Chapter Text
It was always late when he walked you home.
The street lights flickered, the stars seemed too dim for how bright the night used to be. Beside you, Sans dragged his slippers along the cracked sidewalk, hoodie drawn up and hands tucked in. Same old grin on his face. Same old silence between the puns. But something in his eyes—the part he never talked about—made you ache.
“Another long day?” he asked.
You nodded, letting your fingers brush against his. “Better now.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Smooth.”
The shortcut came up—his favorite one, through the alley that skipped five blocks. The one where time always felt like it hiccuped.
And tonight, like so many nights, you stopped at the gate and turned to him.
“I’ve missed you.”
Sans blinked. “I saw you yesterday, didn’t I?”
You shook your head. “Not you. Not... my you. But I always find you again.”
He went quiet. No pun. Just a slow tilt of his head, studying you.
“[Y/N],” he said, and for a second, just a second—he looked scared.
You smiled through the ache in your chest. “I’ll fall in love with you every time, Sans. Even if you don’t remember, but trust me, i will remember and continue to love you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many timelines i have to jump…”
“I..” he started, not knowing what you were talking about or what you meant, but you just stepped through the shortcut, and he followed.
…
The first time you lost him, it was in a genocide timeline.
Frisk may have been the last to fall, but you were the second, you had come long after chara, but before the other children. You had landed in the Underground as a child, befriending monsters, learning names and stories. And you had fallen in love with Sans—your Sans. The one who told you puns as a child, you and him had been the only ones who remembered gaster, for whatever reason that may have been. He was the one who fought until his last breath when the world fell apart.
You ran through the underground looking from him when you heard of the rumor surrounding the new human. He told you he would handle it, you don't know why you believed him, he was fragile, maybe not mentally, but his hp was 1, the weakest monster in the underground hp based.
You ran and ran until your throat swelled and your lungs and legs burned. Tears fell from your face as you saw him, his body was still there somehow, you saw code and glitches coming from him as you watched the blood pool below him. His eye was melting and you saw his dust form a glitched mass, covering the lost eye socket.
You shouldn’t have survived. But something happened—a glitch. The moment the timeline shattered, you fell through it. You woke up in a pacifist world.
You walked around aimlessly for days, not understanding why you survived, why everyone knew you, everyone who’s dust you saw litter the underground, hours, and days before.
Then, you got an idea, you remembered your alphys talking about a timeline theory, and if you were a form of proof, she may believe you.
You ran to Alphys, desperate, wild-eyed, explaining what you had been through and begging for her to believe you.
She believed.
With her help—illegal tech, corrupted files, and a pinch of desperation—you found a way back.
And when you did, he wasn’t the same. He was Geno now. Corrupted. Alive, but stuck in the after-image of a massacre.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he rasped, when you found him in the Judgement Hall.
“I had to.”
“You remember me?” he asked, disbelieving.
“I never forgot.”
He tried to push you away, but you stayed. For months. You stayed until the glitch in him consumed everything.
When the corruption peaked—when the void swallowed him whole—you were thrown out. Spit back into the pacifist timeline.
You told Alphys everything again, The corrupted code. The love. The void. the odd thing being how real time never passed where he was, you told her that too.
She warned you: “It’s dangerous to go back. He might not even be... him anymore.”
You didn’t care, and you told her such, you told her that you didn't care and how you wouldnt stop caring, not even if trying to stay with him killed you.
You found him again, deeper in the code this time. No longer Geno. Now, a Fatal Error.
He didn’t recognize you at first. Rage had twisted his voice, his form. You dodged the attacks, kept calling his name until—
“SANS!!”
He heard you
“[Y/N]?”
You saw him hesitate. Saw something flicker in his shattered eye.
“You remember me.”
He dropped his weapon.
“I... I killed everything,” he whispered. “I almost killed you.”
“You didn’t. You couldn’t.”
“I may not have done it with my own hand, but i watched it happen- i-... i let it happen!’
You stayed with him again, kept trying to reassure him. And again, the corruption and now guilt took him. Again, the timeline rejected you.
Thrown out.
Again.
And again
A Pacifist timeline. Alphys. Desperation.
You went back.
This time, it was Error.
He had unraveled almost everything. Worlds. Characters. Himself. His guilt turned to anger.
You appeared behind him as he stood at the edge of existence.
“I warned you,” he said without turning. “Every time I glitch, the timeline spits you out. You’re uncorrupted. You don’t belong there.”
“I'll come back anyway.”
He turned. Face unreadable. Eyes glowing.
“I thought I was pulling you back. Every time I remembered a piece of you, you’d show up. I thought... Maybe I was strong enough to fix it. That I brought you.”
“You didn’t,” you whispered. “Alphys did. I fought my way back.”
His jaw clenched. “Then... you’re not the same. You’re not her. Just another version.”
You stepped toward him.
“I am. I’ve always been her. Your unofficial wife. Your girlfriend. I remember every version of you. Every fall. Every change. Every time you broke and pushed me away, I came back.”
He glitched violently, like the truth physically hurt.
“I love you,” he said, voice breaking. “I understand if you don’t remember. I don’t expect you to. But I never stopped.”
You took his hand.
“I never forgot, and I never will…”
…
A Reset
You didnt want it, but you had no choice, you were being corrupted by the silence, by the loneliness, by the isolation. Error couldn't have that. He wouldnt have that. So he found a way to send you to a reset. One without frisk, one where it would be safe for you, even if he would never see you again.
And now, in a quiet pacifist world, the sun shines down on an ordinary walk home.
And a familiar skeleton walks beside you, cracking jokes, unaware.
But when your fingers brush his, and he feels you shiver—
You smile through the ache.
“Hi again.”
He blinks. “You okay?”
You nod. “Just missed you.”
Because even if he doesn’t remember yet, you always do.
And you’ll love him again.
Over and over.