arm took the brunt of the force, and it looks even worse than your side feels, a series of dark purple splotches covering the length of it underneath the lattice of glass cuts that are only starting to heal.  Thankfully, your ankle has finally readjusted enough to where it no longer hurts to walk on it, or if it does hurt, you don’t feel it.

Of all the things you're grateful for though, the greatest blessing for you is that most of your injuries are easily concealed.  Long sleeves cover up the worst of the bruising, leaving the scratches on your palms and the hints of yellow skin that peer from under the edges of the shirt as the only signs of injury.  The discoloured skin is barely noticeable, but you're still self-conscious about it, all too aware of the consequences of somebody noticing.  If the monsters see it, if they look at the arm underneath the sleeve, you know there's no way you'll be able to brush the bruises off with your old excuse of taking a tumble down some stairs.  They're too smart for that.  They'll see it, and then they'll figure out what's happening, and then...

You snap yourself out of that train of thought quickly, unable to bear the idea of them finding out what you left them for, and you force your attention elsewhere, tilting your head back to look at the sky.  Half the stars are swallowed up by streetlamps, but you know what they look like without the light pollution, and the memory burns your eyes.  You'd seen the stars without technical interference once and only once, and it's been years.  It's one of the only memories you have that isn't tinged with some hint of darkness, despite the fact that it was literally in the middle of the night, but if you feel that thought pang somewhere deep in your chest, you don't acknowledge it.  Instead, you focus on the memories of other times, times when you'd sat in the park in the night and let the pieces of sky you could see distract you from all the thoughts that always raced in your head to haunt you and hurt you when your father wasn't there to do the job himself.

It's 4:32 when you finally sit down on the playground swings, and you wrap your hands around the pleasantly cool chains that hold you suspended in the air, your eyes locked on the sky.  When you were younger and had come here with your mother, the two of you had often sat side by side on these swings, neither one of you really present in the fullest of senses, both of you lost in the vastness of the expanse above.  Those times, it had almost always been in the daylight, or when the sun was starting to set, but it hadn't changed the reaction for either of you, the way you'd both sat together and felt small but also somehow crucial to the clockwork of the world.  Neither of you ever really said anything, but neither of you ever really had to, either.  You both already knew all there was to say.

You close your eyes, surprised at how much the memory hurts, the pain of your mother's departure still not dulled by the two years that have passed since it happened.  Against the backdrop of your eyelids, you can still see the look on your father's face, hear the way the bottle shattered against the wall when he found out what happened, and the way he'd screamed at you the first time the two of you spoke afterwards.  It was you, he'd yelled, it was because of you, and you'd known he'd been right.  Of course it had been you.  Who else could have been at fault?

You shake your head, opening your eyes as you carefully lower a leg to push against the ground and give yourself a bit of momentum before you start to swing gently.  For a few moments, you stay like that, then decide to try harder, kicking your legs forward and back to propel yourself, and you watch as your feet obscure some of the stars, imagining that you're walking on them until your body starts to protest at the exertion after only a few minutes, reminding you that you're nowhere near immortal and nowhere near the stars, that you're just tiny and bruised and not-quite-seven, sitting alone on a swingset because your father doesn't want you home and you don't know where else to go without making everybody hurt again.

You slow to a stop, dragging the tips of your toes along the ground because that's as far as you can reach and the only brakes you have, and you reach for your phone.  You open it up just as the time switches from 4:44 to 4:45, and as you feel the same familiar loneliness pang in your chest, you close the phone and lower your head as you hop off the swings and make your way over to a bench, curling up on it with your eyes latched on the ground.  You think distantly that sleeping on a bench is probably not one of your best ideas in this environment - the Underground and its relative safety was one thing, and up here is another thing entirely - but you really don't think you care too much.  You're tired, and you're lonely, and you really want to cry, but crying doesn't tend to help much so instead, you sleep.

Your mood improves considerably after the monsters pick you up in the park.  Your reunion, unsurprisingly, involves a vast amount of hugging and lifting you into the air, and you're glad you practiced not reacting to pressure on your bruises because despite the good intentions, your nerve endings really don't care that it's friends and not your father that keeps pressing on the aching skin.  Still, for as much as your body protests, you don't mind at all.  It's a distraction and it's welcome, a comforting contrast to the indifference you're accustomed to.

Thankfully, the monsters don't inquire about how things are going at home, and instead choose to talk about nearly everything else they can think of.  You're laughing hysterically at all the stories by the time you make it to the embassy, and it leaves you in a great mood all through the morning's discussions.  When you break for lunch, Mettaton doesn't try to provide entertainment this time, his act instead replaced by Sans, much to nearly everybody's frustration (though you can see Alphys chuckling when he makes a particularly good chemistry pun), and the menu is a culture swap of some food the monsters brought and some from the humans.  Undyne looks absolutely euphoric when she digs into her first slice of pizza, and you're pretty sure that Toriel wins over half the gathered leaders with her cooking the second everyone takes a bite out of her butterscotch-cinnamon pie.  Even Papyrus gets some attention with his spaghetti, since it manages to spark off a pretty hilarious conversation about cooking mishaps and he's innocent enough to not notice the connection.

By the time lunch finishes, you're full and you're smiling and the long sleeves you're wearing have managed to keep you from any uncomfortable conversations, and you think that maybe, just maybe, this whole day will go off without a hitch until the governor's secretary shows up and brings trouble with her when you go into a small meeting room with the governor and Toriel to talk about co-ed schooling between humans and monsters, leaving the other monsters to continue conversing outside with some of the other leaders.

At first, it's nothing you really notice.  Sure, she seems to have a sour expression most of the time, and just about any time that you open your mouth to speak she rolls her eyes a little bit, but you're not especially bothered and it barely registers for you.  You endure worse on a normal basis, and you have other things to worry about, and as long as you don't acknowledge her, the tension in the air doesn't seem to rise too much.  You're grateful for that - the last thing you need is to choke on your own words halfway through a sentence - but you're also very well aware of the fact that a slight increase of tension is still an increase, and you notice as the syllables start to stick in your throat while you talk about the possibility of Toriel opening up a co-ed school for integrating elementary school kids.

The governor, if nothing else, seems interested in the possibility, and you try to focus on that as you talk, not the way his secretary is glaring, but by the time he asks you about the integration of classes between the cultures, your hands are shaking under the table.  Either he doesn't notice or he doesn't wish to comment on it, because his eyes are kind when he nods along to your confession that there would be a lot of logistics to work out later still, class integration being one of them.  

He leans forward with interest, propping his chin on a hand and gesturing to you.  "I can't say as though I disagree with your assessment of the situation," he admits.  "With almost all of this being theoretical, it's hard to plan ahead, right?"  You nod, and he smiles warmly.  "I thought as much.  Still, I'm interested to know, if I may ask a question of you?"  You nod once again at the genuine request.  "Where do you see yourself at within this process?  I imagine you'd be attending the school yourself.  Do you think that you would have a role beyond that?"

The question stops you, and you pause for a moment before deciding to let the comment about the likelihood of you attending the school pass without comment.  Your hands tighten under the table, and you shrug.  "I dunno," you admit quietly, "I think a lot of it probably depends on what's going on.  I mean, I'll help wherever I can, but if I can go to the school, I'd also like to go as a student.  It would be nice, I think."

The governor nods.  "I could see where that would be comforting, when you've got as much on your plate as you do," he admits, then turns his smiling eyes to Toriel.  "What about you?" he asks.  "Once again, I realise that this is all theoretical for the moment, but I feel as if prior planning tends to help make these things become reality.  If this comes to pass, what do you think you'll need out of our little friend here?"  He nods toward you with a smile, and you attempt to smile back.  His secretary is glaring daggers.

Toriel hesitates for a moment, then looks to you.  "I'm afraid I do not know immediately," she confesses.  "I too would like for Frisk-"

"Francis."  You're startled when, for the first time since this meeting started, the governor's secretary speaks up, holding her pen delicately in her hand and looking at Toriel with thinly-veiled distaste in her voice.

Toriel stops speaking and looks to secretary at the same time as you do.  There's a brief silence before she speaks.  "I'm sorry?" Her tone is politely inquisitive, but you don't miss the surprise in it, or the slight undertone of tension that laces under the two words.

"Francis," the secretary repeats.  When her comment gets no response, she straightens, sitting down her pen as if preparing for a long conversation with an especially slow toddler.  You knot your fingers together and remind yourself to breathe.  "You referred to her as Frisk, but legal records list her name as Francis.  As this is a political proceeding, I would ask that we refrain from using nicknames."

The governor frowns, lifting a hand as if to ask the secretary to refrain, but Toriel answers first, smiling a bit as she looks at the other woman.  "As I am familiar with politics as a former queen, I can understand your point," she concedes.  "However, Frisk-"

"Francis-" the secretary interrupts again.

Toriel ignores her and keeps going.  "Frisk," she stresses, "introduced themselves as Frisk to me.  I have always taken that as how they wish to be known, so it is not a nickname."

"Just because a child introduces themselves in one way doesn't mean that they're to be taken seriously, Miss Dreemurr."  The secretary gives Toriel a long look and a smile that's supposed to be patient but just looks irritated, and you don't like the way her voice is poison veiled thinly with sugar.  "I've known children who have introduced themselves in any manner of ways, but the fact remains that the records only recognise a legal name, so legal names must be used."

"Elizabeth," the governor says quietly with a significant look in her direction.  "This may not be the time or place for this conversation.  If Frisk wishes herself- my apologies, themselves - to be known as something other than Francis, then it really is no trouble-"

"Perhaps if this was a playground, Governor, it would not be," Elizabeth cuts in.  "However, as an official proceeding, you know we have to follow the guidelines of official documentation.  If Francis were to have her name changed legally by her living guardian, then we could call her whatever her name was recorded as, but until that time-"

"Elizabeth."  The governor's voice is stern when he cuts her off, and you don't miss the concerned look he shoots you.  That's strange, you don't think you're acting in a way to merit concern, at least not visibly.  Under the table, you can no longer feel your fingers from how tight your hands are squeezed together, and it's starting to send hurt spiraling up your arm from beneath the bruises.  "That's enough.  In official documents, we can record whatever name necessary, but for the purposes of this conversation, the child's name is Frisk."  He looks to Toriel.  "As you were saying?"

Toriel nods, and it seems as if all parties might be content to let the matter pass as she opens her mouth to continue where she left off, but Elizabeth interrupts, shaking her head.  "This is not just a matter of documentation, Governor.  If we are going to accept these...monsters... and their selected ambassador as a valid choice for a political figure, then we need to consider this in a professional manner.  If Francis can't handle the responsibility of acting like such a figure instead of pretending and using nicknames, then we really do have a bigger problem-"

"I'm not pretending," you cut in, and you're surprised at how steady your voice is.  Elizabeth freezes in surprise, and the others along with her, all three of them looking to you.  The sudden pressure staggers you, and you slump back from where you had straightened, sinking meekly into your seat as if you can disappear into it.  "I mean, I'm not...I'm not pretending.  My name isn't Francis."

Elizabeth, clearly recovered, shakes her head.  "Official documentation says otherwise," she disagrees.  "Until such time as that's changed, there's really nothing we can-"

You shake your head, eyes shut.  "Can't we just move past it?" you ask.  "I don't even care what gets written down, just- Can't we listen to what Mo-Miss Dreemurr has to say?"

You know Elizabeth caught the slip up, because she narrows her eyes and straightens as she looks to you.  "Francis, I understand that you've been through a lot lately, but I'm afraid we have to be quite stern on this.  The name we write down is a reference point for how to speak to you.  You only have one living relative who can change that, and it is not Miss Dreemurr."

Your heart is pounding in your chest.  You know who your relative is and who it isn't.  You don't care.  "Elizabeth," the governor says again, voice firm, "I have to insist that we stop this train of conversation immediately, as it is both irrelevant and disrespectful to-"

Elizabeth shakes her head again.  "It's important that we cover this issue now, Governor, otherwise-"

Toriel cuts in, clearly annoyed.  "Frisk is a responsible child, and they are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves-"

Your eyes are latched on the table, and the governor looks at you with concern as he cuts in again, clearly trying to keep control over the conversation even though you know it's out of everyone's hands and you can see the growing frustration in Toriel's eyes and the tension in the air is choking you just like it had last week and it's all your fault, and "Francis is a child, and she can't possibly know-"

"Stop!"  You don't know what finally breaks you, if it's the tension or the loud noises or the arguing or one too many times with the wrong name or what, but you can't take it.  Your palms are bleeding from how tight you've dug your fingernails into them and you had no idea you could yell but apparently you can, because you just did and now everybody in the room is looking at you in silence and concern and shock and disgust, depending on the face, and your hands are shaking and it's all too much at once, and so you do the only thing that you know how to do, and you duck past the chair you shoved back and shoulder the door to the room open, and you ignore the startled look as everyone outside the door turns to look at you and you run. 

Chapter Text

You lose track of time.

Curled under the desk in the room where your blind running brought you, you try to make yourself as small as possible in the hopes that eventually you'll be able to disappear entirely.  Your eyes are stinging either from tears or dust, you're not sure which, and everything hurts so badly that you can't tell if your current immobility is the result of a physical incapability to move or the lack of desire to do so, not that it matters either way.  Your fingers are white-knuckled around your arms and you can feel the sting of your nails even through the sleeves of your sweater, and though your bruises are screaming and you think distantly that you might be crying, you can't bring yourself to let go or to react at all, not right now, not when everything hurts like this.  The pain might be all that's grounding you or it might be making everything worse, but the truth is, you don't care.  You need something, someone, but nobody's here except for you and nobody ever has been and maybe it's better that way, because the last thing you need is for anybody to see you like this.

As your fingers crush into the mottled purple that makes up your arm, you wince sharply and it turns quickly into a whimper as the pain brings back the memory of your father all but throwing you to the ground.  You are not my fault, he'd screamed, and you think now that he was right, that you're not his fault or anybody's fault except your own.  You create your own misery and dig your own graves and paint your own bruises with all the things you do wrong and the problems you create for yourself, for everybody.  Everything you do gets in somebody else's way, hurts them when it should hurt you.  Your father may not be much, but you know he's been trying despite the odds, and you always just push him further, push everybody further with your shyness and your naive pacifism and your insistence that you're not Francis, and now you've started a fight with the monsters and probably made all of them worry or worse, made them realise that you're not good enough to be their ambassador and now they won't want you either and it's all your fault and-

The door opens, and you flinch, retreating further into yourself as you try to curl up tighter and wind up bumping your elbow hard on the underside of the desk.  Your breath hitches momentarily with the renewed pain, and you close your eyes tighter in an attempt keep the tears locked inside where they belong.

The door shuts quietly, carefully, as if whoever is closing it knows that you're in a state of panic and is going out of their way to avoid making it worse.  Even their footsteps are careful as they walk into the room, the movements punctuated by the soft whisper of shifting metal.

"Frisk?"  Mettaton's voice is quiet, and you hear an unfamiliar undertone of concern to it that makes you flinch.  He shouldn't be concerned.  None of them should be.  You curl up tighter into yourself as the metal shifts again.  "Darling?" he asks, and when you don't respond, he sighs softly, sounding sad.  "It may not seem like it,  but I still have my ghost senses, beautiful.  I know you're in here."  You bite your lip hard to repress the growing urge to cry, and when the silence continues too long, Mettaton walks over to the desk where you're hiding.  You can just see where his legs are preparing to bend as he crouches down before you rip your gaze away and bury your face in your arms.

You can tell the exact moment he sees you, because you hear the quiet intake of breath and the concern in his tone.  "Frisk..." he begins.  You don't respond, and he reaches out to you, metallic fingers just brushing against your arm before you jerk away from them and wind up slamming your arm into the back of the desk hard enough to make you gasp a bit in pain.  You hear the metal shifting as he moves the hand away, and you flinch at the sound of his voice, at the selfless concern laced through it and the way it's far more even and patient than you probably deserve.  "It's just me, darling.  You don't need to worry.  Can you let me see those gorgeous eyes of yours?"

You shake your head violently, instantly.  "No," you manage, "no, I can't-"  The lump in your throat cuts you off, and you're choking.

"Then I won't make you," he concedes immediately, and a wave of gratitude washes over you, followed shortly by a wave of guilt as you bite your lip hard against the feeling.  You can't see Mettaton's face, but you can feel him watching you as he leaves his crouch for a more comfortable position, leaning against the desk in a manner that keeps you aware of his presence without ever making you feel trapped.  It's the kind of casual consideration you never were exposed to at home and never quite got used to in the underground, and the stinging at the back of your eyes intensifies.

After a few minutes of silence, he speaks.  "Toriel told us what happened," he says gently, and his tone bears no hint of accusation.  Instead, it's understanding, sympathetic.  "Living in the wrong form isn't much fun, is it?"

Oh.

"I'm sorry," you say immediately, though you're not quite sure why.  Sorry doesn't fix anything, and it doesn't change anything either.  Your father's always said it's a worthless word, that it's not an answer, that it means nothing, and you think he's probably right.

Though your sleeves muffle the apology considerably, it's clear that Mettaton is still able to make it out, or at least the sentiment.  His voice rings of surprise that would probably be comforting if you weren't so wrapped up in how much you don't deserve it.  "Whatever for, darling?" he asks, and you don't meet his eyes.

Instead, you shrug as much as you can with how tightly you've tied yourself together, your eyes clamped shut.  "Everything," you admit.  "I shouldn't have- I didn't-"  You pause, shaking your head and compacting yourself together even more, though at this point you don't really think you can become any smaller without breaking something.  "I'm sorry," you say again, and you mean it.  If only you weren't such a handful, he wouldn't have to be worried, but no, you hadn't even been able to die successfully.  For some reason, you'd kept fighting again and again for one more chance to live and save everybody, and now here you are, dragging them all down.  The irony burns.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for, beautiful," Mettaton assures you, interrupting your thoughts with a shocking certainty in his voice.  "If anybody should be sorry, it's that Elizabeth woman.  Honestly, one would think that a political position would hire someone with more tact, but I suppose as a secretary, that becomes optional."  You hear him sigh in what sounds like resignation before his voice picks up again with the same unshakable faith as before.  "It wasn't your fault."

You shake your head, unable to make yourself believe it.  Of course it's your fault.  Somehow or another, everything is.  "I should have just stayed quiet," you mumble into your arms.  "Then none of this would have happened."

Mettaton sighs again, still sympathetic.  "Darling, I'm afraid my ability to translate through sweaters is somewhat sub-par, so I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but I'm going to guess, and you can correct me if I'm wrong."  There's somewhat of a rueful smile in his voice when he continues.  "There's nothing wrong with standing up for yourself."

"But I messed everything up," you insist miserably, moving your face out of your sweater and shaking your head.  Your face is toward the back of the desk and the lump in your throat is threatening to choke you.  "I ruined it."

"You didn't mess up anything, darling," Mettaton disagrees.  "Everything is as it was before, no setbacks at all.  Everybody just wants to make sure you're alright before we try to keep moving.  If you hadn't noticed, you're somewhat instrumental in all this."

You don't believe it for a second.  "But I...If I could just..."  Your voice trails off.

"Frisk, darling, can I ask you something?"  You're temporarily surprised by Mettaton's request and the gentleness in his voice, but you nod, making a small noise of affirmation.  "Who are you?"

You blink at the question, shaking your head.  "I..."

"Don't think about it," Mettaton urges you.  "Just answer.  If we're not talking about paperwork or anything else, who are you?"

You bite your lip, closing your eyes and already hating the answer you're about to give, because even if it's true, that doesn't make it any easier to say.  "I'm Frisk," you say, voice quiet.

"Exactly, beautiful," Mettaton says, and you can hear the soft smile in his voice.  You sniffle a bit, but he continues.  "You're Frisk, and you're perfect just as you are.  Never apologise for being yourself, darling.  Who you are is nothing to be sorry for."

It's the total lack of bitterness in his voice that finally gets you, and the tears that have been stinging the back of your eyes break free, spilling over onto your cheeks with a quiet hitch of breath.  You don't deserve this kind of consideration, this kind of forgiveness.  You messed up.  Mettaton should be angry with you, not comforting you.  This isn't right.  When you mess up, you get bruises and guilt and hatred-filled silences, not this consoling warmth he's offering.  You haven't earned it.  

Mettaton hears you crying and he shifts again.  "Frisk, darling, look at me.   Please."

You don't want to.  You know you probably shouldn't, since it will just make him feel bad about making you cry.  You do it anyway.  Just like you knew he would be, Mettaton is smiling encouragingly, and he holds out a hand to you in a silent pledge of support.  "Why don't you come out from under there, darling?"

You take his hand.

There's something gentle in the way he half-leads, half-pulls you from under the desk, wrapping you up in his arms as soon as you're free and not commenting when you cry all over the metal plates that make up his chest.  You know that you probably shouldn't be crying, that you should try and put yourself together, that you should be stronger than this, but lying here pressed against Mettaton as he gently pets your head is far too comforting and far too familiar for you to care about what you should be doing.  Right or wrong, this feels like safety and it feels like home, and you're thankful that Mettaton isn't like all the human celebrities who would probably care a lot more about six-year-olds crying all over them because you need this right now, more than anything.

It's a long time before you finally nod into his shoulder and pull away, attempting a reassuring smile when Mettaton looks at you even though you're still sniffling a bit.  "Better?"  he asks, and you nod, prompting him to smile.  He nods at your arm.  "Is your arm alright?   It sounds like you hit it fairly hard when I came in."

You almost tell him the truth, almost, but you've done enough crying for today and you still don't know how to explain things without sending everyone back underground, so you keep your mouth shut and give a quiet nod.  "It's fine," you tell him.

Mettaton raises an eyebrow.  "Are you sure?" he asks, and you nod again.  There's a brief pause before he seems to decide that you're telling the truth, or at least not lying in a manner which could prove to be harmful, and he smiles before standing, extending a hand back down to you.  "Then let us be gone, darling.  Everyone's waiting."

It's considerably harder to climb back up into your window that night than it was to climb out of it, and you nearly lose your grip on more than one occasion.  After the third time, you almost think that it would be better to just go around the front, but then you remember the locked door from last time and decide you're better off taking your chances and playing it safe than trying to go the easy way and interrupt your father, whatever it is that he's doing.  You can tell by the car out front that he's home, and while you don't know if Emily's around too, you know that you don't want to get involved with them and risk the consequences of interference.  

By the time you make it back in, your arm is screaming and you're tempted to scream along with it because it's aching and stinging and it hurts, but you make sure to stay quiet as you slip downstairs to grab a glass of water and a little snack before retreating back to your room.

When you get into the kitchen, Emily's waiting.

You can tell immediately that something is wrong, because she's not smiling.  Even when it was just the two of you in the car on the ride home from the hospital, her mouth had always been twitched up at the corners, as if it was some instinct of hers to grin at everything.  That's gone now, vanished completely.  Her hands are clasped together on the table, fingers fluttering like caged birds.  Her face is pale, and when she looks at you, her eyes are bright with tears until she looks away almost immediately again.

To her everlasting credit, she tries.  "Hey, Francis," she manages, but you don't believe the cheery tone in her voice at all.  The pitch is off, the undertones twisted together in ways you know they shouldn't be, tangling into knots that leave a lump of dread resting heavy in your stomach.  "How was the meeting?"

You've never been any good at pretending, not in your opinion, and you can't play along with this.  Your pulse is tearing at the inside of your veins as if it wants to escape, and panic is starting to creep in too.  You hug yourself to try and keep calm.  "What happened?" you ask, and your voice is small.

Emily flinches.  It's obvious she's trying not to, but she fails miserably, her entire upper body clearly stiffening, head ducking apologetically.  The knot in your stomach tightens again, and she doesn't look up.  You focus on breathing.  "Emily?"

"I'm sorry," she says.

You shake your head.  You know the answer, but you changed your mind about pretending.  You're going to play along as much as you can.  You have to.  This will crush you if you don't.  "For what?" Somehow, the words are stable, even if your voice is not.

Emily's shoulders droop with obvious defeat, and if you weren't focusing on breathing, you think you would have choked by now.  You can see from the fringes of her mascara-thick eyelashes that she's closing her eyes, the same way you do when you're steeling yourself to say something difficult or trying not to cry.  Her lip quivers slightly.  She doesn't look up.  "Your Daddy and I, we were..." She starts her story and trails off almost instantly, and her voice is flat in a way that burns with the flimsiness of the attempted facade because for all her attempted nonchalance, you can feel the remorse all but dripping off of her.

"What happened?" you ask again.

Emily shakes her head.  "We got a phone call.  He did."  She pauses, and you hear her inhale.  "It was from the governor.  He said there'd been a situation at the meeting because of names, and that you'd run off."  The words bury themselves in your stomach.  "He said... He said they had it covered, but he was obligated to let your Daddy know, and so he did."

Your hands are shaking, so you dig your fingernails tighter into your arms because that's the only way you know how to respond.  You've ruined it.  You've ruined everything.  "Where is he?" you ask, and you're pretty sure it sounds more like a whisper than an actual question, but you don't know how to be louder, how to be stronger when everything important is flashing before you in all these heavy words following into a dead and silent space from the mouth of a woman too full of regrets to look you in the eye.

Another head shake.  "He got real mad after he hung up the phone," Emily explains.  "He started yelling a lot, threw a pillow.  I tried to say something but..."  Emily's voice cuts off, and you hear her inhale, trying to collect herself.  You'll never forgive yourself for the damage you've done to everyone today, never.

You have to know.  "Did he hit you?" you ask.  You don't know how else to phrase it.

Emily's shoulders are shaking now with tears she's failing to hold back.  She still hasn't looked up, and she shakes her head.  "No," she says, or tries to, but no sound comes out and she only mouths it.  You're thankful, but you're hardly comforted.  "No," she repeats, with noise this time.  "No, he got real mad and looked like he was gonna, but he just...stopped.  He said he...He said he needed to take a moment and he left.  I don't know where he went."

The world is spinning without you.  You don't know what else to say anymore, but there's still one last question you haven't asked, one last answer you need to know so that you can be prepared.  "What did he say about me?" you ask, and your voice is so painfully steady you can hardly take it.  You don't think it should be this steady, but you don't know how else to make it sound anymore.  There's nothing left for you to feel, and the fear won't come until he's present again, and the silence comes with him.  

Emily's crying now.  She's no longer even bothering to hide it.  "I'm so sorry, Francis," she whispers, and she sounds broken.

You shake your head, uncomprehending.  You ask again.  "Sorry for what?"

Emily swallows.  Tries to collect herself.  Fails.  The words are stuck in her throat the same way they always get stuck in yours.  It takes several attempts for her to dislodge them.  "He said...He said you couldn't be the ambassador anymore.  That he's not gonna deal with this out of you."

And there it is, the deathblow.  You should have known.  You did know, of course you knew.  Of course there would be a repercussion for losing it like you had today.  The monsters were kind, but the world was not.  Losing your temper comes with consequences of the real kind for you, and it always has.  Mettaton had told you that you were guiltless and you'd believed him, but in the end, it's not a matter of guilt, it's a matter of responsibility, of integrity.  You'd sworn not to interrupt your father, not to get in his way with this, and then you'd done just that not only once, but twice.  You'd known there would be a price, and here it is.

Your face is dry, and you're no longer thirsty.  You nod slowly at Emily's words as they process from a distance through the sound of her crying and your own pain.  "Okay," you say, ever-compliant because there's no other way for you to be, nothing else you can do but play along and come when your strings are pulled.   You've never been your own master and you know it, you've always known that, even when the monsters are there to make you forget.  You can think you're in control as much as you'd like, but you never are and you never have been.  "Okay," you say again, and you turn around.

"I'm so sorry, Francis," Emily whispers again.

You don't respond.  There's nothing to respond with.  All your words have died along with what little hope you had, and you carry the irreparable remains of both with you up the stairs again as you slip back into your room, take the phone out of your pocket, and lay it quietly in your sock drawer like you once laid roses on your mother's casket as everyone cried, but this time, when you slip into your closet and curl up, nobody notices and nobody cries.

Not even you. 

Chapter Text

It's three days before your father comes home, and when he does, he's not alone.

You're sitting in the living room on Sunday night reading a picture book you checked out from the school library, and Emily's there too, shifting every few seconds to look anxiously toward the door as if expecting to hear the sounds of keys in it any time.  You wouldn't discount the possibility, but you're not entirely sure.  This isn't the first time your father has disappeared at random, but the time it takes for him to come back always varies.  Sometimes it's only a day or two, sometimes it's closer to a week or longer.  You don't explain that to Emily though, because she has enough to worry about without knowing that this isn't a one-time occurrence.  She's spent the past few days waiting for a phone call and checking places where she thinks he might be, and the exhaustion is starting to show on her face.

It's mostly for her sake rather than yours that you're relieved to hear the sound of someone approaching outside.  You look up from your book at almost exactly the same time that Emily flies to her feet and hurries toward the door, looking out through the curtain hanging over it and gasping a bit at whatever she sees.  She's quick to fumble over the lock and yank the door open, and you've barely had time to make your way over by her before she's running outside and calling your father's name as something scared clenches a fist around your lungs.

You look around the door just as Emily drapes your father's arm around her shoulder, and you're somewhat startled to note that he's unconscious, his weight supported entirely by Emily and another man you don't recognise.  As they come through the door, you can see where there's some blood drying across his forehead from a shallow cut.  Your stomach flips.  

"What happened?" you ask, right after Emily, but Emily is far louder than you so she's the one the stranger looks at when he explains the story.  As it turns out, his name is Sam, and he's a coworker of your father's, though he seems wary of using the term 'friend' to describe their relationship.  In fact, the only reason they seem to know each other at all outside of colloquialisms is because Sam had helped join the search for you when you'd gone missing.  He smiles when he mentions that detail, a reassuring smile that you think is probably supposed to comfort you.  It doesn't.

"Anyway," he says, continuing on as he steps back to let Emily do the work of adjusting your father's unconscious body to be more securely positioned on the couch, "I wasn't even looking for him, really- just went out to the bar to buy a quick drink and there he was, drunk off his ass and halfway to falling over.  Don't think he's really been sober for a bit now, actually."  He pauses for a moment, then laughs.  "Old fool lost his car, I bet.  I looked around a bit, couldn't even see it near the place.  He might have just walked there from wherever he was to start.  Wouldn't that be something?"  He shakes his head.

Emily has moved over to the sink to grab a few paper towels, shifting aside the dishes and turning on the water.  You watch from where you've stayed standing in the entryway, not sure which way you should move, where you'll be helpful, where you'll get in everyone's way.  Even from here, you can see the slight tremor in Emily's hands, and you look away when she tilts her head toward her shoulder to call behind her.  "What's the story behind the blood?" she asks, sounding concerned.

Sam laughs again.  "That bit's my bad," he confesses.  "I saw Michael here and went to take him out out of there, but he decided to start fighting me.  Didn't get too far, though - tripped over himself and smacked his head on the bartop, knocked himself right out."  He gestures toward your father.  "He'll be fine, I imagine.  It looks worse than it is."

Emily nods appreciatively as she shuts off the water and crosses the room, but doesn't comment much further than that, all her attention instead focused on carefully wiping away the blood on your father's face.  The concern and quiet caution evident in her every movement hits you in your chest with a sharp pang, reminding you of the days when people looked at you like that if you scraped your knee, and you have to look away to keep from apologising for causing Emily this worry, for making your father go away.  You didn't mean it.  You didn't.

You turn your attention to Sam, and he smiles when he notices you watching.  "So you're Francis then, I take it?  Michael's kid?"  When you nod, the smile broadens.  "You're a pretty little thing.  Don't take much after your daddy, do you?"

For a moment, you have to think about it, then you slowly shake your head as you realise the statement is true.  "Not really," you admit, thinking of your father's thunder-grey eyes and the black hair and the angled bones of his still-youthful face.  With your mousy brown hair and dark eyes, you look far more like your mother, and you're sure that only adds to your father's list of grievances with you.

You're forced to step away from that thought when Sam crouches down to your level, looking at you with a wry smile.  "I guess that means your Mama must have been beautiful then, huh?"  You give a small nod, but you're looking at the floor because you don't really remember much about your mother beyond a few basic features and a few incidents you've never told anyone about.  You're surprised when Sam reaches out to ruffle your hair, and you look up to see that wry smile still in place.  "It's a good thing you came back safe.  Bet your daddy appreciates the reminder."

You look for sarcasm in his tone, but there is none.  Your stomach flips.  Sam lets go of you, straightening to his full height and looking to Emily, still fussing over your father.  "As much as I hate to cut and run, ma'am, I think it's best if I go.  Don't know how much more help I can be for you here, and I'd hate to get in the way of anything."

For the first time since she started cleaning up your father, Emily looks back over her shoulder to smile at Sam.  "That's fine," she says, and her voice is as strained with worry as it is laced with gratitude.  "Thank you so much for bringing him back here.  I've been looking-"

Sam cuts her off.  "Don't mention it, ma'am.  Glad to help."  He turns to go, then pauses at the door, turning back around to look at you again.  "It really is good to see you in person, Francis.  I'm glad they found you.  Take care of yourself."  He gives you a last smile, and then he's gone, out the door and into the night.  You watch from the shadows near the doorframe until he drives away, then you lock the door shut and shuffle over to Emily's side.

The cut on your father's head really isn't too terrible, you think, but it looks like it hurts.  Emily tells you to go grab the hydrogen peroxide and some cotton balls from the bathroom, and you do so quickly, returning with an armful of supplies because you're not sure how much of what she'll need.  When she takes them from you, she gives a strained smile, and you bite back a quiet wince at the pain in it, fighting hard to not look away again out of guilt.

You look toward your father.  "Is he really alright?" you ask quietly.

Emily nods.  "Yeah, he's alright, Francis.  He's just sleeping."

The phrasing makes you flinch.  "He's going to wake up, isn't he?"

When Emily looks at you, she seems a bit confused, maybe by the strength of your reaction, maybe by the fact that you reacted at all.  "Of course he is, sweetie.  He'll wake up just fine, won't even need stitches."

"Okay," you murmur.  You're not sure if your relief is a good thing or a bad thing.  Maybe it's neither.  Maybe it's both. 

Emily must see the conflict on your face, because she pauses in what she's doing to look at you.  "Francis, sweetie, why don't you go up to bed?  I've got it down here."  She gives you a reassuring smile.  "We'll be just fine.  You got school in the morning though.  You should get some sleep."

You don't want to sleep, you really don't, but you can't think of a good excuse for why you shouldn't, so you nod compliantly and slip away toward the stairs, watching your feet carefully to avoid tripping and making your bruises worse again.  They're finally starting to go away, at least at the edges, where they've begun to turn a faint yellow-green, and you'd hate to undo the progress of a week and a half by something as stupid as tripping.  Besides, you have no trouble believing that once your father wakes up, he'll be more than happy to refresh the injuries for you.  He may have been drinking, but that doesn't mean he forgot.

You slip into your room and start to pull out your clothes for tomorrow morning so that you'll be able to get dressed in the dark and leave in time to reach school.  When you pull out your socks, you see your phone, still laying exactly where you left it, and you try not to look at it because the guilt threatens to swallow you whole every time you do.  

The screen lights up with an alert and shows you a refreshed tally of the last few days.  There are 98 unread texts, and 32 new voicemails.

You close the drawer.

Four days later, your father is off at work and Emily is out getting groceries when you hear the trashcans rattle outside.  The sound distracts you from the book you're currently looking at, tearing at nerves you hadn't even realised were frayed and making you jump about three feet in the air with the shock of it.  Instinctively, you look around the living room, almost questioning if anyone else heard it before you realise that nobody else is there to verify - your neighbors never seem to hear anything, and as usual, you're alone here.  After several moments of strained silence, you've just started to convince yourself that you really did imagine it when suddenly, it comes again, the sound of the trashcans shifting just outside the kitchen window.

You don't think you've ever really had a squirrel problem around your house, but you're not sure what else it could be.  If there's someone trying to break in, they're not being especially stealthy - it's only mid-afternoon, with plenty of sunlight, and they're making enough noise to draw any sane person's attention.  Still, despite your uncertainty, you decide you're better off checking it out.  If it is an intruder or something like that, your father will never forgive you for just sitting back while they did their work.

Setting your book down on the table, you make your way over to the door on silent feet, your movements careful and quiet as you undo the lock and slide the door open, slipping outside onto the front steps in sock feet.  You look around curiously, not seeing anything immediately, and for a moment, you almost wish you had your stick from the underground to keep you company.  You'd never dream of using it on anyone, but it had been reassuring to have something to squeeze.

You see a blur by the trashcans as something hides behind the wall they're pushed up against, and you stiffen, creeping forward with fear coiling tightly in your stomach.  Your steps are cautious, timid, and you brace yourself as you approach the corner for whatever you're about to encounter.  Please don't let it be something deadly, you think for a moment, and then you lean forward to look around the side of the house, and you freeze in shock.  For a moment, it's the only response you have before words finally spring to mind.  "Kid? "

From where they've pressed themselves against the wall in an obvious - and vain - attempt to be sneaky, Kid jumps in surprise, then squints open an eye to look at you.  You can tell the exact moment they recognise you, because both eyes pop open and a toothy grin spreads across Kid's face, and then you're being tackled by just over three and a quarter feet of armless yellow exuberance.  "Yo, Frisk," Kid says, laughing as they bump their head against you in the closest approximation of a hug they can manage and grin broadly. "I've been looking all over for you!"

As you unfold your arms from being wrapped around Kid - despite how much it hurts to move them, you're not about to pass up the opportunity for a hug - you frown a bit, looking at them in confusion.  "You've been looking for me?"  At their nod, your frown deepens.  "Why?"

Kid tilts their head to the side in what you think is supposed to indicate a shoulderless shrug, and their eyes are wide with concern as they reply.  "Same reason everyone has, dude.  We haven't heard from you in like, a week.  Everyone's worried that something happened to you.  Ha."  Their laughter is unconvincing, and you feel the familiar knot of guilt twist up in your stomach.

"Did the others send you here?" you ask quietly.

Kid shakes their head.  "Nah, they actually told me not to go out on my own, so, uh, don't tell them I was here, would you?"  You nod and they grin, but the grin fades away almost instantly.  "I was just worried about you and wanted to check.  What's going on, dude?  You alright?"

You wrap your arms around yourself as if it will protect you from the feeling of gut-wrenching guilt currently tearing into you.  Not only do you make things harder for your father, now you're making the people who actually care about you worry, all because you don't know how to just come out and say something or better yet, disappear entirely from all of them so that you can't hurt them anymore.  You don't voice those thoughts, and instead, you nod.  "Yeah," you mumble, "I'm fine.  My... My phone just died."  The lie is paper-thin, but it's all you can come up with.

You're not sure if Kid accepts it so quickly because they genuinely believe you or because they just need to believe in something, but you watch the relief wash over their face like a flood.  "Oh, man, that's all?  That's good."  They laugh for a moment, then slow down.  "That's a bummer, though.  I mean, it explains everything, but that really sucks.  I didn't know your phone could die."

You're not entirely sure it can either, but you nod anyway.  "I haven't gotten any messages since I got back from the last meeting.  I think I messed up the battery or something," you explain, trying to balance your desire to look at the ground and nothing else with your knowledge of the fact that people are less likely to believe you're telling the truth if you can't make eye contact.

"That's okay," Kid assures you.  "I'll just be the news person then."  You nod your approval of the arrangement, making them grin again before the expression fades into a frown.  "I actually don't really remember what's happened this last week though, haha."  They make a face like they're struggling to recall something important before abruptly brightening as an event comes to mind.  "Wait, no, I remember one thing," they correct themselves.  "Toriel got approval for opening a school like, two days after the thing with you and the governor."

An unfamilar feeling of excitement surges through you at the news.  "Really?" you ask incredulously.  "That's great.  I know she was really pushing for that."

"Yeah, dude, she really was," Kid laughs, "but she said there's no way it would have happened without you."  They pause, then shift as if suddenly uncomfortable.  "You know, uh, come to think of it, she might have wanted to tell you that herself.  Oops.  Don't tell her I told you, okay?"

The innocent hopefulness in their eyes makes you smile, and you nod.  "I won't," you assure them.  "I'll still be excited when she tells me, I promise."  If she gets a chance to tell you.  If she still wants to.  

"Cool," Kid grins, "thanks."  There's another pause, then they nudge you again.  "So, uh, when it gets opened, I think the school's going to be for humans and monsters.  You gonna come?  It would be pretty great to go with you."

That simple question, out of the entire conversation, is what makes you freeze abruptly.  It doesn't take a lot of time for you to realise that you have no idea how to answer, or rather that you know what the answer is and have no idea how to phrase it.  You hesitate for several seconds, and you watch confusion flicker onto Kid's face for a moment before you hear the sound of a car approaching from somewhere down the street.

You flinch visibly at the sound and hope Kid doesn't notice as you spin around just in time to see Emily pull up by the sidewalk.  Thankfully, it's not as bad as it could have been if your father had come home, but you can tell from the expression on Emily's face that she's startled and panicking just a little bit when she catches sight of Kid.  You can see the bags of groceries through the window of the car, but she doesn't make any move to pick them up after pulling herself from the car, instead rushing across the lawn toward you.  "Francis?" she calls out.  "Francis, what are you doing?"

Kid responds before you can, leaning around you.  "Yo!" they yell excitedly, "are you Frisk's human mom?"

You shake your head, feeling your heart stutter in your chest though Emily is nothing like your father and you know she wouldn't hurt you the way he does.  "No," you say, "I mean, sort of.  She's-"

"I'm not Francis's mama, not yet," Emily explains, looking at Kid.  She puts a hand on your shoulder to hold you back.  "Maybe one day though."

Kid nods.  "Oh, okay.  That's cool.  Are you-?"

Emily cuts him off.  "I'm really sorry if I'm interrupting, but I gotta hurry.  Mind if I steal Francis from you?  I need help making supper tonight, and I'm a little behind schedule."

Kid looks stunned, blinking for a moment in surprise.  "Sure, dude, I guess that's fine.  I mean, you're their kind-of mom, right?"  They grin, then look at you.  "I'll talk to you later, Frisk, and I'll see if I can get you a phone charger."  You nod, forcing an appreciative smile that Kid returns easily.  "Let me know about the school thing, okay?  Toriel would really like to know."  Another nod.  Kid grins, and then takes off.  They only get a few steps before, true to form, they fall flat on their face and have to peel themselves up off the ground.

You barely have enough time to see it happen before Emily's grip on your shoulder tightens painfully, drawing your attention back to her and the unreadable expression on her face.  "Come on, Francis.  Help me with these groceries.  We need to get inside."  You think you see her hands shaking, but you don't understand why as you hurry after her, grabbing a bag full of vegetables and barely stepping out of the way in time to keep yourself from getting slammed in the car door too when Emily closes it.

Emily ushers you hurriedly into the house, looking behind you as if she expects to be caught and making the fist of panic clenched around your heart constrict painfully.  As soon as the two of you are both in, she closes the door and locks it, abandoning her bags of groceries on the floor just inside the entryway and crouching down to your level, and you flinch in shock and pain when she grabs tightly around your upper arms and looks you dead in the eye.  "Did anyone see you?"  Your heart is pounding so hard that you don't understand the question for a moment, and you can't answer.  Emily's grip tightens.  "Did anyone see you?"

Your arms are sirening pain and you wonder if now you will have a bruise the shape of Emily's hand overlapping the ones shaped like your father's, and you inhale sharply through your teeth, face crumpling against your will.  Something flashes across Emily's face, and her grip loosens slightly, but her expression doesn't change.  "Francis," she says again, "I need you to speak to me, sweetie.  Did anyone see you out there with that kid?"

Understanding settles in your stomach right along dread, and you feel your heart drop.  You shake your head frantically.  "N-no," you stutter, "I don't think they did.  Nobody came by.  I don't think there were neighbors watching, but I don't know, it's possible.  I don't think anyone saw."

Emily heaves out a shaky sigh of relief, her hands falling away from your arms.  She mouths something that looks faintly like thank God, though you're not entirely sure, and you can tell she's trying to calm herself down, but her breaths are still shaking and her hands have tightened into terrified little fists that she has pressed against her mouth like she's trying to repress a sob or a scream or maybe both.  You can't breathe.

Still shaking, Emily looks to you.  "Francis, what happened?  Why were you outside, who was that?"

You inhale, or try to, but it still takes a few attempts before words come out of your mouth instead of just air."I heard- I mean, they were- I thought-"

Emily cuts you off.  "Francis," she says, "please just say it.  It's alright, sweetheart, it's okay."

There's worry in her voice that sounds like it might be angry, or maybe you're just imagining things, but the dread in your stomach is tying your tongue into knots.  Talking to Kid had been reckless, so stupidly reckless, and now you'd worried Emily and maybe the neighbors had seen and would tell your father and you knew you shouldn't have checked on the trash because even if you had found an intruder you couldn't have stopped them and you ruin everything this is all your fault-

"Francis!" Emily's hands are clamped around your arms and the pain is grounding you just enough for you to realise you're crying hard, the world spinning as you hyperventilate.  Emily wraps her arms around you and presses you to herself, rubbing a hand down along your back while the other one pets your hair.  "Francis, sweetie, you have to breathe, you have to.  Come on, sweetheart, in and out."

You bury your face in her shoulder and you're shaking as you sob, your entire body consumed by tears, your chest seized up by all the air you're drowning on.  "I'm s-sorry," you choke out, "I'm s-so sorr-y, I didn't-"

"Shh, Francis, it's okay.  You're okay, sweetie, it's okay," Emily assures you, and you know it's not but you know that this isn't the time or the place to keep crying, so you force yourself to try and stop, and you pull away a few minutes later still choking.  Emily puts her hands on your shoulders and looks you in the eyes.  "Francis," she says, "it's alright.  I'm not mad.  I just want you to be safe, alright?"  You nod stiffly, jerkily, with a certain desperation that you doubt Emily misses.   She looks at you sympathetically, face tight with concern.  "Why don't you go upstairs and get yourself cleaned up a bit, doll?  I'll get started on this down here and you can come help me when you're ready."

You shake your head violently.  "If he comes home-"

"I'll come up with something to tell him," Emily says gently, cutting you off.  She smiles at you in a way that isn't entirely happy though you know she's trying to be comforting.  "I wanted to be an actress, Francis.  I've got practice lying."

You think there's a story behind that, but now isn't the time to ask, and maybe that time will never come.  In the long run, it might not even matter, and it certainly doesn't matter now.  What matters now is that you nod like you're supposed to and go upstairs and can clean yourself up and never speak of this matter ever again, and so that's what you do.  You hide upstairs in the bathroom for almost fifteen minutes as you force yourself into one piece again, knowing that your grip is tenuous at best but knowing that you also don't have time to waste feeling sorry for yourself.  Just because Emily can lie doesn't mean you should make her, and you do your best to make sure she doesn't have to.  When you join her again downstairs, you think your interactions seem almost normal, that they seem passably average, maybe even good enough to fool your father.

He doesn't speak to you through all of dinner, and you're alright with that because honestly, his silence is no worse for you than his rages anymore.  You don't feel any of it, you can't, or at least that's what you tell yourself because numbness is always better than the pain that comes with caring, and it's easier to pretend you don't care at all than to acknowledge that you care so much about someone who probably never cared about you and probably never will.

When you're setting out your clothes for the next morning that night, your phone lights up with another alert and another updated tally of messages you can't respond to because it will hurt too much, and this time you pull it out when you see that you have 269 unread texts and 73 new voicemails.  You check your door to make sure nobody is coming, and then you open up some of the most recent messages, reading through them cautiously.  You only get through a dozen of them or so, but by the sixth message you find from Toriel almost pleading with you for a response to ease her fear, you can't take it anymore and you stick the phone back in the drawer with more force than is probably necessary and close it quickly.  

Your hands shake in the moonlight that drifts through the window into your room when you crawl into bed that night.  You stare at them for a few moments, and you realise with a distant sort of surprise that your face is wet, though you don't remember starting to cry.  The moment you notice the tears, the faster they start to come, and you find yourself with your blanket jammed against your mouth to muffle the sound of you crying because you have no idea what else to do anymore, no idea at all, and this is all that's left for you, these muffled tears at midnight that you can never admit to shedding.

You cry yourself to sleep.

Chapter Text

The next day when you get out of school, you can tell immediately that something's wrong.  

Every day when you leave, there's always a small, bustling crowd of parents waiting to take their children home.  They stand scattered loosely around in little clumps, trading idle banter with each other and making small talk until their kids are released from school and come running into their arms, or the parents come toward them.  You know that some of the parents are even closer friends than their children, that they'll sometimes talk for an hour after school lets out while their kids play on the playground.  

Between your parents and yourself, you've never been part of that world, but you still know it's out there, and you notice immediately that today is different when you walk outside the classroom and find that there's mostly silence outside.  All the parents who are usually chatting with each other in small groups across the lawn have all clumped together on one side of it, and they shift a bit in discomfort, trading quiet murmurs you can't quite make out.  A few of them are casting strange looks in the direction of the tree where they usually wait, and you follow their eyes to the source of their interest and freeze.

As soon as he catches sight of you, Sans's typical boney grin broadens a bit, and his eyes are full of gentle light as he shuffles in your direction, hands stuffed in his pockets.  "heya, kiddo," he greets as he closes the distance between you, "long time no talk.  how have you been?"

For the second time in two days, you're too immersed in your own mixed emotions to know how to reply, and you can't quite tell if the feeling pulsing through your veins is relief at the familiar face or terror at the fact that he's here.  When you finally open your mouth to speak, it's a question instead of a response that falls out of your mouth.  "What are you doing here?"

Sans blinks in surprise, then raises a skeletal eyebrow.  "that's an interesting way to be," he comments.  "it, uh, doesn't really help me out though."

You shake your head, struggling to recollect yourself.  "Sorry," you mumble, "I'm fine.  I just didn't expect to see you."

Sans smiles a little.  "that's kind of the point of a surprise visit, kiddo," he explains, and he reaches out to tousle your hair.  After the events of the last month and the last few days in particular, any gesture made toward you is enough to make you flinch, and it's by sheer luck that you manage to repress your instincts enough to make the flinch seem more like a twitch of surprise rather than the brief flash of terror that it is.  If Sans sees, he doesn't comment, instead moving on as if nothing's happened.  "tibia honest, i was starting to feel like a bit of a lazybones, so i decided i'd walk around a bit and come visit you.  haven't seen you in a while, buddy.  papyrus is starting to feel kind of bonely."

You barely register the attempted humour.  There's no accusation in his tone, but you feel a wave of guilt wash over you yet again, and you duck your head down, fighting to keep your shoulders from hunching.  You'd be willing to bet that at least a third of the messages on your phone are probably from Papyrus, all of them wondering where you are or when you can come over or if you're still breathing at all.  "Sorry," you mumble again, because it really seems to be the only thing you know how to say these days, "my phone is dead.  The battery is empty and I couldn't really tell anybody, or I would have-"

Sans lays a hand on your shoulder with a considerate gentleness and gives a light squeeze.  You bite back a wince, knowing that there's no way he can tell that you still have a bruise there, the same way you still have bruises just about everywhere.  "it's fine, frisk," he assures you.  "nobody's mad.  besides, it's not like anyone could press charges for dead batteries."

You’re not sure that you believe that, given recent experiences with people being able to find a way to blame you for just about everything you’ve done, but you try to nod and look like you’re convinced.  It doesn’t feel like it’s working very well, but you keep it up anyway, forcing a smile.

Just like he did at the hospital, Sans sees right through you, and you watch the corners of his ever-present grin slide fractionally closer to a frown, and you can’t help feeling responsible for it.  You keep your eyes on the ground as, very abruptly, you become aware of all the stares fixed on you and Sans, and you too frown, biting your lip and wrapping your arms around yourself the way you always do when you feel the most exposed. 

Sans tugs lightly on one of your fingers.  “hey, kiddo,” he begins, “what do you say we drop by and pay the others a visit?”  His tone is as hopeful as it is concerned. 

You shake your head.  “I can’t,” you murmur.  “My daddy is expecting me to get back, and so is Emily.  I don’t want to make him…” You pause, stopping yourself before you can say the truth.  “I don’t want to make them worry.”

You almost miss the way Sans’s jaw tightens, almost, but through the thin veil of hair hanging in front of your face, you see it just barely.  You don’t know what it means, but his voice remains unchanged when he replies.  “c’mon, frisk, please,” he murmurs.  “we’ll get you home in one piece.  everyone just wants to see you.  you don’t have to stay long if you don’t want to, but pap and the others, they’d really like to know if you’re okay.”

The grip of your fingers on your sides tightens.  They’d really like to know if you’re okay.  You could tell them right now that you’re not, and you’re pretty sure that Sans could too.  You’re the antonym of okay and everything hurts and you really don’t think you can face all these people who care about you so much when you know that you don’t deserve it after how much you’ve hurt them, but after several seconds of hesitation, you nod anyway because really, what have you got to lose?  You can’t come up with a good excuse not to without revealing everything, and besides, if you’re going to avoid talking to all of them on the phone, you have to give them a chance to talk to you in person.  It’s the least you can do.

Sans smiles. “thanks, frisk,” he says, and he offers you his hand.  “c’mon, follow me.  I know a shortcut.”

A short walk and a brief tingling sensation later, you find yourself shifting very abruptly from walking down the street to standing in the living room of a house you don't immediately recognise, and you stumble a few steps, disoriented.  Sans catches you by the arm to stabilise you before you can fall, and his grip is reassuringly firm.  "easy there, buddy," he tells you.

From a few rooms over, you can smell something burning and hear hushed voices, and then something bangs loudly and it sounds like a pot dropping on the stove, but you're not entirely sure.  Someone mutters something, and there's a nervous chuckle you instantly recognise as belonging to Papyrus before he even speaks.  "SANS?" he calls out, "IS THAT YOU?"

His voice is as loud as you remember but even though you're still disoriented, it's not enough to make you flinch, and you nudge off Sans's hand gently just as he replies.  "sure is, pap," he assures his brother with a light hearted tone.  "i'm the bona-fide, real deal."

"NGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Papyrus yells from the other room.  "SANS, THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!!  AND YOU'VE USED IT BEFORE!!!"

"it may be old, but it's always humerus," Sans replies, winking at you, and you smile a bit as you wrap your arms back around your sides and look around a bit, turning in place.  The more you look around, the more you realise that this is Sans and Papyrus's old house, and you wonder how on earth that could have be.

Papyrus groans again and interrupts your train of thought, but this time, someone else beats him to the reprimand.  "I honestly have no idea where you get all these horrible jokes, Sans, but I would not object if you put them back where you found them.  They're painful," Mettaton declares, and your smile broadens a bit more.

Sans winks at you.  "well, if it makes you feel better, i found something you won't want me to put back while i was out," he says, and you hug yourself a bit tighter at the look he gives you.

You hear Mettaton's surprised gasp as Papyrus drops whatever it is he's holding and something splatters.  "REALLY?" he yells, and you hear the clanking of his boots on the floor of the kitchen.  "WOWIE, I LOVE SURPRISES!!! WHAT DID YOU-? FRISK!!!!!"  As soon as Papyrus comes through the door, he sees you, and then he's running toward you and picking you up, swinging you around.  From the kitchen, Mettaton makes another surprised noise, but you can't pay attention because you're too busy focusing on Papyrus and the grin across his face as he spins with you in his arms.  After several moments, he abruptly stops spinning and presses you against him in a tight hug which, though it's comforting, makes you glad that your face is buried in his battle body so nobody can see the brief wince that flashes across your face.  Eventually, he pulls away to look at your face, though he makes no move to put you down.  "I HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE COMING OVER, MY TINY HUMAN FRIEND, OR I WOULD HAVE MADE SPAGHETTI EARLIER FOR YOU!!!"

"Did I hear you right?" Mettaton asks as he enters the room, as though it's possible to have misinterpreted Papyrus's yelling.  His eyes light up as soon as he sees you in Papyrus's arms, and then he too is hurrying over to hug you, taking you from Papyrus and squishing you against himself.  "Frisk, darling, it's been ages!"

You smile as much as you can and try to make sure your voice matches your facial expression.  "I know," you say quietly, and for the first time today your words are almost clear.  "It feels like forever for me too."

Mettaton's grip loosens as he pulls away, but he keeps you held up in his arms.  He's beaming.  "Well, darling, since I'm assuming you haven't gotten any of our messages or you would have replied, I believe it's time that we catch up.  Papyrus and I were just making some spaghetti, the proper way.  Would you care to join us?"  You nod once, deciding that maybe you can afford to spend a little bit of time here if you walk fast on the way home, and Mettaton seems to brighten even more before he turns his attention to Sans, who's still standing in the middle of the room, his typical smile looking vividly genuine for the moment.  "You're invited too, Sans," he comments, "and since you brought Frisk, I'll even excuse your...unique sense of humour... for the night."  He looks a bit pained as he says it, and you can't help but giggle.

Sans grins.  "thanks, mettaton," he says, "you're a real class-act.  i'd love to join you."

You can tell Mettaton's biting back a groan, but he smiles anyway, and as you look around, you notice that all the monsters are smiling.  You notice distantly that, despite all your reservations and the fact that it hurts a little to do so, you are too, and Mettaton grins.  "Then I think we have a plan.  Let's get cooking, darling," he says, and he whisks you away.

Two hours later, you have no idea how you lost track of the time, but you're smiling hard and laughing despite yourself and almost all tension has finally slipped away from your body as you pad around the kitchen and carefully avoid the small stains on the floor from where things have been splattered or otherwise spilled in the creative mayhem.

Cooking with Mettaton is a considerably safer and more methodical process than cooking with Undyne, but since both Papyrus and Sans are involved too, the whole attempt has had more than one diversion into less than professional territory.  You've been careful to avoid getting anything on your clothes, but at one point you'd wound up with sauce sprayed all over you when Sans had accidentally knocked Mettaton off balance and forced him to catch himself on the counter near you, which had been covered in tomatoes at the time and had led to your face temporarily becoming a ketchup-y splatterpaint until you'd had a chance to clean it off.

As it turns out, Mettaton's good at coming up with excuses to keep cooking and to keep talking long after you finish with the spaghetti, which is why you're still going strong on an attempt to make a cherry pie for Toriel, which Sans notes as being a berry worthy cause.  Mettaton barely resists groaning at that one.  Papyrus doesn't.  Sans just winds up laughing.

"Now then," Mettaton says, ignoring the skeleton's wheezing as he picks up a pie tin and reaches for some of the dough you've made, "we need to put this crust in here carefully so that the cherries can go in next- Papyrus, would you mind mixing these cherries together with the flour so we can put them in here?  And please don't worry about not stirring passionately enough, the more intact they are, the better."

"OF COURSE!" Papyrus accepts cheerfully as he takes the bowl full of flour you measured earlier and reaches for the cherries.  "I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM THE MASTER OF MIXING CHERRIES, THOUGH I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHY CHERRIES ARE BEING MIXED WITH FLOUR!"

"don't worry about it, bro," Sans encourages him, "just do it.  i'm sure it's easy as pie."  Papyrus yells loudly.  You laugh a bit.

Mettaton winces and looks like he deeply regrets giving Sans permission to make any sort of puns for any sort of reason, but through some superhuman feat of will, he manages to not comment on it again, instead looking at you and your grinning face with a smile.  "Frisk, darling, will you be alright to cut the lattice strips?" he asks, eyeing the knife by your hand as you roll out some dough.  "If you'd rather I do it, that's perfectly fine-"

"I'm okay," you assure him.  "I've done a little bit of cooking before, so I'll be fine."

Mettaton nods his understanding.  "Alright, darling, if you're sure.  You can change your mind at any time."

You shoot him a thumbs up, and he smiles.  You set aside your rolling pin, then pick up your knife and carefully eye the tin that Mettaton is so carefully putting crust into, trying to estimate how long you should cut the strips while down the counter, Papyrus mixes berries and Sans gives him 'moral support', or claims to.  As you decide on a length, you nod to yourself, and start to slice.  You make the first cut in careful silence, then speak up once you decide that you really are comfortable enough with the knife to multitask.  "So where is everyone else?" you ask, noting that the sun outside the window is starting to sink and welcome in the sunset.  You're not about to complain about the current company, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't a bit surprised that you hadn't seen any sign of Alphys or Undyne, or even Toriel and Asgore.

"Well," Mettaton explains, "as of now, the only ones who live here are the skeleton brothers, since it is their home from the underground, though I have no idea how it got up here from Snowdin."  He gives a wry smile.  "I imagine that Toriel and Asgore might still be investigating on the behalf of the new school they're opening.  As for Alphys and Undyne, I'm sure they have their own things to keep the two of them occupied."  You don't entirely understand it, but you don't miss the humour that lights up his eyes.

"What kind of things?" you ask as you peel away an extra piece of dough and start a pile to be rolled out again.

Mettaton snorts.  "Never mind that, darling.  Focus more on the other half.  Are you excited about the school?"

You nod, since that at least is true.  You're thrilled that Toriel has this opportunity. You just don't know that you'll have a chance to be a part of it.  "I think it will be nice, really," you admit.  "It'll be good to start young with kids getting used to each other."

Mettaton nods.  "I think you're right," he agrees.  He pauses to shift the pie tin so he can have a better angle to press the crust to the pan.  "Toriel actually asked me to be a teacher there, for music or something of that like.  She thought it might be something I'd enjoy," he notes.

You look over to him briefly.  "Did you accept?"

He smiles at you as he shakes his head.  "I couldn't, darling.  I appreciate it, of course, but my role in life is as a star.  Once we get everything settled out here, I'm going to take off and see what I can find.  I'm hoping to convince Blooky and Shyren to join me when I go- they both have extraordinary talent."  He sees the expression on your face and his eyes instantly widen.  "Don't look like that, darling," he tells you, "we'll be back on a regular basis.  Even stars visit their families."  There's something in his tone that you don't quite recognise, but you think there's something more to his thoughts on the subject.  You don't push it, though.

"That'll be good," you say.  "I think the three of you would make a great team.  I think humans would really like you too."

Mettaton's eyes are shining.  "Thank you darling," he says, "you're too kind."

You smile, and you're just about to respond when Papyrus cuts you off.  "METTATON, I HAVE FINISHED MIXING THE BERRIES!" he yells.  "ARE YOU READY WITH THE CRUST?"

His voice is no louder than usual, but you weren't expecting it and so you wind up jumping about three feet into the air, the hand holding the knife jerking sharply, and you hiss in pain as you feel it slice into the soft skin of your opposite palm and drop the blade immediately.  Mettaton looks to you in concern as you move your hand away from the dough, blood already welling up around the cut, and he sets down his tin instantly.  "Frisk, darling, are you alright?" he asks.

You nod, wincing a bit.  "I'm fine," you say, "it's just a little cut."

Mettaton shakes his head.  "It may not be lethal, but that's more than a little cut, sweetie," he says.  He takes your hand and reaches for your arm.  "Here, let's pull this back so you don't bleed on it-"

Too late, you realise what's happening, and fear flashes across your face as he starts to roll up the sleeve of your sweater.  "No!" you yell sharply, and you jerk your hand away with far more force than he's expecting, breaking free easily and knocking yourself off balance so that you stumble backward and fall down hard on the kitchen floor, sending pain shooting through your arms and a wince flashing across your face.  

Mettaton gapes at you in shock, and for a moment, you think that maybe it's just because you had such a strong reaction, think that maybe you have a chance of explaining this away somehow if you're creative enough, and then you realise that he's not staring at you, or at least not all of you.  Just like the skeleton brothers, he's staring at the several inches of skin on your left forearm that are now revealed and covered in ugly, mottled purple.

Very suddenly, the kitchen is dead silent.  Sans is staring at you, and Papyrus is still holding his bowl full of cherries.  Mettaton looks winded.  "Frisk?" he asks.

Your words cut off in your mouth, and you have no idea what to say so you reach for the first thing that comes to mind as you desperately tug the sleeve down, not caring about the resulting pain that flashes cross your face.  "It's nothing," you say, "I just- I fell down some stairs, and I hit my arms-"

"I DIDN'T KNOW THEY MADE STAIRS THAT LOOKED LIKE HANDS," Papyrus comments, and his voice, despite being as loud and innocent as ever, sounds uncertain.  "DO THOSE EXIST IN A LOT OF PLACES?"

You shake your head, then stop yourself and nod, then stop yourself again, not sure of how to respond.  Sans's eyes are locked on you.  "yeah, frisk," he starts, and his tone is deceptively calm, even though you can see the intensity in his eyes, "are those stairs easy to find?  or are they exclusive to your place?"

Your heart pounds against your ribs, and you tighten your hands into painful, bloody fists.  "I...I don't know," you say, "they might be other places, I don't know.  I only tend to- I don't usually- I mean-"

"hey papyrus," Sans says, cutting you off, eyes still locked on your face, "do you remember what happened to the recipe book i used that time i made the weird quiche?"

Papyrus looks confused, eyes twitching between you and his brother.  "YES, SANS, OF COURSE I REMEMBER.  IT'S ON MY BOOKSHELF.  BUT IS NOW REALLY THE TIME TO-?"

"it's always the time to go find new recipes to experiment with, pap," Sans tells him.  "take mettaton with you and find the book, would you?  i think we need a couple new recipes."

Mettaton shoots Sans a look which he ignores, or rather returns with an undertone you can make out clearly: get Papyrus away from here.  Mettaton looks uncertain for a moment, but then his jaw tightens and he nods.  "Yes, Papyrus, darling, I think Sans is right.  Lead the way, will you?"

After a moment of hesitation, Papyrus nods.  "O-OF COURSE," he stutters, for perhaps the first time since you've met him.  "FOLLOW ME AND I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL FIND US SOME SPECTACULAR RECIPES TO MAKE, WITH YOUR HELP, OF COURSE."

Mettaton only nods, and he shoots you a final concerned glance and follows it up with a heavy look in Sans's direction as he crosses the room to Papyrus's side and ushers him quietly away from where you and Sans remain standing perfectly still, gazes locked.  Papyrus keeps looking back all the way up the stairs, but he doesn't speak, and it's not until you hear the upstairs door open and shut that Sans finally moves, crossing the room towards you with a speed you would never have expected from him while you're still frozen.

He takes your hands gently, and instinctively, you try to struggle out of his grasp.  Much to your shock though, his grip is a lot tighter than you would have expected as he pulls your sleeve up all the way and sees the carnage, the ugly blues and purples that make up your arm, the still healing scratches from the shards of ceramic that cover the skin.  A long moment passes, and when Sans speaks, he doesn't look at you.  "who did this?" he asks quietly.

You shake your head, desperate.  "Nobody," you insist, "nobody did it.  It was an accident.  I just, I fell-"

Sans cuts you off with a shake of his head, and his eyes shut like he's in pain.  "no," he says, tone flat, "no, kid, don't lie to me.  i know what it looks like when humans fall off a bike, when they fall down steps or out of a tree.  they don't look like this.  who did it?"

You don't respond.

After several moments of silence, Sans laughs quietly, and it doesn't sound at all amused.  "y'know, frisk," he says, "i thought something was off when you were in the hospital a couple weeks ago.  papyrus said he found you being carried out of a house, and i thought it sounded off, so i looked, and i was right.  it was nowhere near that park, which means you were walking alone in the cold for i don't even know how long, and you told us you were fine.  then you couldn't have visitors.  then that secretary caused a mess, and then you stopped answering messages."  He pauses a moment, letting the weight of all his evidence set in.  "and so i did some looking, and as it turns out, that mountain we were under, that you went on? everyone says that nobody who climbs it comes back down.  do you see the dots i'm connecting here, kiddo?"

You shake your head.  "It was an accident," you whisper.

Sans sighs, grip tightening briefly only to loosen again in an instant.  "please, frisk," he murmurs, "stop trying to tell me that."  You shut your mouth.  Silence returns for several seconds, looming threatening between you.  "who did this, buddy?"

You pause.  You have no idea what to say.  "I can't tell you," you manage eventually, and against your own will, your voice is hoarse.  

Sans still isn't looking at you.  His eyes are still on your arm.  "and why is that?"

You clamp your eyes shut.  "Because it's not just about me.  I'm not the only one who can get hurt."

Sans laughs that humourless laugh again.  "buddy, only one or not, this thing you've got going on here isn't really working for me."

"Then I'm sorry," you say, and you pull your arm away from Sans.  "But I can't change it."  You tug your sleeve down and stand up.

Sans grabs your hand.  "oh no," he says planly, "frisk, you aren't going back there."

You shake your head and try to free yourself.  "I have to," you say, "I don't have a choice-"

"you do have a choice, kid," Sans insists, "you have the choice to save yourself for once, or maybe let someone else save you instead of doing-whatever this is you're doing."  He doesn't let go of your hand.  "frisk, you saved all of us.  you have to let us help-"

Instinct overcomes you, and this time, you pull harder than ever before, and you can see that Sans is startled the moment you break away from his grip and stumble toward the door.  "You can't," you insist, and your heart thumps a tattoo onto the inside of your chest with the truth of it.  This time, you see Sans's face, and the confusion on it breaks something in you to pieces.  This isn't his fault, this isn't anyone's fault but yours, and you will not drag them into this war.  "I'm so sorry, Sans," you whisper.  "You can't."

Sans blinks at you for a moment.  "Frisk-" he begins, and he steps toward you, and finally, it sets you off.  Adrenaline pulses into your system.  You don't know what to do, what to say, but you know you have to get away from here, and your pulse pounds in your veins as you yank open the door and run outside.

"Frisk!" Sans yells, and he reaches after you, but you aren't listening.  Your feet pound against the pavement without direction, and you keep your head down as you run as fast as you can, thankful that you've learned how to disappear by now.  

By the time Sans gets his bearings back, you're long gone.

By the time you get home, your father is waiting.

Chapter Text

You freeze.

It's the only thing you know how to do.  Your heart stutters to a painful stop in your chest.  You have no words.

The silence in the room is suffocating as you look to the couch and see your father sitting there, the judge and jury all rolled into one, and you notice distantly that Emily is sitting on his right side, her hands folded in her lap as her fingers twitch.  The moment she sees you, you watch something panicked and hopeless flash in her eyes before it disappears as she looks away and forces you to focus back on the ominous silence and the thunder in your father's eyes.

You tighten your hands into fists almost as an instinctive gesture to try and keep them from shaking.  It doesn't work, but the pain from your fingernails digging into your palms is almost distracting enough to remind you to breathe, almost.  You can't feel your legs.  You can't feel anything.  Your father has never done anything to you in front of Emily or any of his girlfriends before, but you can see in his eyes that he's past the point of caring now, that Emily's presence will not save you, that nobody's presence could.  

The silence holds.  The world waits.  

Then, thunder.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he asks, and his voice is a low rumble that makes both you and Emily jump at the sound of it.  You know all too well the cost of silence, and desperate instinct tells you to respond immediately with anything you can come up with, but when you open your mouth, nothing comes out.  Your words all ran away the moment you entered the door, leaving you at the same time as your heartbeat, and you have no idea what to say.  Emily's hands tighten from where they were splayed out on her thighs.  You want to focus on them, on their movement, on anything but your father, but your gaze is locked on his face and the storms in his eyes as he leans forward to slam his hand down on the coffee table.  "Answer me!"

Emily jumps.  "Michael-"

"Shut up!" your father roars, and there's so much fury in his voice that you flinch, actually flinch, for the first time in you don't know how long, and Emily gasps as you fling your arms up on instinct to cover your head and you turn your face away, shrinking into yourself with a terrified tremor as you choke on air.  

“I’m sorry,” you gasp out, “I’m sorry-”

“I’m sick to death of sorry!  If you’re so sorry, then why the hell do you keep doing this?” You barely have time to register Emily's terrified squeak and the sound of movement and the blur of your father in your periphery before there's a hand grasped tight around your forearm and pulling it down from where it's covering your face.  

"No, please-" you begin, but the word cuts off immediately in your throat as it turns into a gasp of pain when the hand not holding your arm connects hard with your face, sending little lightning bolts flashing through your head in screaming white bursts.

Emily gives a little scream and stands up from the couch.  “Michael!” she yells, but he isn’t listening, not anymore, and his eyes are locked on you with lightning cracking in their depths. 

“You,” he spits, fingers digging into your arm, “you think you know everything, don’t you?”  He shakes you once.  “Don’t you?”  You gasp sharply, and he shakes you again, but he doesn’t wait for an answer as he lets go, all but flinging you toward the wall when he does.  You connect with a sharp thud and crumple to the ground, and a pained noise is knocked out of you without your permission, and you think you hear Emily scream but your vision is blurring too much for you to notice anything beyond the fact that from behind your father, you can see her, hands clasped over her mouth as she shakes.

She’s crying.

Your father approaches you with rage echoing off his every step, and you don’t even have time to curl up into yourself before his foot buries itself in your stomach.   You cough, hard, and tears stream from your eyes but you have no air to cry out with or breathe with or do anything with, and your hands are loose because you no longer have the strength or concentration to tighten them around the all-consuming pain tearing through you as your father yells something else you don’t make out over the white noise in your head and he buries his foot in you again.  You think you hear a rib crack this time, or maybe you feel it, but you’re not sure.

“Stop it, Michael!” One of Emily’s hands moves from over her mouth to reach toward your father and she steps forward.  Stop, she mouths, or maybe she yells it, you can’t really tell, because very suddenly, you find that you are no longer on the floor, you’re hanging above it with your father’s hands around your neck.

Someone is screaming now, you’re sure of it.  It has to be Emily, because she’s the only one here besides your father who has air to scream.  Anything you might have once had in your lungs is now gone, choked out by your father’s rage, and you struggle, eyelids flickering and hands scrabbling at your father’s as if you have a chance, as if you’ve ever been able to stop him. 

“Stop!”  Over the haze of pain and fear, you hear Emily’s voice, cutting through the black that’s starting to creep in at the edge of your vision and the pathetic choking noises you hadn’t even realized you were making.  Your father is still holding you by your throat, and then arms wrap around him from behind, desperate and reaching.  “Stop, Michael, stop!” Emily is screaming, and you think you can hear tears in her voice too.  “You’re killing her, you have to stop!”

“I said stay out of this!” your father roars.

Emily only sobs harder.  “I won’t,” she yells, and her voice cracks as she does, and then your father lets go of you to slam an arm back at her and shake her off, sending her stumbling backward and down where she cracks her head loudly on the side of the couch on her way to the ground.  She cries out in pain, and you curl up weakly right where you’ve fallen, coughing and gasping desperately for air.

As Emily lays on the ground for a moment like a puppet with cut strings, groaning and crying and holding her head while she tries to move, you brace yourself for your father’s onslaught to continue.  Your throat is rubbed sandpaper raw and you can’t breathe or think straight for all this pain, and the only thought that makes it through your head is this is it, I’m going to die. 

But the next blow never comes.

After several long moments of silence, you peek up from under your arm, still sobbing.  Your father is looking at Emily with some expression of disgust on his face, or maybe horror, you’re not really sure which.  In all the times he’s had fights like this with you, he’s never worn that expression, but you know what the last time was that you saw it, and the memory makes you cringe. 

His hands tighten into fists, and you think you see them shaking.  He turns his head to glare at you, still coughing on the ground.  “You bitch,” he spits out, and his voice sounds almost hoarse with some emotion you can’t quite identify, “you little bitch.”  He stares at you for a second longer, and then his face breaks apart into a sneer or a scowl or something else full of hatred, and you have no idea where he’s going but he heads for the door and when he slams it behind him, you flinch.

You hold yourself in anticipatory rigidity for several seconds before finally, it occurs to you that he won’t come back in the door, that he’s not going to enter through and surprise you with another attack, at least not now, and all the tension washes out of you in a flood.  Your muscles relax and loosen, but as soon as they do, you start to feel the ache, really feel it, and as your heart stutters back into beating, you start crying harder than you were before, unable to hold back anything anymore.  Great, heaving sobs wrack through your frame, and for a moment, you forget all about Emily, curling into yourself and coughing, your throat burning and your limbs aching and your mind fuzzy with the lingering fear.  It’s one thing when your father beats you, but trying to kill you is something else altogether, and you have no idea how you’re supposed to react anymore.

Someone is crawling over to you, and you’re reminded very suddenly that Emily is still in the room, but you can’t bring yourself to address her.  “Francis,” she whispers, “oh my god, Francis, sweetheart.”  Her voice is right next to you and then her hands are on your aching body making the pain flare up, and you stiffen at the contact and sob harder even as she pulls you into her arms and presses you against herself.   “Oh God, sweetie, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.  It’ll be okay, Francis, it’ll be okay, I promise I’ll make it okay-“

“No you won’t,” you choke out between sobs, cutting her off.  “You can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed, he hates me and it’s my fault-”

“No, no, no, Francis, shh, it’s not your fault,” Emily insists, shaking her head and petting your hair.  “None of this is your fault, sweetie, none of this is your fault-”

“Yes it is,” you cry into her shoulder.  “I knew he was gonna be mad, but I just wanted to be with the monsters again and-”

“It’s okay, Francis,” Emily tells you again, shushing you quietly.  “It’s not your fault.  It’s not your fault-”

“He’s my Dad,” you whisper brokenly, desperately, your eyes clamped shut.  You can barely feel the pain of your injuries over the ache in your chest.  “He’s my Dad, he’s not supposed to-”

“I know,” Emily murmurs, and she rocks you gently as you press your face in her shoulder and she rests her head on yours.  “I know, sweetie.  I know.”

You stay like that for several minutes, Emily holding you in her arms while you sob and bleed and can’t breathe, and she rubs soothing patterns along your bruised back.  It takes a long time before your crying finally abates enough for you to be coherent again, and when that time comes, Emily is gentle as she lets you out of your arms.  She looks at you with concern as you shift to kneel in front of her, and carefully, she takes your hands.  You feel her gaze on your face, but you watch her fingers instead of meeting her eyes.  "Okay, Francis," she says, "I'm going to pull up your sleeves, alright?  I need to see... I need to see how bad it is."

You nod without looking up and brace yourself for the reaction.  In your periphery, Emily pauses to bite her lip, then forces herself to move on, tugging gently at the fabric covering your arms.  You hear her inhale sharply in as if in pain when she pulls back the sleeve and catches sight of the lowest edge of the bruises.  She has to pause before she continues, and by the time she gets your arm halfway uncovered, her hands are shaking.   

She lets go of your sleeve and takes your hands in hers again.  "Oh, Francis," she murmurs, like she doesn't know what else to say, and you bite your lip because you don't know what else to say either.  You don't think she's going to look at the other arm, or bother pulling the sleeve up further.  You don't think she wants to.  "How long has it been like this?"

You don't know if she's asking about the situation with your father or the situation with your arms, so you decide to answer for the second question because it's easier to pinpoint and easier to explain.  "A couple weeks," you murmur, "ever since I got back from the hospital."  You still can't meet her eyes.

There's a long pause.  Emily holds your hands throughout it, and she opens her mouth as if to say something then closes it again.  A long time passes before she tries again.  "Alright," she says softly, "I'll admit it, Francis.  I don't know what to do.  But we're going to figure it out, okay?  We're going to get out of this...whatever this is."  She squeezes your hands gently.  "And we're going to start by getting you patched up."  That catches your attention, and finally, your eyes shoot up to meet hers.  She's smiling, or at least she's trying.  "It's going to be okay, Francis, I promise.  Just trust me, alright?  I promise it will be okay."

You nod slowly, hesitantly.  She lets your hands go.  "I'm going to go get some ice-packs and band-aids, some first aid things," she tells you, "but I will be back, just as soon as I can.  I promise.  Will you be alright here on your own?"  You nod.  "Are you sure?"  Another nod.  You force yourself to look up at her, and she smiles, as much as she can, and she lays a hand on the side of your face.  "I'll be back, Francis," she says, "I promise.  I’ll be back.”

And then she’s gone. 

Three hours have passed since Emily left, and as you sit in the kitchen, you study your hands intently to keep yourself from focusing on the clock too much, but you can't help being distinctly aware of the time.  It's 12:04 in the morning, and with every minute that passes in silence and leaves you to yourself, you realise with increasing certainty that you have absolutely no idea of where to go from here.  

Your stomach is in knots, and nearly every inch of you aches.  Even your fingers are starting to hurt from where you've woven them tightly together to give yourself a hand to hold while you wait, and maybe if you were a bit braver you could solve that problem yourself by just letting go, but in the early hours of the morning with nobody in the house but yourself and the knowledge that a few hours before, your father tried to kill you not fifty feet away from where you now sit, it's hard to be brave.  Any noise outside makes you jump, and every moment that passes without Emily coming back for you makes you start to question if she's actually going to, if she ever will.

You clamp your eyes shut, tightening your grip on your hands.  Of course she'll come back.  Of course she will.  She promised.

But she would not be the first to lie.

You pull out your phone from your pocket, having finally relocated it to somewhere easily accessible in case you need to run, and you flip it open, dismissing the alerts about all your missed messages to look at the time.  12:08.  The clock is crawling.

Desperate for a distraction, you go into your message file, looking for the start of it because you can’t stand looking at all the messages you’ve missed by now and all the concern the monsters hold for you, and you shudder when you realise how much pain you’ve caused them.  You never meant for this to happen, never.  You’d just wanted to come home.  You’d just wanted him to be proud of you, once, to want you like he almost did when Mom was alive.

You should have known.

You snap the phone shut, shoving it in your pocket and deciding very abruptly that you can’t actually look at those messages from the first days on the surface, not right now.  You need to be focused on what’s going on around you, not walking down memory lane, regardless of how much safer memory lane feels.  You can’t afford to let your mind wander and think of your friends and the way they all care so much about you, how worried they’ve been.  You can’t think about the shock in Mettaton’s eyes when he saw the bruises on your arms, the look on Sans’s face when he realized he was right.  You can’t.

As you attempt to shove away the untimely thoughts, a different one flashes across your mind, a brief, painful worry that maybe, just maybe, you might not be forgiven for leaving, and you shove it away instantly, struggling to focus on the more optimistic side of things.  You think of Papyrus’s unwavering friendliness and dedication, of Alphys’s timid support and Undyne’s passion for everything, especially everything that involves helping her friends.  You think of Asgore carrying you home from that first conference and offering you his best wishes, and Toriel hugging you every time she sees you like it’s the most important task she’s ever had in her life.  You think of Sans standing in the judgment hall Underground, just before you met Asgore, and the easy grin on his face.  I’m rootin’ for ya, kid. 

They’ll forgive you.  Of course they’ll forgive you.  They’re your family.

Even through all the fear still coiled in your stomach, you feel something warm and strong and determined bud to life amidst all the knots tied in your chest, and you close your eyes, forcing yourself to believe in the thought that you will see them again, and this situation will be made right.

The door opens in the hallway, startling you from your thoughts, and you jump in surprise, banging your knee on the underside of the table as you let go of your hands and stand, moving quickly toward the entryway with words already falling out of your mouth.  “Emily,” you begin, but then the air is knocked out of your lungs and cold fear takes up residence where the oxygen once was, and the world stops turning, freezing in the exact instant that you meet your father’s eyes.

As he closes the door, your father smiles, an alcoholic smile twisted with amusement.  “Don’t you wish, sweetheart,” he spits out.

You step backwards, recoiling in fear, but you don’t say a word.  Instinctively, you shift into the same stance you’d held in the fight with Undyne, when you couldn’t go anywhere and just had to defend yourself where you stood, and the arm you hold in front of yourself lifts up marginally as if once again supporting that invisible shield.  You try to set your face in some neutral expression, some semblance of bravery, but you know it isn’t working, and you know he sees your fear.

The smile twists into a sneer.  “What’s the matter, Francis?  Need someone to hide behind, you little bitch?”

You don’t respond.

He moves faster than he should be able to, faster than you can react.  In one moment, he’s standing before you, and the next he’s suddenly at your side, and he grabs your arm and twists it hard behind your back.  You scream in shock and pain as agony floods through the shoulder joint he just dislocated, and you stumble forward or try to, but he grabs the other shoulder before you can and spins you around to face him, grabbing you by your upper arms and lifting you up bodily to slam you against the wall near the door.  Electric bolts of white hot agony shoot through the bruises on your back, and your scream cuts off as the wind is knocked out of you.

Your father’s eyes flash.  “You little bitch,” he hisses, “this is your fault.  You’re the reason why she’s gone!”  You don’t know who he’s talking about now, if it’s Emily or your mother or maybe both of them because if you hadn’t come along then neither of them would be missing at the moment, but you don’t have time to worry about it because your father lifts you away from the wall again only to slam you hard into it once more.  “You and all your little bullshit lies, and all your stupid stunts!”  

He pulls you away to slam you back again, but instinct kicks in and you know that if you don’t get away from him, you’ll die here, that between the alcohol and the anger it’s no different than the last time except that he won’t be sorry and he won’t stop himself.  You struggle desperately, moving your shoulders in his iron grip, and then you kick out hard with one of your legs, trying to shock him into letting go long enough for you to run to your room or outside or somewhere where he won’t be able to get you, anywhere where he isn’t, but when your foot connects with his chest, he barely even blinks at it and the rage in his eyes only deepens.

“You think you’re going to get away from this?” he roars.  “You think you’re going to escape what you’ve done?”  His grip tightens on your arms, and he slams you back again, and this time when your head connects with the wall, you hear a sharp crack, and you don’t know if it’s you or the drywall but there’s something warm and sticky spreading through the back of your hair and matting it down, and the world spins.  “You are never! Leaving! This! HOUSE!”  Every word is punctuated by another slam back against the wall, and you’re no longer fighting, you’re no longer doing anything because you can’t think or move or breathe through the pain that’s screaming in your skull.  You open your mouth to scream, but no words come out, and you don’t even know if the choked whimper that you think you hear is just a figment of your imagination or it’s actually something real, not that it matters either way.

The world is spinning and the edges are going black and you feel nauseous and exhausted and terrified all at once, but your limbs are no longer obeying your command and everything is blurring before your eyes, spinning like some sort of twisted carousel, and you know that you have lost this fight but you want so badly to keep trying anyway, for Emily, for your friends, for your family.  They want you.  They need you.

You don’t get the chance.

There’s wildness in your father’s eyes that you know all too well.  For a moment, the almost surreal quality that the world has taken on blurs reality, and you wonder subconsciously if this really is your father, because his face is no longer clear enough for you to make out really, and you know that he’s not the only one who ever wanted you dead.  Then again, Mom’s been gone a long time now, and you wonder if soon Daddy will be gone too, and then all of you will be gone forever all because of you.

Reality shifts.  You’re back in the moment, and your father pulls you away from the wall, and you see that it really is him, but it doesn’t matter anymore as he slams you back against the wall again, and your head connects once more with the drywall, hard and fast and final.  You don’t know if you hear that last crack of your skull caving in against the wall or if you feel it, but the blackness and the numbness take over blissfully quickly after only a brief moment of final agony sirens through your head in a death toll.  You don’t even have time to be afraid of what comes next for you anymore, or really, enough time to be anything, because as abruptly as everything had once begun for you, now it ends.

Your soul bursts.

Chapter Text

The strangest part of dying is never the act itself.  It’s always the after.

You float somewhere empty, hanging in the balance while your life plays out before you in flashes, the most important scenes called back from the depths of memory into the light.  Every person has moments that shape them.  These are yours.

For the first year of your life, you have no mother.

Or maybe that's not true.  You have a mother, you know you do.  You can hear her sometimes, moving around in the room next to yours, her footsteps soft on the carpet but forced in their movement.   The sound of her walking gets further away and then closer on an almost cyclical rhythm, like she's walking back and forth in her room all day, the same way you roll back and forth in your crib all the time because you want to get out and explore this big room but nobody lets you.

You scream sometimes when nobody comes for too long, because you start to get hungry or you need to be changed or you just want to explore.  Your screams can last for hours in the day, until your throat is too raw to keep screaming, and sometimes the woman with the scared young face and the bitten off fingernails and the chopped short brown hair comes into the room, and she'll hold onto the edge of your crib and stare at you for a long time while you scream, her eyes wide and her mouth a terrified 'o'.  Her knuckles are white from holding the crib too hard.  It looks like it hurts.

You scream some more.  She stares.

If you scream in the night, somebody will come for you.

It's never the woman with the bitten off fingernails, not in the evenings, though you don't know why.  You think maybe it connects with the low voice you hear down the hallway sometimes, or in the room next door, the one that murmurs things you don't understand like it will be alright, Sarah, and stay here Sarah, I'll handle this, and Sarah, did you remember to feed Francis today?  You never hear the answer, but the woman never comes in the evenings, and instead, he does.

Your father has short black hair, and his eyes are grey like the morning light that drifts through your nursery window, or the clouds on the days when it’s rainy.  His face is all sharp angles and youth, but there's something grown up in it too, something aged and worried when he comes into your nursery and finds that you're screaming bloody murder, and when he picks you up, you can almost feel the tiredness in his muscles when he bounces you awkwardly against him and sings off tune.  You don't think he knows how to take care of a baby, but you like the way it feels when he tries, and you like the sound of his voice when he says your name and tells you to suck on your bottle and helps you the way the woman with the bitten off nails never does.  

"Hey there, Francis," he says every day when he picks you up, without any kind of warning or prefacing baby talk, "You do okay today?"

When you're seven months old, your first word is Daddy.  He gives you a tired smile.  The woman with the bitten off nails cries.

When you're nine months old, the woman comes in to visit you again.  You're standing at the edge of your crib and holding onto the bars, pulling on them experimentally and wondering if they'll fall down if you pull hard enough.  You hope so.  It's boring in here, but the house outside looks interesting.  You know you can crawl around, because you do it sometimes in the evening when Daddy's home, but you want to try to walk like he does.  It looks like fun, and it looks easier on your knees and faster than crawling, but it's hard to practice when you're stuck here in this plastic cage during the day.

You want to call for somebody to help you, but you know that if Daddy isn't home nobody will come, so instead, you decide to help yourself.  You hold onto the plastic bars and try to pull yourself onto your feet, only to fall down almost instantly.  It doesn't stop you, and you try again and again and again, until finally, you grow tired of trying because you're not getting anywhere and so you scream a bit because someone ought to hear that at least.

It's nearly five minutes before the door to your nursery opens, and the woman with the bitten off nails walks toward you.  You're still screaming, and her eyes are wide as she approaches you.  She's skittish and flinches when you yell, and so you yell a little less, and you notice that the quieter you get, the closer she’ll come to you, albeit cautiously.  Eventually, you stop crying altogether, and after a long time, she finally approaches the crib where you're at, and she stares at you like she's never seen you before.

"Francis?" she whispers, and you can't tell if she's asking a question or if she knows it's you, but you recognise your name so you look at her, and when you open your mouth, little cooing noises fall out.  She looks startled.  "Francis," she repeats, and sounds almost scared.

You reach for her curiously, and she pulls back with a startled little noise and a gasp, and your balance is thrown off by the fact that she doesn't catch you so you fall again.  You look at her in confusion, and she stares back in terror.  You stay like that for several seconds, and then she moves forward and slowly takes your hand, feeling her way around the fingers like she's trying to memorise them.  Her hand is cold and wet, which is strange because Daddy's hands are never anything but warm.  You don't entirely like the feel of it and so you squirm a bit, but she keeps holding onto your hand until eventually, she maneuvers the fingers so they're pointing at her, and you stop because this is unusual and you think she's trying to tell you something.

Her eyes are closed, and her face is pale in the dim lighting of the nursery.  Her lip quivers as she makes you point to her, and then she opens her eyes, and you can see that they're dark brown and terrified.  "Mommy," she says hoarsely, and her voice cracks.

You're confused, so you shake your head like you've seen adults do when they don't agree and you make uncertain little noises.  The hold on your hand tightens, and the woman nods.  "Mommy," she says again.  

You look at her in confusion, then open your mouth, struggling to get your lips around the strange syllables.  "Mommy?" you ask, poorly attempting to mimic her, and she nods.  "My mommy?"  She nods again, and the grip on your hand tightens for a moment before she moves to lift you up out of the cradle and hold you for a moment, even though she's never held you before.  She doesn't hold you like Daddy does, and you think she knows even less about how to take care of a baby than him, and you squirm uncomfortably in her arms until she finally shudders and puts you on the ground.  You settle down instantly, crawling your way over to something that you can pull yourself up with to try the whole walking thing again.

Mommy watches for a second, her eyes following you.  You feel them there, but you don't pay attention, and after a while, they disappear altogether from focusing on you, as if she's lost interest.  Mommy braces herself against the wall like she's the one who needs support walking, and then she leaves the room without saying a word.  You hear shuffling noises.  The door down the hall closes and doesn't open again for six hours.

You keep learning to walk. 

You're seventeen months old the first time Mommy gets mad.  She's working in the kitchen and ignoring you mostly, and you're walking around the kitchen trying to see if there's anything interesting to look at.  When you talk to Mommy, she either tends to twitch you away or ignore you altogether, so you've learned to stop doing that, and you instead focus your attention on exploring the kitchen, running your hands along the legs of the table and enjoying the texture, or feeling the cold sensation of the refrigerator.  You smack the refrigerator a few times experimentally, and you frown because you don't like the noise it makes when your hand hits it.

Mommy's shoulders stiffen, and she pauses from where she's cleaning fruit in the sink.  You think it's strange, but you don't know what it means, so you continue exploring the kitchen like you have been.  If there's any trepidation in you, it's completely overwhelmed by your sense of curiosity, and you forget to be careful to avoid Mommy, nudging lightly at her leg to access the drawer she's standing in front of.

She snaps.

You don't know why she's screaming at you suddenly, and you don't know what the words mean, but you know she's angry because the words don't sound nice.  Stop it, just stop it, stop it and go! she yells, and you recognise those words, and so you leave, crying and afraid as you run back into your room and hide behind the disassembled pieces of your crib because it's familiar to you but your bed isn't, not yet.  You listen to Mommy banging around in the kitchen, and then you hear something hit the floor, and then you hear crying but you're too scared to go and check because you think you broke Mommy and you don't know how to fix her.

Two hours later, supper is supposed to be on the table but it isn't, and you're supposed to be eating but you're not.  Daddy comes into the nursery and convinces you to come out from the crib pieces, and you feel the tiredness in him again when you give him a hug and he tells you it's fine, Mommy's okay, she's not broken, just tired.

"Mommy always tired," you say, and it sounds almost petulant even though you mean it as an observation.  "Never wants to play."

Daddy looks at you with something almost sad in his eyes.  "Mommy's got a lot going on, Francis," he says almost wearily as he runs a hand over his face.  "She needs you to help her get through it."

You look at him in confusion.  "Mommy doesn't want help," you say.

He shakes his head.  "Not like- Not like that, Francis," he tells you.  He holds your hands and looks at your eyes like he always does when he's saying something important.  "Mommy needs you to help her in a different way.  She needs you to be quiet, and she needs you to be patient."

You frown.  You know what quiet means, but you've never heard the other word.  "Patient," you say, and the words don't sound right in your mouth, the syllables tangling up in knots.  You don't like this word.  It doesn't flow off your tongue like other words, like Daddy and play and fun.  

Daddy nods.  "That's right, Francis.  Quiet and patient.  Can you do that for Mommy?  For me?"

You don't know what patient means, but you don't want Daddy to know that, so you nod.  You're sure you can figure it out later, and in the meantime, you can focus on the other word, on being quiet.  You know what that means.  You know how to do that.

Once, a few weeks before you turn three, you get sick.

You don't really know what brings it on, or why you go from wanting to explore to waking up feeling awful and gross and sticky with heat, but you don't like it.  You try to go back to sleep, but every time you wake up, you feel worse, and you cry for Mommy even though you know you're not supposed to, but she doesn't come and eventually you fall back asleep.  It's not until the fourth time that you come to consciousness that you finally cry for Mommy long enough that she listens, and after nearly thirty minutes of you crying, she creeps to your door and slips in, like a shadow.  She comes over to you and you can see she's shaking, but you don't know why, and you just feel terrible and you don't like this, you don't like this at all.  

She presses a hand to your forehead and it's even colder than usual, and to your surprise, she flinches before she disappears out of your room in a frenzy, hands fluttering at her sides and eyes locked on the ground.  A few minutes later, you hear her voice and you think she's on the phone Daddy, because you keep hearing his name and your name and the words help, please help, I don't know what to do again and again and again, and then you're tumbling into darkness because it's better there than here.

The next time you wake up, you're in Daddy's arms, and he's looking down at you with a sick, confused expression.  "Jesus Christ, Francis," he says, "Jesus Christ," and you don't know what that means but you fall asleep again and the next time you wake up, it's in a room at Saint Mary's Children's Hospital.  The walls are pastel yellow and there are fish on the ceiling and nobody comes to visit you except the nurses, but at the end of the day you get to go home, so it's all okay.

Later on that night, you're lying in your room trying to sleep when you hear the sound of people talking in the kitchen.  Mommy's crying, but Daddy's the one who sounds upset.  "Francis could have died, Sarah," he says, and you frown because you have no idea what died means but it sounds serious.  "Now obviously she didn't, somehow, but that doesn't change the point-"

"I don't know what to do, Michael!" Mommy screams.  "She just cries and cries sometimes and I don't know what she wants and even when she's not crying, I can't talk to her, not like you do, I don't understand what she's after.  I don't get kids, Michael, I never wanted them, I'm not meant to be a mother, I have no idea what I'm doing here-"

"Then we need to figure it out!"  Daddy's voice snaps in the silence, and you flinch because it's never been so loud.  There's a brief silence, and you hear Mommy start crying, and Daddy sighs.  "Sarah," he says, and his voice is quiet again, "please.  Just talk to someone.  Talk to the doctors, talk to the wall, talk to me, but for God's sake-"  He notices his voice getting loud again, and stops, lowering it.  "For God's sake, just talk about it.  Please."

There's another silence.  Mommy sniffles.  You don't know what her answer is, but the next words you hear are Daddy telling her they should go to bed, and the lights go out down the hallway, and you hear the sounds of shifting next door, and you shift in your room to lay on your side but it's a long time before you sleep.

Three months after you get sick, you notice that Mommy changes.  It's subtle at first, and you almost think you're imagining it, but as time progresses, she starts to look almost happy.  She looks at you when she speaks, and sometimes she smiles, and sometimes she'll even play with you.  On a good day, she takes you to the park, and when she pushes you on the swings, she doesn't flinch when you laugh.  

You think it makes the bad days worse, sometimes.  There are days when you'll wake up and go into her room and ask for her, and she won't respond, and you know that it's a quiet day.  You know it's one of the days that you need to be extra-alert, that you need to make sure Mommy has her headache medication and is feeling okay.  Sometimes, you sit outside her bedroom door for an hour or two at a time, and you repeat your address on loop under your breath in case you need to call an ambulance, just like Daddy told you to if anything ever happened to Mommy.  It's a bit boring, but you’re pretty sure Mommy only gets sick now because she's so happy, and since she had to get happy for you, you think it's only fair that you help her out when it makes her feel bad, so even though you don't know what ibuprofen or Anafranil are, when she asks for them, you give them to her.

You watch Disney movies with her and Daddy sometimes, and sometimes, they'll read you a bedtime story.  Mommy narrates better, but Daddy does the voices, and between the two of them, you love every second.  You stay up late to watch the stars once, and then another time Mommy wakes both you and Daddy up early to watch the sunrise, and as the three of you cuddle under a blanket, you think to yourself this is right, this is what family is.  

You're just under four and a half years old when the happiness ends.

It's one of Mommy's bad days.   She wakes up feeling gross, and when you give her the trashcan from the bathroom, she gets so violently sick in it that it startles you.  You think that maybe she better eat some food just to make up for it, the same way that you always eat applesauce when your stomach is upset, but when you ask Mommy about it, she shakes her head and tells you she doesn’t want any food.

The fourth time you hear her throwing up into the trashcan, you start to worry, and you look at her in confusion.  “Should I call Daddy?” you ask, studying her face.

Even as she’s still gasping and wiping her face off on a hand towel, Mommy shakes her head.  “No,” she says, “no, I’m fine, I just-”  She pauses to lean over the trashcan again, and you wonder if she even has anything left to throw up, but this time, she doesn’t quite start retching, and after a moment, she continues again.  “I just need to go to the restroom.  Can you help me up, baby?”

At not-quite four and a half and skinny for your age, you’re hardly the most sturdy or helpful of supports, but you’re also not one to back down from a request for help.  Nodding immediately, you make your way over to the side of her bed, nudging the trash can out of the way and holding out your arm for her to take.  You’re surprised when she hunches over to actually lean on it this time, and you find yourself supporting her.  Worry flashes across your face, and the two of you hobble in tandem over to the bathroom.  Once you arrive, she grips the doorframe and smiles down at you in what’s supposed to be reassurance.  “I’ll be fine from here, Francis,” she says, and she closes the door.

You’re sure she will be, but there’s still something uncomfortable settling in your stomach, and it makes it hard for you to leave.  You duck down the hallway for a few minutes on the ruse of finding something to drink, and then you return to outside the bathroom door, sinking down to sit right outside of it and listening in case Mommy screams or you hear her fall or something else terrible like that.

After ten minutes, you hear something you didn’t expect: She’s crying.

You hesitate for a moment, resting uncomfortably on your knees, then make a decision and knock.  “Mommy?” you ask, and she doesn’t answer.  You wait another second before you quietly push the door open, and you look over at her.

She’s slumped against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest and her head in her hands as she sobs.  Her fingers are knotted up in her hair, and tufts of it lie on the ground beside her.  Something twists in your stomach, and you crawl hurriedly to her side.  “Mommy,” you whisper, and when you wrap your arms around her, she stiffens and sobs harder.  “Mommy, stop.”

She doesn't stop.

Daddy comes home that night and finds that Mommy is asleep on top of you, both of you still in the bathroom.  You're holding her hand in a tight grip and your eyes are wide with terror, and when Daddy sees the two of you, he panics.  You don't know if he's worried for Mommy or mad at you, but he half-drags you out to the car and tells you to buckle in, and you've no sooner gotten your car-seat fastened than he's laying Mommy in the backseat with you, and he tells you to keep an eye on her before driving at borderline-illegal speeds for the nearest hospital.

Mommy wakes up halfway there and throws up all over the floorboards, and then she starts screaming, clawing at her skin and her face and her hair.  When you arrive at the hospital and they take her into emergency care, she's still screaming, so much and so loudly that they sedate her, and you watch her start to go slack.  You can still see the tear tracks running through the blood leaking from the gouges in her face and you dig your fingernails hard into your own palms to keep them from shaking until Daddy sees and slaps your hands and tells you to stop it, that's bad.

You flatten out your hands on your legs like he asks and focus on your fingers.  You can't look at his face.  "What's wrong with Mommy, Daddy?" you ask.

He shakes his head, pressing his palms flat together and resting his forehead against them.  "I don't know," he admits.  "I don't know."  He looks to you from the corner of the eye he cracks open.  "What happened, Francis?"

You outline, as best you can, the events of the morning.  You see something almost like recognition flash across Daddy's face, but it's gone too fast to be sure, and when you're done explaining, the lines around his mouth are tight and his hands are clasped together as if in a prayer, though you have no idea who he'd be addressing it to or what it would even be for.

"Is Mommy going to be okay, Daddy?" you ask, and your voice is small.

His tone is flat.  "Yes, Francis," he says tiredly.  "She'll be fine.  Of course she will."  He removes his forehead from where it's been resting against his hands and gestures for you to crawl into his lap.  You do so willingly and rest your head against his shoulder, and he raises a hand to pet your hair back.  "Get some sleep, Francis," he orders.

You keep your face buried in his shoulder, but you do not sleep.

Three days later, Mommy is released from the hospital.  She has a new type of happy medicine, but she does not smile, and she stares out the window the entire ride home, her expression blank and her eyes locked on nothing.  There are patches of hair missing from her head, but she doesn't seem to notice or care.  When you get home, she unbuckles herself mechanically from the car and all but stumbles into the house.  She doesn't even make it to her room, just collapses on the couch and stares at the ceiling and doesn't respond when you talk to her.

Daddy tells you to go to your room, so you do.  You can hear him murmuring to Mommy from just inside your doorframe, but you can't make out the words and eventually you give up trying, sitting awkwardly on the edge of your bed and kicking your feet back and forth, focusing on the rhythm and the motion of it instead of the silence and the fear pounding in your chest.

An hour later, Daddy comes into your room and sits beside you.  He looks at you and brushes your hair back, and you try to smile but it doesn't work, so instead you just accept it when he wraps his arms around you in silence, and you lean into the hug.

When you finally pull away, you bite your lip.  Daddy says Mommy will be fine and you trust him, you do, but that's exactly why you have to ask this question.  "Is Mommy sad because of me?" you ask.

Daddy looks stunned, and it takes him a moment to respond.  "No," he says, "No, Francis, of course not, she's-" He pauses, struggles to find the right words, then gives up and casts you a long look.  There's a pregnant silence before he speaks again.  "Francis," he asks, "what do you think of being a big sister?"

A month later, you wake up to an argument.

It's the middle of the night and you know everyone should be sleeping, especially Mommy because she's still having bad days every day and cries a lot, but the light is on in the kitchen and as you creep up to your doorframe to listen closer, you hear your parents' voices, low and urgent in the otherwise silent night.  Mommy sounds like she's going to be sick.  "I can't do this again, Michael," she says desperately.  "I can't go through this, this feeling like shit and the crying and the, the screaming and the noise and the sickness, I can't do this."  

"We'll work it out, Sarah," Daddy says.  His voice sounds tired.

"Don't tell me we'll work it out!" Mommy hisses, and you flinch a bit.  When she speaks again, her voice is flat and choked.  "I'm not meant to be a mother, Michael.  I can't even take care of Francis.  I wouldn't have even had Francis if they hadn't been-"

"This isn't about your parents," Daddy interrupts.  "Sarah, they can't make you do anything anymore, and Francis isn't going anywhere, so we can't change that.  All we can do is move forward."  There's a pause.  "I mean, if our families could raise kids, I'm sure we can-"

Mommy laughs, but it doesn't sound happy.  It sounds like she's dying.  "My family disowned me and your father is in prison for beating your mother to death, don't act like our houses were healthy-"

"I am trying, Sarah!"  Daddy's hand smacks down on the table, and you hear Mommy gasp.  You flinch too, and Daddy pauses for a minute.

You hear him taking deep breaths and you think something might be wrong, so you slip out of your room and down the hallway, toward the light coming out of the kitchen.  In the silence, you hear the exact moment that Mommy starts crying, and she mumbles something under her breath that you can't make out as you step into the light.  "Daddy?" you ask.

He stiffens a bit, and his shoulders shake for a moment before he looks over to you.  You don't think he looks angry, but his face is tired.  "What are you doing up, Francis?" he asks.  "You should have been asleep hours ago."

You look at the kitchen around you.  "I saw the light," you explain simply.  You don't mention hearing the voices.  You don't think you should.

Daddy sighs.  "Sorry," he says, and stands up.  You don't miss the look he casts over at Mommy before forcing a smile in your direction as he walks over to you and turns you around, resting a hand on your shoulder.  "Let's get you back to bed."

He leads you back down the hallway, and you pretend you don't still hear Mommy crying in the kitchen.  When he tucks you in, he smiles a bit, or tries to, and brushes the hair back from your face.

"Is Mommy going to be okay?" you ask.  Sometimes, it feels like the only words you know.

Daddy's smile flickers a bit, but he nods.  "She'll be fine.  Go to sleep, Francis," he says, and on his way out, he closes the door behind him.

You can still see the kitchen light for a long time to come.

Time passes.  Mommy doesn't get better, and Daddy looks a little more tired every day, and some days it feels like you've wound back the clock, right back to the start of everything.  Mommy's started crying when she looks at you, and she flinches when you laugh, not that you do that much anymore.  You don't know what's going on, you don't understand it, but you know it's bad, and nobody tells you, maybe because they don't want to, maybe because they can't.  The only thing you're sure of is that the more time passes, the more tired Daddy gets and the more scared Mommy looks.

According to the doctors, you're just shy of eight weeks away from being a big sister, but there's a part of you that wonders if you're really just shy of eight weeks away from being a Mommy.  You don't think real Mommy seems very interested in it.

Her bad days get worse.  One day, you wake up and she's downstairs screaming, and when you run down to see what's happening, Mommy's digging her fingernails into her arms and wailing and you don't know what she's saying but Daddy's holding onto her, holding her arms down, and he just keeps whispering her name again and again and again like it will calm her, like it's a lullaby.

He finally gets her calmed down just before he has to go to work.  He can't afford to take time off now because there are still bills to pay and he's already going to have to leave work for a while to make sure that there's somebody here to teach you how to help the baby during the first week or two, so when he's standing at the door and Mommy's still crying in the bedroom, he crouches down to your level, and he takes you by your shoulders and looks you dead in the eye.  "Be careful today, Francis," he says.  "Mommy needs someone to watch her, but be careful.  Call if you need anything, alright?  I'll...If I need to, I'll figure something out."  You nod, and he asks you what your address is in case you need to call someone to get you.  When you reply instantly, he smiles and hugs you, and then he's gone.

You do as you're told, and you watch Mommy.  She cries a lot and she scares you for most of the morning, but by the time the afternoon comes around, she seems to have calmed down, mostly.  She still seems a little distant, but when she gives you that look that says she's seeing right through you and asks you to help her unpack some of the boxes in the baby's room to help her set up, you agree to it without question.  Sometimes, just having something to do helps Mommy.

She doesn't let you use the scissors, and when you try to convince her that you're capable, she just shakes her head desperately and insists that she's the grown up, so you don't fight her.  You don't want to make her upset if you can avoid it, and you think that she's just doing it because it's comfortable, because there's something systematic about slicing open boxes and cutting apart the tape that bound the pieces of your crib together while it was in storage.  Still, you keep the phone from the kitchen behind you on your left, just in case you need it.  Better safe than sorry, Daddy says.

You've just unpacked your baby clothes and are in the process of sorting through them so that some can be folded to be stuck in drawers when you notice that Mommy's stopped opening up boxes, and is instead staring through a pile of clothes, her hands laying limply on top of them.

You look at her and frown.  "Mommy?" you ask, hoping the word itself will be enough to nudge her back into reality, at least a little bit.

She doesn't answer you, or at least she doesn't look at you.  Instead, she picks up the piece of clothing on the top, a onesie with a green collar and little ducks printed all over it, and she knots her fingers in the fabric, staring at it in confusion as if she's never seen it before.  "It's so small," she murmurs, turning it over in her hands.   "Were you ever this small, baby?"

She isn't looking at you.  You don't even know that she's talking to you.  You answer anyway.  "When I was really little, I was," you say, shrugging.  "I think it was only for a little while though."

Mommy blinks.  "I don't remember," she says, and there's something in her tone that makes it seem like she's almost shocked, marvelling at the gap in her recollections before eventually, it dawns on her.  "It's because I didn't ever see you when you were this small, isn't it?"

You don't know how to respond, so you don't.  There's an uncomfortable silence.  You shift as you work on folding up your clothes, and focus on the fabric because you don't understand the look on Mommy's face or the way her eyes aren't smiling but she is and it scares you to look.  After a moment, Mommy speaks again.  "I didn't ever want kids, you know," she says almost dreamily.  "I always knew I'd be a horrible mother."

You look up at that and shake your head, blinking at her.  "You're a great Mommy," you protest.  "You and Daddy read me stories and watch movies and look at the sky.  Bad Mommies wouldn't."

Mommy laughs without sounding happy.  "I'm a bad Mommy, Francis," she says.  "I'm a horrible Mommy.  I almost killed you once, because you kept screaming, and then again when you got sick...I didn't ever want kids."

You don't like this conversation anymore.  You don't know what killed means but it sounds ugly and you can tell right away that you don't like it, and you don't like the look on Mommy's face or the tone of her voice.  "You're a good Mommy," you say again, stubbornly, because it's the only thing you really know how to say to argue the point.

Mommy shakes her head.  "No," she says, and this time, she sounds even stranger.  "I don't want to be a Mommy," she repeats, "and I never have."  Her fingers tangle up in the fabric, and then without any warning, she throws it hard against the wall.

You know fabric can't hurt you, but you're startled anyway and you jump a bit.  "Mommy-" you start, but she isn't paying attention.

"I don't want to be a mother!" Mommy is screaming now, and she shoves the clothes in front of her away.  You scurry to your feet, panicking as she picks up the empty box and throws it at the wall behind you, almost catching you in the crossfire.  "I don't want to do this again, I don't want to do this!"

She reaches for the scissors next, and before you can stop her, she jams them toward herself, toward the bump on her stomach where Daddy said your little brother is living right now.  There's a sick noise when the blade jams in, and Mommy screams as she pulls the scissors out only to slam them back into herself, then leaves them there as she falls backward, an ugly red stain spreading across her shirt and onto your clothes as she falls backward, her hands crimson and her eyes streaming and her stomach bleeding furiously, and you scream too as you reach for the phone.

Four days after Mommy is put in the hospital, when Daddy comes home from visiting, he looks more tired than ever before but when you ask about it, he brushes you off and tells you to let it go, that he wants to sleep, that he doesn't want to talk about it.  You think he might be mad at you, but you're not quite sure and you're too scared to ask.  

A week and a half after Mommy is put in the hospital, Daddy asks you to help him take apart the room you'd been assembling for the baby.  When you ask him why, he shakes his head and doesn't answer, and after a while, you realise that like Mommy, the baby changed its mind and doesn't want to come anymore.  You're a little disappointed, but you try not to cry too much because you think Mommy's cried enough for all of you and Daddy looks tired enough without you crying, but it still hurts and you still miss the little brother you were supposed to have.

Daddy burns everything from the baby's room in the backyard, and you watch from the doorway.  Daddy's shoulders shake.  The smoke burns your eyes.

It's almost three weeks before Mommy comes home, and even when she gets back, she's not the same.  She has a lot of bandages and new happy medicine and even though Daddy's home for most of that first week back and she doesn't have to be a Mommy to two kids now, she still doesn't smile like she used to.  She sees right through you most of the time, and you don't think she always hears Daddy when he speaks to her.  Sometimes she's there with you, most of the time she's not.  You don't like to think about it.

Daddy tells you to stay with her, to not let her be alone.  You don't know that she likes it or that she even notices it, but you do as you're told.  Some days you sit in her room and try to read from your storybooks, but you're not very good at reading yet and you stumble over most of the words.  You try to remember how she and Daddy used to say the words and model your speaking after that, but it's been so long that the memories are blurry and you're mostly on your own.  Mommy never says anything though, never.

You bring her food and she eats it numbly, but she never seems to notice who brought it.  You bring colouring books, and she takes your little crayons and colours carefully between the lines, focusing on the task almost obsessively, and the look on her face scares you sometimes.

She hums under her breath and sings lilting nursery rhymes, but she never once says your name.

Things go on like that for a while.  Mommy disappears for a month, and Daddy never tells you where she went, so you spend most of that month at home alone, or wandering around the neighborhood.  You go back to the park because you think Mommy might be there like she used to be, but she never is, and Daddy always seems tired at home, and you don't think he really wants to talk to you either, but you know he's trying.

When Mommy finally comes home, she smiles at first, always smiles when Daddy's at home, but when he's not there, you see the smile slip.  You don't like it when Mommy's not smiling, because you don't ever know what she's thinking at those times, so you always try to bring her back to smiling.  Daddy asks you sometimes, how she does during the days, and you always tell him she's fine because she is, mostly, and you're afraid that if you tell him about the times when she's not fine, she'll go away again, and Daddy always seems a bit happier when Mommy's around.

She's been home for two months when she declares, on one of her good days, that she wants to make dinner.  Daddy usually does the cooking, but when you bring that up to her, she just shakes her head and says no, this time she wants to cook, so that's what happens.

Just like Daddy told you, you don't let Mommy use the knives to cut the vegetables.  She either doesn't notice or doesn't care, and you think she may not even notice that anybody's wielding the knife at all, that she may think the vegetables are cutting themselves.  Mommy sings quietly under her breath as she works on making the cheese sauce for the casserole, and when you look over a few times, she's almost smiling, though you don't know what she's smiling at.

It's on one of those occasions when you look over that you wind up cutting your hand.  It's nothing major, just a little slip up with the knife because you were too busy looking at Mommy to be paying attention to the zucchini, but it hurts and you wind up letting out a little yelp when it happens, dropping the knife to cradle your hand, watching the blood well up and as tears sting your eyes.

Mommy jumps when you cry out, and she drops her spoon on the stove-top as she spins around.  She sees you at the table where you've been using the cutting board, and her eyes widen when she sees the blood.  In an instant, she's by your side, pulling the chair out and lifting you up to sit on the table, right beside the half-cut vegetables.  "Francis?" she asks, and you think she knows it's you because she's looking at you this time, but you nod anyway.  "Francis, baby, your hand, what happened to it?  Oh my God, baby, you're bleeding."

There's panic in her voice, so you intentionally keep yours steady, fighting to keep the tears out of it as you bite your lip and nod.  "Sorry, Mommy," you say.  "I didn't mean to."

Mommy isn't listening.  She doesn't go to reach for a towel to clean up the blood, or tell you to wait while she grabs a band-aid.  Instead, she just presses you against herself, hugging you while you sit on the table, and you can feel her hands shaking as her fingers dig uncomfortably into your back.  Your face is pressed against her shirt too tightly for you to breathe.  "I'm so sorry," she whispers, "It's my fault you're hurt, baby, it's my fault.  I'm so sorry."

Her grip on you shifts, and you quickly move your head to the side to get some air, resting against her shoulder.  "Not your fault," you mumble, even though your voice is still quivering.  You clamp your eyes shut, accidentally squeezing out the tears that had been hiding just behind them.

You can feel her shake her head, and she holds you tighter for just a moment before her grip loosens.  "Of course it is," she says hoarsely, "of course it's my fault."  Her voice is shaking, and one of her hands falls away from your back.  "It's all my fault, Francis, all of it."  You hear something move behind you, and very very quickly, you realise how uncomfortable you are.  “I’m so sorry, baby.  I’m gonna make it all better.”  There's something in Mommy's voice as she brushes your hair down with one hand, and it scares you enough to open your eyes just in time to see her grip tighten on the knife.

You scream, and you jerk away quickly.  Mommy doesn't expect it, so you escape her grasp easily, and the knife she'd just been plunging toward your back grazes a long scratch down your arm instead as you lose your balance from on the table and crash to the kitchen floor.  You don't waste time laying there though, instantly scurrying backward until you hit the wall, your arm aching and oozing red onto the floor and your clothing and between your fingers when you hold the stinging cut with one shaking hand.

Mommy's eyes are wide.  "Francis, what-?" she begins, and then she looks at herself and sees the knife in her hands.  Realisation dawns, and she gasps, dropping it as her hands fly to her mouth.  She looks at you with something not unlike horror on her face.  "Oh my God," she whispers.  "Oh my God.  Francis, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."  

You don't respond.  She takes a step back.  Then she runs.

Daddy comes home twenty minutes after you call him in tears, and when he slams open the front door to run inside, the first thing he finds is you, blood everywhere as you curl up on the kitchen floor.  Something flashes across his face, and in his eyes, you think you can see something break.  "Jesus Christ," he says, and then everything blurs for you.

You wind up with eleven stitches in your right forearm.  You don't tell the doctors where it came from.  Mommy doesn't come home.

Daddy spends a lot of time on the phone, you notice, always talking to somebody.  You don't know who it is, but you think they have to be important, or at least smart, because they ask a lot of questions and Daddy tells them a lot of things that have to do with Mommy.  He asks to be told if they find anything, but the phone never rings and nobody ever finds anything to say, or so it would seem.

Not even Daddy has much to say these days.  He brushes off your questions a lot, tells you to just go to sleep and let it go.  You don't want to let it go, you want to know where Mommy is, but you don't want to make Daddy mad when he already seems so upset, so you don't ever ask, and you spend a lot of nights laying in your room and watching the ceiling in the darkness.

A week and a half after Mommy disappears, Daddy comes home with a six-pack of something you don't recognise that he won't let you drink, and he smells a bit funny when he sits down on the couch.  You don't really like the smell of it, but it's Daddy, and you trust Daddy, so you don't mention anything when you climb onto the couch beside him as he flips through channels.  You can almost feel the exhaustion leaking out of him, and you want to help but you have no idea how.

After a while, Daddy switches off from the Disney channel and goes over to the news.  You don't like the news much since it seems scary most of the time, but Daddy likes watching it so you let him, and tonight, you pay attention too because the first thing you see as he turns the volume up is a picture of Mommy on the  screen.  You straighten up in surprise, mouth falling open.  Beside you, Daddy stiffens, his hand tightening on the bottle he's holding.

The news lady looks sad as she speaks and takes over for the news man.  There's flashing red and blue lights in the background from where she's standing, and they make you squint.  "Such a sad story, Dave," she says, shaking her head.  "Police have finally identified the body of a young woman killed in a car accident earlier this evening and are currently searching to find her family.  Witnesses say that twenty-two year old Sarah Cohen was speeding down the highway when she lost control of her vehicle, causing it to crash into the roadside barrier and flip.  The car then rolled three times before coming to a stop with Cohen still inside.  An ambulance was called immediately, but she was pronounced dead on-scene.  Authorities are currently looking into if alcohol or drug overdose may have been involved..."

You hear a noise from beside you, a horrible noise that you hate instantly, and when you look for the source, you flinch.  Daddy's face is crumpled with shock, and he's shaking his head.  His grip tightens on the bottle, then very suddenly, he throws it at the screen, and he screams.

Three days later, you're dressed all in black and you're standing in a funeral home.  There aren't many people here, but Daddy's crying and so are the others, and so are you, though you're not entirely sure why.  You don't know what killed or dead or died means or why everyone keeps applying the words to Mommy, and nobody is letting you in on the secret.  You think it means something bad though.  You think it's really bad.

The casket is open, and it looks like Mommy is sleeping.  She looks peaceful though, a lot more peaceful than she did when she was sleeping at home.  You don't know why, but you still don't like it, and you think back to a Disney movie the three of you watched once, Sleeping Beauty.  You think Daddy should just kiss Mommy to wake her up, but you don't think he's in the mood for listening to suggestions right now, not with how hard he's crying, so instead you stand at the side of her coffin and stare at her, holding onto the edges like she used to hold onto your crib.  "Wake up, Mommy," you whisper, "please wake up."  

The people who hear you cry some more.   Mommy doesn't wake up.

Two months later, you get tired of waiting on Mommy to wake up, and for Daddy to explain why all her things are boxed up and collecting dust, so you decide to just address the point after Daddy gets home from work.  He's been tired a lot lately, not very talkative, and you don't know if he's mad or just feels like being quiet.  Either way, you miss him, miss the Daddy that used to love you and pick you up when you were screaming and take you to the hospital when you were really sick.  You miss the Daddy who did the voices while Mommy read the stories, the Daddy he was before everyone started calling Mommy dead.  

You walk up to him one night and ask if Mommy's ever coming back.  It's the first time he hits you.  You never ask again.

You wind up walking yourself to school most days.  The first week or two, Daddy drives you, then you learn the route well enough to take yourself, and you think it's best that way because Daddy hasn't wanted to talk to you much since Mommy died.  It's like he and Mommy switched places, and where you once had to try and make yourself scarce to make sure Mommy didn't get upset, now you have to make yourself scarce to make sure Daddy doesn't get upset.  

He brings home girlfriends sometimes, new Mommies to replace the old one, and you learn quickly that even though none of the new Mommies ever stay long, he hates it when you interrupt his conversations with them.  It hurts a bit (it hurts a lot, actually), but you respect his wishes and you stop speaking altogether for the most part.  He seems to like it better that way.

At school, your teacher tells you that dead means 'gone for a long, long time.'  It's that explanation that makes you finally start piecing things together, and slowly, you begin to realise what it all means, why Mommy is dead.  How it's your fault that she left for a long time, because she scared you and then you scared her and then she ran away.  You know that she was happy with Daddy, and Daddy was happy with her, and you realise that when people leave for a long, long time, they disappear.

Mommy's dead, left because of you.  Without her around, you don't think Daddy will miss you.  But there's a mountain near where you live that makes anyone who climbs up it disappear, and maybe, just maybe, if you disappear, you think Mommy will come back, and Daddy will love you again even though you'll never come home.

You don't know that you like the plan entirely, but things don't get better at home.  One night, after one of the Mommies leaves, Daddy's especially angry, at the whole world and the Mommy that left and especially you, and it's his anger that decides it for you.  It makes you realise that you're alright with disappearing if it will make Daddy happy again, so you leave home and you climb the mountain and you fall down, ready for this to end, ready to disappear.

Except you don't disappear.

You wake up, and there's a voice in your head that talks to you and tells you that the world is made of pain and love is fake and if you don't hurt others, you'll get hurt instead.  You pretend to yourself that it's your little brother you never had, and you tell the voice it's wrong, and then you decide to prove it, and while you're proving it, you learn an awful lot about other people, and about yourself too.

You meet friends, find a family.  You learn how to cook with passion and how to dance on a reality TV show.  You learn the power of having friends, what it feels like to not stand alone, learn just how powerful it is to have the will to talk to people and spare them instead of fighting them.  You learn that the voice in your head once wanted to disappear too, that it had died to save everybody but hadn't succeeded, and you learn that you are not alone in this whole messy, horrible, beautiful world.  You learn that you are strong enough to survive, and to save everybody like the voice tried to do, and for the first time ever, you know you're not alone, that your family and friends are here, fighting with you, fighting for you, every bit as determined as you are to get to the surface and to a happy ending.

After years and years of crying in cribs and closets and waiting while nobody came and your father never stopped grieving and nobody ever saw you, finally, everybody comes.

And you know, as surely as anything, that they will always come for you whenever you call, again and again and again.

As you hang in the balance, there's a tremor of fear that runs through you, followed shortly by a pulse of something warm and strong and comforting that wraps itself around you and doesn't let go.

Knowing that your family is always there for you fills you with DETERMINATION.

You load your save.

Chapter Text

It’s 12:38 in the morning and you’re sitting at your kitchen table when you pull yourself back to life.  Your phone is in your hand.  The clock is ticking steadily.  Your heart shivers in your chest.

As soon as those first few, fragile breaths come stuttering into your lungs, the memories come along too, and your hands start to shake when you realise when your last save was, what’s about to happen, what you have to do.  Any minute, your father will come back through the door again, maybe a few minutes before Emily might have, maybe a few hours, and if you don’t run, he’ll kill you again, just like before, and there will be nothing you can do to stop him.

You react instantly to the thought, telling yourself that if you have to flee then you need to be ready, thankful that you have your phone readily available so that you’ll be able to contact the monsters, but as soon as you stand up, you almost fall over with how hard your legs are shaking, and you have to brace yourself against the table with equally unstable arms to keep from collapsing right then and there.  You tell yourself to get it together, to be brave and stay determined, but you can still feel Daddy’s hands around your forearms and your skull cracking again, and you remember the hatred in his eyes that wasn’t always there, and you know that for however much it may be necessary, you may not be strong enough to run from him, even now. 

For all that he’s done, he’s still Daddy.  He doesn’t deserve to be alone either.

Frisk. The voice in your head speaks up, the one from the Underground, and you choke on your surprise, blinking hard in shock.   You haven’t heard from them since the fight with Asriel, since you’d gone up to the surface.  You’d been sure they were gone.  “Chara?” you mumble uncertainly, maybe even a little hopefully, your lip quivering.

Chara sounds almost amused when they respond.  The one and only.  Unless you have some other voices in your head that I don’t know about.

Once again, you find yourself reeling, though this time you’re not sure if it’s because of relief that you’re not alone or fear that Chara might have been watching silently in your head the last time and is probably thinking of less than pacifistic things to do to your father right now.  You don’t have the time for either emotion right now.  You have maybe a minute before you have to run, and you need to pull yourself together.

You open your mouth to tell Chara something, though you’re not entirely sure what that something may be, but they beat you to it.  Frisk, they say, do you trust me?

The question pulls you up short.  You care about Chara, of course, and you know they’ve changed since when you first fell down, but as for if you trust them, you’re not entirely sure.  You don’t distrust them, at least.  You think that’s close enough, so you nod slowly.  “Why?” you ask.

Because I need you to trust me, Chara states plainly.  I’m going to help you. 

“Help me how?”  Your heart is pounding, your limbs shaking.  Talking to Chara is a nice distraction from the current situation, but it’s not one you can afford if you want to escape without living through all this a dozen more times.

Chara’s response is swift and firm.  I’m going to help you get out of here.  I’m helping you get away from him.  I know how to fight people-

“No,” you say immediately, shaking your head and leaning back against the table.  The idea of fighting your father sets your stomach to churning, and you clench your hands at your side to try and control their shaking.  You can think of about a million ways Chara might try to help you by fighting, and none of them involve an ending you want to see.  You think of knives and shudder at the memory.  “No,” you repeat, “I don’t want to hurt him-“

And I won’t, Chara says emphatically.  I won’t lie and say I don’t want to, but I’m not going to make you hurt anybody again, Frisk.  I promised.

You frown.  “Then how-?”

Just trust me, Chara says.  Trust me and listen. 

The front door opens, and your heart stops.  You spin around to look toward the doorway as your father steps in, and you brace yourself, sagging back against the table, eyes wide as he looks at you, and he gives an alcoholic smile, and his eyes flash.  They’re storm grey and angry, even through the drunken glaze, and you can feel something in you breaking, because looking at him in this exact moment, you know that he is not who he used to be, and he never will be again. That Daddy died with Mommy, and this one can never be happy with you.

Still, the word falls out of your mouth unbidden.  “Daddy,” you choke out, and it sounds like a plea.  He doesn’t respond.

Chara’s voice in your head is strong, stubborn.  Frisk, they say.  Do you trust me?

Your lip is quivering.  You want to cry, but you won’t, not yet.  You nod as Daddy closes the door behind him and gives you the same look he gave you last time you stood here, the same cruel smirk twisting his lips.  Yes.

You can almost feel Chara’s relief, a ghostly sense of satisfaction flooding through your veins.  Then dodge left, they say.  Do it now.

You do.

Your father moves toward you with a terrifying agility just as you move out of the way, and you stumble backwards on shivering limbs as he crashes into the table right where you just were, catching himself and straightening, spinning around to glare at you, his face twisted in rage.  “You little bitch!” he roars, and flings himself toward you again. 

You follow Chara’s instruction to dive right this time and narrowly avoid getting grabbed by the arm again as you trip, falling to your knees before scrambling rapidly back to your feet in desperate panic as your father recovers from his own near miss and lunges for you again.  You slip right again as instructed, and a part of you wonders why Chara is so good at dodging before realizing that there are some questions that shouldn’t be answered in the middle of a life-and-death situation and deciding to be grateful that they have the skills that are currently keeping you alive.

Your father’s fingers catch on your shirt, but you pull out of the way before he can really latch on, and the fabric tears.  He stumbles into the wall just as you use the cabinets to pull yourself back to your feet from where you’ve tripped again.

Chara’s voice screams in your ears, and you look up just as your father makes another move for you, his face red with rage and alcohol, and you all but dive left in your attempt to evade the attack as your life flashes once more before your eyes.

You escape just barely, and your father loses his balance.  He moves to try to catch himself on the cabinets as well, but he throws out an arm and finds only air instead, and he crashes forward, cracking his head on the counter as he goes down.  He hits the ground hard, his head bouncing against the tile of the kitchen floor, and his limbs crumple like a puppet with its strings cut.  He doesn’t get up again.

The fear that sets into your body is immediate, and you gasp a bit in shock.  Chara promised.  They promised.  “Daddy!” you yell, and run to his side, stumbling and falling beside him.

Frisk, relax!  Chara’s yelling in your head, but you’re not sure if you should listen to them, if this is what happens when you trust them.  Frisk, they say, Frisk, he’s okay, he’s fine, I promise, he’s just unconscious!

“What does that mean?” you demand desperately as you reach forward and shake your father’s shoulder to try to wake him up.  You don’t know what unconscious is, or how you can tell between unconscious and sleeping and dead and nobody ever tells you these things and there isn’t any blood on the floor but you don’t know what means what, and you don’t know that you can live in a timeline where Daddy’s gone entirely, especially if he’s gone because of you.  “Is he dead?” you ask, and your voice shakes.  “Is that what unconscious means?”

No! Chara yells, and their voice is so loud in your head that you flinch.  No, they say again, quieter this time.  Unconscious and dead aren’t the same thing, Frisk.  Trust me.  I know.

You think of the flowers that broke your fall, of the story the monsters told you about Chara and Asriel as you’d wandered through New Home.  You think of Chara’s grave, and you shudder.  You suppose they would know.  “Then what’s wrong with him?”

Nothing major, Chara assures you.  Not physically, anyway.  It’s just like when he came home about a week ago, when Sam brought him here and he had knocked himself out on the bar, remember? You look to the still healing cut on your father’s head and nod.  It’s just like that, Chara repeats.  Nothing worse.  He’ll wake up just like he did then.  He’ll probably have a headache, but other than that, he should be fine. 

You look at your father’s face, and you blow out a long and shaky breath, pulling your hands away from where they’d been on his shoulders, and you nod slowly, your heart still pounding.  You don’t see any blood, and your father is breathing, so you think that means he isn’t dead, at least, and if he’s not dead, then Chara must be right, and you can trust them after all.  You choose to believe in that idea.  You don’t know that you can take believing in an alternative.  “What do I do then?” you ask, and your voice is shaking.  “What do I do now?”

This time, Chara sounds almost sympathetic.  Now comes the hard part, they say.  You leave.

Your heart stutters again in your chest, and you open your mouth to protest, but nothing comes out.  You want to say something meaningful, want to argue the point, make a case for staying, but no such case comes to mind, and no words come to your lips.  Your body aches with bruises, and your heart aches with knowledge, because every mark on you is a testament to a truth you knew the day you came back but still couldn’t face.  As much as you want to stay, as much as you want there to be something here for you, there is nothing. 

The tears that have been stinging at the back of your eyes start to spill over your cheeks, and you scrub at your face, knowing that the tears will do nothing for you, will not clear your mind or change the situation.  A thought tugs hard at your mind, telling you that maybe if you tried hard enough, you could load a save from before Mommy was dead and fix this, but even as you think it, you know that it’s impossible, that worse than impossible, it’s selfish.  If you were to reset that far, all the monsters would be back Underground again.  There would be no Chara, no Sans or Mettaton or Papyrus in your life.  There would be no Toriel to offer you hugs and butterscotch pie, no Asgore to smile and laugh so deep that it rumbles in his chest, no Alphys to talk to or Undyne to suplex you and no monsters to make you feel like you have a home again. 

You think of the Underground, of the echoflowers that whispered back a million wishes for freedom under the rocks that passed for stars in Waterfall, and you feel the ache deep in your chest.  Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t go back.  Not for yourself.  Not for anybody.  You couldn’t do that to your friends.  Not after all they’d been through to get to here.

You look at your father, and your lip quivers as you shake with sobs.  You don’t know where Emily is, and it doesn’t much matter.  Getting you patched up isn’t a problem, not anymore.  No matter what happens from here, this will always be the ending that you find.  Once upon a time, you were Francis Cohen, and Mommy wasn’t dead and Daddy may have loved you, but that time is gone.  The reality is now, and your future lies away from him, away from here. 

You are Frisk.  You are the ambassador for monsterkind, the future of humans and monsters, and you cannot give up just yet.

Chara’s voice in your head is silent as you lean forward and kiss your father quietly on the forehead, closing your eyes.  Tears race down your cheeks, and your entire body shakes.  “Goodbye, Daddy,” you whisper, and he doesn’t respond.

You push yourself to your feet, and are unsurprised to find that as the adrenaline has worn off, the pain has taken its place.  Movement hurts.  Everything hurts.  You ignore the pain, and you shuffle to the doorway, pulling it open and locking it from the inside, hoping that when you close the door it will work without a key.  You look at your father again, and as he lays on the floor, you think he looks almost like he used to, that he looks all too young.

You stare at him for a long moment.  You know with painful certainty that you will never see him again. 

“Goodbye, Daddy,” you whisper once more, even though you know he won’t hear you, and then you step outside and shut the door behind you.

You stand on the steps and shiver in the cold for a moment.  Everything aches, most of all your heart.  You pull out your phone to check the time.  You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and you start to walk.

It’s 1:04 in the morning and the sky is full of distant stars as you leave your home for the last time.

You follow your feet.  Maybe Chara’s leading you, or maybe you’re leading yourself without intending to, but you don’t think it matters either way, not really.  You don’t know where you’re going, just that it’s away.

Somewhere over an hour later, you shuffle up to the park where the monsters had picked you up for that first meeting as the ambassador, and you wrap your arms around yourself to fend off the cold as you progress toward the same spot where you’d waited for them then on the sun-warmed boards of the playground.  They’re not warm now as you crawl onto them, but they’re sturdy.  You can appreciate that.

As you press your back against one of the walls of the playground, you pull your knees tight up against yourself, compacting like you always do when you’re upset, wrapping your arms around your knees and resting your head against them.  You know you need to get out of this park before morning arrives and people come with it, but you’re not sure where to go.  You weren’t paying attention when you were running away from Sans a few hours ago, so the route you’d taken to get from the monster’s village to your home is unclear at best, and you really don’t think that wandering through unfamiliar parts of the city is the best idea or the safest at a quarter past two in the morning.  Granted, the park may not be much safer than the alternative, but at least you know this place.

You reach into your pocket and fumble for your phone.  It takes a few tries for you to manage to put in the passcode correctly, and then you turn your attention to the more important task of figuring out who to call.  You don’t want any of the monsters rushing out here to find you and scaring the humans, but you really don’t want to stay here all night either, not alone.  You’ve had enough of being alone for a lifetime.  Right now, you want a hug, and someplace warm, and sleep.

You scroll through your contacts until you find Papyrus’s name.  Undyne had mentioned once that he always, always picked up by the second ring, no matter what time of day it was.  You figure it’s as good a shot as any, and you push dial, then close your eyes, pressing the phone to your ear.

It doesn’t even make it through the entirety of the first ring.  The other end of the line buzzes quickly to life and Papyrus’s voice floods the connection.  “FRISK?” he shouts into the receiver, in typical form.  “FRISK, IS THAT YOU?”

You let out a shaky breath, then nod.  “Yeah,” you murmur, your voice small.  “Yes, it’s me.”

Papyrus’s relief is palpable.  “THANK GOODNESS!” he sighs.  “YOU HAVE EXCELLENT TIMING, MY SMALL HUMAN FRIEND.  WE WERE ALL VERY WORRIED ABOUT YOU AFTER THIS AFTERNOON.  ACTUALLY, WE’VE ALL BEEN VERY WORRIED ABOUT YOU FOR A WHILE, BUT WE WERE ALL ESPECIALLY VERY WORRIED AFTER THIS AFTERNOON.  ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

You smile, or you try to.  There’s something reassuringly familiar about Papyrus’s cheerfully loud nature, something about it that feels like home.  That feeling of happiness stirs slightly in your chest, and the sensation serves to also stir up the barely controlled pain you’ve been fighting against all evening from where it too is nestled in your chest.  You open your mouth with every intent of telling him you’re fine.  Instead, you start to cry again, choked little sobs that tumble out of your mouth as your tears come back anew.

You know Papyrus hears you, because you can practically hear his anxiety through the phone line.  “FRISK?”  he says nervously, “FRISK, WHAT’S WRONG?”  You try to respond, but you only wind up crying harder.  You think he moves the receiver away from his mouth, because when next he speaks, the words are marginally quieter and not addressed to you.  “SANS,” he says, “THEY’RE CRYING.  WHY ARE THEY CRYING, SANS?  WHAT SHOULD I DO?”

You hear a low mumbling in the background, white noise that you recognise as Sans’s voice even though you can’t make out the words.  You can hear Papyrus agree to something, but you have no idea what it is.

There’s not a lot of time for you to ponder.  From the other end of the line, you can hear the soft sound of bones clicking against the receiver as it shifts hands, then Sans’s voice fills the line.  “hey kid,” he says, and you curl tighter into yourself as relief floods through you.  “where are you at?”

You clamp your eyes shut, and when you try to speak, it comes out as a shaky, tearstained laugh.  You try again.  “The park,” you manage eventually.  You would clarify which one, but you think he already knows, and speaking is more or less beyond you at the moment, so you can only hope you’re right in your assumption.

“gotcha,” Sans says.  “i’ll be there in a minute.  just stay there for me, alright? here, papyrus, take this.”

You hear the soft click of bones again, and you bury your face in your arms, crying harder as you tighten your fingers around your arms to try and pull yourself back together.  He’s coming.  Sans is coming.  You’re almost through with this night.  You’re almost safe. 

There’s a flash of blue light that burns through your eyelids, igniting the darkness.  For a few moments, there’s silence, and then there’s a skeletal hand resting gently over yours, prying the phone from your grasp, and another one tugging gently at your fingers, loosening the death grip you have on your arms.  You comply with both actions, letting Sans take your phone and letting your grip go slack as he wraps one arm around you and pulls you against his ribcage.  “hey, kiddo,” he murmurs, “good to see you again.”

You bury your face in his coat, and he hugs you tight, resting his head on top of yours.  You don’t look up to see the expression on his face, just keep your eyes shut tight as you cry hard into the fabric of his coat and he rubs a soothing circle on your back with his free hand.  It hurts with all the bruises clustered along there, and you can’t be bothered to hide the pain right now, but you appreciate it more than you can quantify.

You can hear Papyrus’s voice coming through the line even from where Sans has the phone held against his skull, several inches away from your own ears.  “SANS?” he asks, still sounding nervous.  “SANS, ARE YOU THERE?  IS FRISK?”

Sans pulls you tighter against him and nods.  His voice sounds relieved and sad and happy all at once, and you can’t for the life of you figure out why.  “yeah,” he says softly, “i’m here, pap.  i’ve got them.  we’re coming home.”