Chapter Text
Cold.
… it was cold.
He was hurt. He burned.
He burned all over.
…why? Where was he…?
What had he…?
… scared …
…he felt scared…
He was on the ground. He was sprawled on the ground. Cold. Wet.
… where was he? What was this?
A low rumble sounded in his throat, and he tried in vain to lift his suddenly far-too-heavy head. His mind was fogged over… his thoughts fragmented into pieces. It was as if someone had bludgeoned his skull.
He kept his eyes shut.
Too bright.
Whatever was before him was far too bright compared to… wherever he was before. He struggled to recollect the events that had just happened prior.
Angry … He remembered being so angry. Scared. Something horrible had happened - but suddenly…
… there had been a voice. It had been… a strange voice. Who had it belonged to?
… he’d felt better, listening to it. Calm. He’d calmed right down. Everything had been okay.
A pang.
But he didn’t keep listening to the nice voice.
He gave a low growl. He hadn’t… wanted to.
He’d… refused to listen.
The anger dissipated, suddenly replaced with confusion.
But why?
He’d been so angry. So afraid - and the voice… it had cleansed his mind… it had helped. It had made him feel safe. He’d felt safe, and then…
A spark of fear suddenly passed through his mind, and he abruptly jerked away from that thought.
… no.
The voice, it wasn’t safe. It hadn’t helped. It hadn’t helped him at all…The voice, the owner of the voice - it had made him like this. Tired.
Slow.
It had made it so hard to think.
He pressed harder, trying to make his mind process everything, trying to recollect his memories.
Trying to think.
He could barely do so. There was almost nothing coherent… he was angry. He was sad.
He was scared .
He let out a low whine. Something was wrong… everything was wrong. What had happened to him?
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to a squint.
… too bright.
It was an expanse of white. Black… trees cut through the white of the snowy surroundings. Yet even they seemed to blend into the white a little - a heavy fog surrounded him. It was still daytime.
Daytime. Snow. Fog. Trees.
His brain fixed onto the words, and suddenly, it felt like his muddled mind was beginning to clear up. His panic began to lessen, clarity creeping slowly through.
He was close… close to home. He slowly pushed himself up off of the snowy ground with a groan, slightly alarmed by how large and awkward his whole body felt.
The creature shook his head. He’d… been in a terrible place… and he’d thought of a better one. He’d tried to go home .
… he was so heavy. So different. That was’t right.
Hard to think. He wanted to sleep. But something inside him… something tired and small…protested. He needed to keep moving. He needed to remember more. Focus.
He dragged himself forward, on all fours. He’d wandered only a few metres before suddenly stopping in his tracks.
All fours? But he remembered… using arms. Hands. Had he ever been able to stand on two legs?
It felt natural to walk like this, and yet…
He lifted a large claw (He was startled by the sight of it. That wasn’t right, either…), placed it against the trunk of a tree, and slowly lifted himself onto his hind legs. He felt unsteady, but it felt… correct.
His mind cleared up some more. Yes, he was meant to be standing like this. He always had, before. He wasn’t meant to be the way he looked, now. He slowly sat down on his haunches, a low rumble sounding from his throat.
He couldn’t speak, either. He remembered that was meant to. Why couldn’t he speak? What had happened to him?
“AWOOOOOOO!”
A distant howl sounded from his left and he spun abruptly, eyes wide. In the foggy distance, he could make out a fairly large shape, standing atop one of the looming cliff faces nearby. Not quite as large as he was but… still imposing. Intimidating.
Was he in danger?
A surge of panic took him. The small and tired voice within him protested, but the fear quickly began to overwhelm him. His thoughts, carefully placed together piece-by-piece, seemed to suddenly fall apart.
Threat. Danger.
There was a burning sensation in his throat.
Needed to leave. Needed to run. Not safe.
A chilly wind managed to blow some of the fog aside. A giant figure in armour, clutching a huge spear…
Weapon.
Spear. Point. Danger. He felt his throat burn more. He needed to protect himself. He was in danger!
The small, tired thing inside him protested again. Louder. It spoke weakly against his instincts. A small part of his mind was asking him to focus. Look harder.
The panic still intensified, his throat still burned with suppressed fire, but he found himself listening.
Giant… armoured figure. It was familiar.
He breathed in deeply, extinguishing the flames in his chest. Giant armoured figure… he’d seen it before. He tried again to piece together his thoughts. It was easier this time. The things he’d recovered last time had not vanished - they’d simply been shoved aside.
It still startled him, as he managed to regain his rationality. It had been so easy to panic, to feel like he had to resort to violence.
It hadn’t even moved to attack… it had simply remained atop the cliff, keeping a watchful eye on him. There was no reason to fear. No reason to fight.
He took a step back from the figure.
Then, he squinted.
… Were those dog ears atop its head?
Another howl sounded from the armoured figure, and he heard some more distant howls from others who had heard the call. He blinked, a memory re-emerging.
Sentries. They were sentries.
They were the sentries of the local town. One of them… “Greatest Dog,” had seen him.
He was in the woods… on the outskirts of the town. He was close to the old Ruins.
The creature felt relieved to recover all this information. At least it seemed like his memories weren’t gone for good, and they seemed to be returning with prompts. And despite the small setback, his mind was starting to function a lot better.
His heart sank.
...He’d almost attacked the sentry leader, at the mere sight of him.
The beast thought hard about the howl alarm. He’d been told about them before, hadn't he? (...When he’d first arrived in town.)
Two howls - one long, one short. ‘Stand by.’
Which meant they didn’t know what he was. They weren’t sure if he was a threat. But he looked and smelled very strange.
They were cautious, and it was for the best.
He wasn’t even sure if it was safe for anyone to be around him. What if he wound up hurting someone?
… what if he had hurt someone already?
He backed off, slowly. He’d go the other way. The sentries were ready to defend the town from any threat, and he didn’t want to… lose his senses, again.
He turned, slowly walking away.
… but then, how would he get home? How would he… become normal, again?
He shook his head. His mind wasn’t giving him all the answers, yet. He couldn’t clearly remember what had happened to him… he couldn’t remember where he’d come from or how he’d gotten here, or what exactly he was supposed to look like.
He couldn’t even remember his own name.
He stopped by a large tree. With a heavy sigh, he placed his forehead against it, trying once more to think for answers.
Instead, his recovering mind now seemed to be thinking too much, and his own mental exhaustion seemed to be settling in.
Would he be stuck like this forever?
He tried to ignore the thought, only for more to pop up.
Would he ever remember who he was? How many important things had he forgotten? Would he ever remember those? Had he hurt anyone?
He pressed his head harder against the tree. It creaked a little under the strain.
… did he want to remember?
He was so tired.
He didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t know who or what could possibly help him at this point, if at all. Maybe it was just him feeling lazy, but…
He felt a dull ache in his chest. He’d wanted to know what had happened. But he was also afraid of precisely that. His body was becoming heavier and heavier with exhaustion. He knew there were burns on his bones. He didn’t care about where they came from, anymore.
He’d had enough. He didn’t want to deal with this.
Not anymore. He just wanted to shut everything out.
He slowly sank to the snow-covered ground with a quiet sigh, placing his head upon his claws. His eyes slid closed.
He was tired. He just wanted to sleep. For now, he just wanted to ignore everything.
Forget.
... he wanted to forget.
12 Years Later
The town of Snowdin hadn’t changed much over the years. There were scarcely ever new buildings. The town still retained its cheerful atmosphere. It was still freezing to the uninitiated. And its population always remained unchanged, for the most part.
Until now, however.
A big change had overtaken the Underground in its entirety. The barrier was broken. Monsters could finally leave for the surface world. While the initial encounter with humanity had not occurred without some hostility, negotiations had brought about an understanding and a compromise. Asgore and Toriel were still knee-deep in politics, but the millions of monsters who had remained underground were now permitted to leave for the surface.
It was a large undertaking in Snowdin. Grillby’s had remained open, despite the big move. The (literally) fiery bartender wasn’t about to close up shop until he was the only monster remaining in Snowdin - moving belongings around in huge boxes and sleds worked up an appetite for many citizens, and he wasn’t about to leave them out in the cold.
The bulkier citizens assisted those without arms with their luggage, and those without arms directed the bulkier citizens in the right direction, having had their vision obscured by stacked boxes. The rock families hitched a ride atop such stacks, rolling to and fro with the gait of their transport.
Frisk, donning a thick, orange scarf and a small purple cape, took in the sight.
It hadn’t been easy navigating through the horde of travelling monsters. Snowdin had it rough - while there was an entrance to the surface in the nearby Ruins, many monsters were unable to scale the sheer walls of the cave. They had to travel all the way to New Home.
On their way to Snowdin, Frisk had expertly ducked and weaved through crowds with unparalleled skill. After a long journey of perfecting the art of avoiding fighting, they’d mostly gone unnoticed. Perhaps for the best - suddenly becoming the center of attention for millions of monsters (in a positive or negative manner) had been a bit overwhelming.
They quietly pulled their hood back over their head.
They’d sort all that out later. Right now, they had a place to be.
Dodging past the canine Snowdin Sentries (who were all transporting their belongings via self-driven dog sled) Frisk meandered over to the Skeleton Household. Jogging up the front steps, they could already hear muffled shouts from inside.
Frisk raised a fist to the door, when a voice suddenly sounded from up above.
“knock knock.”
The human jolted in alarm, looking around.
“Uh… who’s there?” They responded.
“cargo.”
Frisk made a face, and backed down the stairs, looking up at the awning above the door. A small figure sat there, his bony legs hanging over the side.
“Even I know that one, Sans.” Frisk muttered. Despite that, they were happy to see him again.
The skeleton shrugged, his expression still stuck in his perpetual smile. “c’mon, kid. humour me a bit.”
The child gave a smile back. “Okay. Cargo who?”
There was a loud shout from inside the household. Before Frisk could register what was happening, a loud “PING” sounded in their ears and they felt themselves being pulled straight up into the air, eye-to-eye with Sans.
One second later, Papyrus’ car bed crashed through the doorway and slid to a stop on the snow outside, right in the path where Frisk had been standing a few seconds ago.
“huh.” Sans remarked, setting Frisk down on the awning beside him, and removing the BLUE effect on their soul. “car doesn’t go beep beep, apparently. cargo through the front door.”
The human felt a little disoriented. “M-maybe ‘cargo incoming’ would have been better? What’s happening down there?”
Sans sat cross legged, placing his hands in his jacket pockets. “we’re getting ready to move out, like everyone else.” He shrugged. “papyrus asked you to lend a hand, right?”
“Yeah.” Frisk looked over at Sans, raising an eyebrow. “...You’re not helping?”
“i was.” The skeleton shrugged. “then papyrus rang up undyne.”
A loud “NGAAAAHHH” sounded, and suddenly, the living room couch appeared, hurtling through the front door and skidding to a halt next to Papyrus’ bed.
“it got a little dangerous. at least it’s quick.” Sans added, eyes squinted in amusement.
With the door permanently out of the way, Frisk could now clearly identify the voices inside the house.
“Alright! The table next!”
“LET ME GET OUR PET ROCK OFF OF IT, FIRST!” A clatter as Papyrus scrambled closer to the front door. “I DON’T THINK IT CAN HANDLE THE EXCITEMENT!”
“First time for everything!” Undyne hooted. “HEADS UP!”
“AAAAAAAA!”
The table was hurled out the door next, Papyrus lying on his back flat on its surface, the pet rock clutched tightly in his gloved hands. The table slid a little more before the collective weight of the couch and bed stopped it in its tracks. Initially a little stunned, the skeleton blinked, spotting the spectators upon the awning.
“FRISK! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU’D ARRIVED!” He stood up in a fluid motion, still clutching the rock with a beaming smile. “ARE YOU HERE TO HELP US IN OUR EFFORTS?”
Frisk grinned back at Papyrus. Despite the absurdity of the situation, it was nice to see him again. “Is there anything I can do? Undyne seems to have it covered.”
“SHE’S JUST DOING THE HEAVY LIFTING!” Papyrus beamed. “WE’LL DEAL WITH THE KNICK-KNACKS!” Then, he glanced over at Sans, who seemed to be settling into a nap on the spot.
“SANS! YOU SAID YOU’D PACK WHAT YOU NEEDED! YOU HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED!”
“i’m travellin’ light, bro.” The shorter skeleton replied, waving his hand. “just takin’ a break for now.”
“LAZYBONES!” Papyrus stomped his foot on the table. “AT THIS RATE, WE’LL BE THE VERY LAST MONSTERS MOVED OUT OF THE UNDERGROUND!!”
“no kidding?” Sans’ eyesockets opened up and he glanced around. Sure enough, the crowds in Snowdin were thinning out. Even the diligent Grillby was standing outside his tavern, as fewer and fewer customers remained. Most folks had moved onward to Waterfall.
The underground was becoming emptied.
“SO LET’S GET A MOVE-ON! FRISK! LET’S GO PACK UP MY FIGURINES!” Papyrus waved up at the human. “I TRUST YOU TO PACK THEM SAFELY!”
Frisk waved back. “I’ll be right there!”
Papyrus retreated back inside, and the human suddenly turned to Sans. He’d gone silent. His smile still remained, but his eyes seemed to be staring somewhere else.
Frisk frowned.
“… Sans? Are you okay?”
The skeleton blinked, and glanced back over at Frisk.
“heh, sorry. just…”
He turned to look back over the town.
“... just, uh... feeling a little deja vu. not the good kind.” He paused, thoughtful. "snowdin was never this empty."
Frisk froze.
The skeleton noted their discomfort, and shook his head. He turned back to the human, ruffling their hair.
“you know what, forget it. sorry, kid. no more of that, yeah?”
The human nodded, though they still felt a weight in their chest. They knew exactly what Sans was talking about.
There had been only one reset on Frisk’s part. One.
Their actions had been progressively beyond their control. The Underground had been emptied.
They had fought against an enabling fear and lost.
But at the tail-end of their journey, it was Sans had stopped them in that golden hall. After that strange, angered and vengeful force had steadily lost hold out of frustration, Frisk had tapped into all the determination they had and stepped back to the very beginning.
Done their best to trust in the kindness of strangers. Done their best not to kill.
And they’d succeeded.
When Sans and Frisk stood facing each other in the golden hall once again, he had believed in the human. Yet, he'd quietly studied them - judged them from afar with a knowing smile. He did not explicitly remember what had happened in Frisk's first foray through the timeline.
But Sans was aware that this was not the first time they had stood together in that hall.
Most of all, he was certainly aware that the human standing before him and horrible being he vaguely remembered clearing out the Underground, were not one and the same.
“...you’re alright, kid?”
Frisk blinked back to the present, realizing that they had been tearing up a little. They wiped them away on their scarf. “Yeah…”
In a way, they felt they owed a lot to Sans. They’d spoken to him in private, the day the barrier had been broken and the small group had first taken the trek down Mt Ebott. Trailing behind the group, Frisk told him everything that had happened in the previous timeline. The skeleton had listened in silence, expression unchanging.
Flooded with nerves and guilt, the end of Frisk's explanation nearly caused the human to break down into tears. In response, Sans had drawn them into a one-armed hug.
"c'mon. deep breaths. can't have the ambassador of monsterkind introduce us in tears, yeah?" He raised his eyebrows. "we'll look like bone-fide bad guys."
Frisk found themself snickering, despite everything.
He'd grinned back, and the human somehow got the feeling that it was a lot more relaxed than usual.
"...i'm proud of you, kid. take all the time you need, okay?"
And that had been enough to fill the human with determination.
If it hadn't been for Sans intervening at the golden hall during that previous timeline, Frisk wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make new friends. Gain a family.
The human found themselves quietly hugging him around the middle, startling the skeleton.
The least they could do in return was to make sure this wonderful timeline continued marching forward. They'd already begun anchoring the timeline in this direction, with the sheer power of their own determination.
“I’m keeping my promise, okay?” Frisk said. "I'm never jumping back."
Sans slung an arm around the human, his eyes dim.
“i know, kid. i’m sorry." He sighed. "didn’t mean to bring up bad memories like that.”
Frisk withdrew from him, shaking their head. “It’s okay.”
They took in a deep breath.
It was time to keep moving on.
They clenched their mittened fists before them. “Okay! I have to help Papyrus.”
The skeleton’s eyes regained their proper brightness. “need a lift down?”
“Sure!” Frisk nodded. Seconds later, however, a fridge came hurtling out of the front door, landing with a loud CRASH on the snow. The human made a face.
“… how about i just set you down to the side?” Sans’ right eye glowed its telltale pale blue and Frisk found themselves lifted up slightly in the air. They gently floated down, cautiously glancing around for any more oncoming pieces of furniture.
Time for the next challenge.
-
When Sans had set the human safely down in the snow and out of the path of oncoming furniture, he sat cross-legged on the awning for a few moments. A part of him considered taking another nap - it was actually pretty peaceful up there.
His eyesockets grew half-lidded.
A lot had happened. A shift in the grand scheme of things. It caused excitement for most of the Underground, but for Sans - it gave him the chance to finally sleep with a relatively untroubled mind.
Ultimately, however, Sans decided that he had things to do.
He stood up. His eye socket activated, flashing blue and yellow for a brief moment.
And he jumped.
By ‘jumped,’ he hadn’t leapt off the awning onto the snow. He had simply stepped through the fabric of reality, to a place he’d been before. He didn’t travel far - in fact, when he opened his eyes, he was inside his own house.
More accurately, he was underneath it.
Sans drew in a deep breath, plunging his hands back into his jacket pockets.
Their basement.
This visit had been a bit of an afterthought, really.
Sans checked the door behind him, making sure it was still locked. For the longest time, this had been his workspace.
He didn’t touch anything as he walked through the room. He wasn’t planning on taking anything with him. None of his projects, none of his works-in-progress. All of them had failed in some ways, but others had been happy accidents.
He placed a hand on his right eye, absentmindedly.
Becoming more attuned to the way the fabric of space worked - that had been a heck of an accident. But it had turned out to be quite useful.
That was what it meant to be a scientist, sometimes.
Maybe a lot of things had malfunctioned, blown up...
"...but ya just write it down." Sans muttered to himself.
It was a slow progress, but sometimes it paid off, or things just worked when they wanted to. Sometimes a lot of the process was sitting around and waiting for things to work.
...Which suited Sans just fine, if he thought about it.
His eyes landed on the end of the room. He considered lifting up the sheet off the old, broken machine, but stopped himself.
That thing was a lost cause, despite all his efforts. A long-abandoned machine, meant to outmatch the determination of a strange anomaly.
Well, he wasn't the only one who'd given up on it. It looked like its creator had too, before he'd even completed it.
Sans spent a long time trying to figuring it out, himself, with the creator absent. The skeleton was pretty bright, he wouldn’t discredit himself that much…
But the machine’s creator made his own systems, his own codes, his own theorems. It had almost been impossible to work them out. He'd spent a long time deciphering them all - only to realise that even the programming was in a strange and unusual language. He'd lost steam.
Now… there wasn’t really a reason to work them out, anymore. For a much better reason than he could have ever imagined.
They were leaving the Underground. Sans had worked on the dang thing for years, attempting to stabilise the time anomaly - to ensure that the time loop would no longer occur.
But now, the elusive power to RESET had been handed down to a strange young human called Frisk.
And they had chosen to stabilise the timeline completely. The determined kid had given their word, and somehow, even the cynical Sans had understood.
There was no point in fixing the machine, now.
... Maybe there hadn’t been in the first place.
Maybe Sans had just wanted to prove to himself that he could actually do it.
He glanced up at the machine.
But…
…maybe it was finally time he left everything behind. A new starting point, and all that jazz. The Underground had been home, but… he was glad to be leaving.
He was glad to be starting again.
As an afterthought, Sans drew a hand out of one of his pockets, and found himself staring at it for a long time. He clenched and unclenched it.
It was normal.
It was his.
He felt his smile drop, and he shoved his hand back into his pocket.
Sans gave the blueprints one last look, focusing hard upon the strange symbols.
Then, he turned and walked back to the door.
Maybe, for once…
…he could actually be in charge of his own fate.
There wasn’t much use for the CORE, anymore.
There was a small debate on whether it would be wise to shut it down, in the event that monsters may have to return to the Underground for whatever reason. But after a large, burly, ice-throwing wolf stemmed the tide of the discussion, it was eventually decided that, unsupervised, leaving the CORE activated was probably a bad idea.
And nobody liked the idea of ice-throwing duty.
Dr Alphys, as her final act as (recently sacked) Royal Scientist, wandered through the halls of the CORE in search of the control room. She’d volunteered to deactivate the contraption herself, and though she hadn’t had the best track record, she knew more about the CORE’s functions than anyone else in the Underground. It was only reasonable that she would take the job.
Though it would be easy to simply shut everything off and assume that was the end of that, the CORE was a fairly unpredictable contraption. A lot of measures needed to be taken before it was switched off for good, lest there be a meltdown, or even an explosion.
Alphys drew in a deep breath, arriving before an automated steel door, a keypad nearby. She quickly entered the top-secret code of ‘K1551QT” and stepped through.
She wrung her hands at the sight of the inner workings of the CORE. She was in the observatory station, protected by thick, magic-infused glass, overlooking… well, simply put, the core of the CORE.
It was a large ball of energy, flaring with every possible colour. It was sustained by several fusion emitters in the room, a channel of water in a ring around it filled with rapidly-melting ice blocks, purposed to cool down the machinery. Straight below the core, thermals rose from the hot magma of the earth, becoming absorbed and then spat back out again at the top, converted into magical electricity.
It was a complex operation.
Alphys glanced down at the control panel, situated just below the window.
Everything needed to remain in their parameters. It was vital that everything remained stable. She got to work.
After a few hours and a whole lot of flinching when some factors dipped briefly in the red zone, a sweating Alphys radioed ahead, notifying her superiors that the fusion emitters of the CORE had shut down, and the energy core that had provided them with power for so long would soon dwindle down to nothing.
She was dismissed from duty, and though Alphys wanted nothing more than to join the crowds of monsters leaving the Underground or go back to her lab and watch anime using her backup generator, she couldn’t bring herself to leave.
She wanted to keep an eye on it. Just to be sure. Just because the machines were off didn’t mean that things were completely in the clear. Past experience had taught her to be cautious, and this was one thing she certainly didn’t want to screw up. She switched power to the backup generator, so that the instruments of the centre remained accurate - and the control panel still remained functional.
Alphys settled down in the control panel chair and waited, her eyes drifting over the instruments for anything strange.
The energy ball shrank down, slowly and steadily. There was little left to sustain it. Nobody had a use for it.
Nobody in this realm, anyway.
As the ball shrank, its composition changed. Chemicals converted, energies mashed together, its properties shifted - it dwindled into something that could no longer power the civilization.
But it shifted into something… ideal for something else.
For a split second, it flickered through to another plane. Strange energies had been involved in making this contraption work, and it was now reaching out into the place between spaces from which it was obtained.
The moment was quick. But the opportunity was not missed.
Something reached back.
Alphys was startled when a small alarm went off. She checked over the instruments again, but nothing was in the red zone.
“Uh… weird.” She suddenly felt a pang of alarm. Were her instruments malfunctioning? She was sure that the backup generator had enough power for a few more hours, yet!
She scanned the control panel feverishly. Had she made another mistake? She couldn’t have! She’d tried so hard this time! They’d been counting on her!
Alphys stopped herself, and took in a deep breath. “Okay… okay.”
No time for panicking. Just needed to focus. She stared hard at the core, outside the window. It was quite small now, a fraction of its original size, the colours now limited to varying shades of dark blue and purple.
She squinted in confusion behind her spectacles.
… it had stopped shrinking. There was nothing left to power it or keep it stable, and yet…
Alphys withdrew from the controls, a claw over her mouth.
“… but how could that work?” She whispered to herself.
The core was stable. It was self-sustaining. It was small, powerless, but it didn’t need fusion emitters. It didn’t need to be cooled. And thanks to the apparent lack of foresight courtesy of the CORE’s creator, she didn’t even have the means to completely extinguish it. It just existed, a strange little dark star just… floating there.
Alphys’ heart grew heavy. She didn’t understand how this could be happening. It didn’t seem like it was dangerous - the instruments weren’t picking up anything bad. She adjusted her glasses, beads of sweat forming on her head.
But she needed to be sure that it wasn’t another disaster waiting to happen.
She sat back down at the controls, typing in a sequence. She was going to record the readings for as long as she could.
The dark star remained there, unchanged. But from within, a silent presence breathed a sigh of contentment.
He was anchored here. At last.
He was weak. But he was here .
A smile, seemingly the first one he’d had in years, cut strangely across his face.
No time for celebrations. There was much to do. Much to see.
… and much to reclaim.