.:Author's Note - It is an interesting fic you've decided to read here, friend. The first chapter doesn't really hint at some of the stranger things you may encounter in this tale, so let me give you a few warnings before you get too invested in the story. This fic takes place just before the main game. This fic is very heavy on the spoilers for all play styles, so unless you've seen both the True Pacifist end and the Genocide end, you may wish to come back to this later. This fic also relies very heavily on the character W.D. Gaster, who is only vaguely hinted at unless you alter your game's code. You may wish to look him up if you don't know who he is. Now for the real warnings… This fic deals heavily with mpreg/skelepreg. If it's not your thing, you may wish to leave. There will also be joking references to incest/Fontcest, but none of that actually occurs here. It's just a bit of good-natured 'ribbing.' *badum tch* Though I should emphasize that there's no smut in this fic. Y'know… since those last two points usually come with a big ol' helping of sex. None here, sorry. Just dirty jokes and the occasional swear. Also, if you haven't figured it out already, there will be weirdness abound, and in more flavors than you can count. So, if I haven't scared you away yet, or if you're just one of those kinds of people who love to read things they absolutely can't stand, please enjoy the story.:.

Sans stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the vast sea of molten lava, the shadow of the Core looming overhead. He wasn't sure why he still came here, why he kept doing this to himself. How many years had it been since then? He really couldn't keep track anymore, not because it had been quite that long, but because he'd had to relive so much of it over and over again. He couldn't even remember when he'd started remembering the 'resets'. It had come on so gradually, just as a vague feeling at first, a feeling that something wasn't quite right. Then came the déjà vu, then solid flashes of memory. Sometimes he wished he could have remained ignorant to it all, wished he could have lived his life without knowing any of this was going on behind the scenes. Of course, that was a childish, selfish wish, wasn't it? After all, not knowing it was happening didn't make the reality of it disappear. It just gave him an excuse to be lazy and do nothing about it.

Sans stared down into the lava below, a mournful sigh escaping him. Was he just fooling himself into thinking it could be fixed at all? And, even if it could, did he really have it in him to be the one to fix it? He'd never been good with shouldering responsibility, especially when failure carried such a hefty price. He couldn't help but wonder if things would be different if his father were still alive.

Thus, the diminutive skeleton found himself once again at the Core, standing before his late father's greatest invention, standing at the edge of the cliff where the former Royal Scientist had tragically died. W.D. Gaster… Surely, if anyone could figure out how to reverse the trend of these time lapses, it was him.

"dad… i wish you were here…" Sans mumbled to himself under his breath. But wishing was futile. A monster's soul couldn't survive outside its body, not like a human's soul could…

Before he could continue his lamentations, a small glint of light caught his eye down below. It wasn't normally something that would warrant his attention, just a faint shimmer of blue in an ocean of orange, but it was enough. He squinted, but he couldn't quite make out what it was. Whatever it was, it seemed to be resting in a crevice in the steep slope of the cliff face, down by the lava. It would be suicide to climb down there and get it...

Well, it was a good thing he didn't have to climb, now wasn't it? Sans removed a bony hand from the pocket of his hoodie, holding it out towards the object. A blue aura formed around his hand, and he quickly made a jerking motion upward. The object shot up towards him as if plucked up by an invisible hand, and it now floated before the skeleton's face. It looked like a broken shard of some sort of crystal, shining with an all-too-familiar blue hue. It was probably just some piece of junk someone had dropped off the side of the cliff. He shrugged lightly and placed it in his pocket.

"oh well… guess that's life, ain't it dad? garbage in, garbage out…"

He then turned to leave and, in the time it took him to take half a step, he suddenly found himself standing ankle-deep in fresh, powdery snow. He felt a shudder rattle through his bones, a chill gripping at his soul. He had his 'shortcuts,' it was true, but… He hadn't used them that time. He let out a shaky breath, his shoulders drooping. Another time reset… They were becoming more and more frequent lately. That couldn't be a good thing. He hadn't a chance to look around and get his bearings before he heard an impatient stomp in the snow next to him.

"SANS! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN MY NEXT BRILLIANT PUZZLE TO YOU, YET ALL YOU'RE DOING IS STANDING THERE LOOKING ALL… MOROSE! I'M STARTING TO WONDER WHY I WASTE MY TIME TRYING TO HAVE A MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION WITH YOU."

The voice alone was enough to bring back the smile on Sans's face. He turned his usual grin up towards his younger brother, giving the lanky skeleton an innocent shrug of his shoulders.

"ah, c'mon. don't be like that, papy. i was listening. besides, even if i wasn't, i know how much ya like hearing the sound of your own voice. i figured ya'd like it better if i just kept my yap shut and let you do all the talking."

Papyrus couldn't help but narrow his eyes down at his diminutive elder brother, his slender arms folding themselves across his chest. He then turned his nose up with a huff.

"HMPH! EMPTY FLATTERY WILL GET YOU NOWHERE."

Sans let out a small chuckle at that. It wasn't exactly meant as flattery, but he'd let his brother think that if he wanted. After all, grown though he may be, Papyrus was still as naïve as he'd ever been. He seriously doubted his little brother would ever grow out of it. Not that he would change that for the world, of course. It was one of his more endearing qualities.

He placed his hands in their usual spots in the pockets of his hoodie and was preparing to say something in reply to his brother's comment – most assuredly something witty and hilarious – when something made him freeze dead in an instant. His eye sockets widened, his mouth hanging open slightly. No… No, that couldn't be… Finally, after a long moment in which time could have stood still for all he knew, he willed himself to move. He turned on his heel, dashing back towards their front door without another word.

"SANS? WHAT'S WRONG? WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Papyrus asked in sudden alarm, causing Sans to pause just before reaching for the door knob. He gave his brother a brief flash of a smile over his shoulder.

"sorry, bro. gotta take a leak." He replied hastily, trying to put a note of urgency in his voice. Papyrus's expression immediately softened into an understanding smile.

"OH. VERY WELL, THEN." He replied evenly, making a small shooing gesture with his gloved hand. Sans didn't bother waiting for permission, darting inside before his brother had even properly finished his short sentence. Papyrus stood there for nearly a full minute before the obvious finally dawned on him. His smile flicked away, his brows knitting together in sudden realization that he'd just been duped.

"HEY, WAIT A MINUTE! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE—"

But it was far too late for protests now. Sans had already long since slipped away.

Sans was in his room almost the instant he'd stepped into the house. As soon as he was securely behind a locked door, he hastily reached into his pocket. By all rights, what he'd pulled out a moment later shouldn't have been there. It was the shard of a blue crystal, a faint magical glow emanating from it. The skeleton's hands began to shake as they delicately held what just a few moments ago he'd dismissed as a piece of junk. The only problem was, that 'few moments ago' technically hadn't happened. If he were to go by the conversation he'd been thrown in the middle of with Papyrus, he'd estimate this latest reset had sent him back about four or five days. If that was the case, how could he possibly still have something that he'd picked up only seconds before the reset occurred?

"wh-what the hell is going on here…" he breathed out in utter disbelief. Not once had he ever encountered an object that ignored the time skips. Whatever this thing was… Could it somehow give him some clue as to how he could stop these temporal resets? He ran his thumb along the smooth, slightly curved side of the crystal. What could it even be?

Before he could ponder too long on it, the crystal shard twitched of its own accord. Sans drew in a sharp gasp of surprise, almost dropping the damned thing. He held his breath, watching, waiting for it to move again. It did. Slowly, twitch by tiny twitch, the crystal spun itself around in his hand until the pointier end was aimed vaguely to his right side. After a moment of sitting idle in that position, as if getting impatient with him, it twitched again. This time, it seemed to shuffle across his palm slightly in the direction it was pointing. He gave the crystal a withering glare. Okay, jeez, he got the picture…

He cast a glance in the direction the crystal was pointing, soon finding himself staring at the self-sustaining trash tornado in the corner of his room. Okay, what was the big deal about that? It had always been there. He was all set to dismiss it as the crystal simply having a 'what the fuck is that?!' moment when a glint of blue caught his eye.

Sans's hand immediately shot up, and the tornado froze in a shimmer of blue magic. He couldn't help but stare for a long moment. There was the tiny shard of a blue crystal floating in the middle of the hodgepodge of debris. That had never been there before. He knew every scrap of junk in his room, and that had most certainly never been there. He reached out and grabbed it.

Both crystal shards now in hand, he stared down at them, examining them. What could they possibly be? Were they shards of the same thing? It almost looked as though they might fit together… He brought the two pieces together, and when they met, they immediately fused into one solid piece, not even the faintest remnant of a crack left to suggest that they'd ever been broken apart at all. In that same instant, the relative coolness of his room abruptly gave way to an oppressive, stifling heat.

Sans looked up in alarm. He was back in Hotland? But why? Another reset? He couldn't remember them ever having occurred so close together before. On impulse, he looked down in his hand. Sure enough, the crystal was still there, still fused into one piece. Even that hadn't been affected by the reset.

"Alphys might work faster. But the old Royal Scientist, Doctor W.D. Gaster?"

Sans jolted slightly at the sudden strange voice coming from behind him, and he immediately turned to see who it was. The monster who stood there… He was sure he'd never seen him before. That in itself was odd enough. He knew everyone in the Underground, even if they didn't know him. But the feeling this creature gave him… it sent chills up his spine, like he was staring into an endless void. He looked vaguely feline, though he didn't seem to have a face. All he could see was shadow. In one hand it held what looked like a shrunken human head.

The creature's odd appearance was secondary in Sans's mind. What truly concerned him, what made him feel as though invisible claws were reaching out to grasp at his soul from beyond the veil of time and space, was what it had said. It had said the name of his father. But that was impossible! No one remembered his father, not even the king himself, who had originally appointed him as the first Royal Scientist! Not even… Well, he supposed Papyrus had an excuse for not remembering. He'd still been an infant when their father died, after all. It was as if all record of the old scientist had been wiped from the pages of history. All except Sans's memories of him… and this.

"what do you know about gaster?" he asked, trying not to look rattled by all of this. That thin façade of calm was shattered when the strange gray creature answered him. The reply didn't come from the feline figure, but from the shrunken head it held in its hand.

"One day, he vanished without a trace. They say he shattered across time and space." The head's eerily wispy voice paused for a moment, letting out a small chuckle that sounded as though it could have been the breathy moans of a hundred tortured souls. "How can I say so without fear? I'm holding a piece of him right here."

And with that, the shrunken head opened its mouth wide, a sickening black appendage snaking its way out. The surface of the strange tongue seemed to slowly melt away, black ooze slowly and viscously dripping away to reveal yet another shard of a broken blue crystal. Sans couldn't help but draw in a sharp gasp. This was… This was a piece of Gaster?! How could that be?! And how did this thing know about it? With a lingering air of hesitation, Sans reached out to grab the crystal shard being offered to him. The instant he did so, he suddenly found himself standing ankle-deep in fresh, powdery snow.

"SANS! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN MY NEXT BRILLIANT PUZZLE TO YOU, YET ALL YOU'RE DOING IS STANDING THERE LOOKING ALL—HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"

Sans hadn't even bothered to excuse himself from his brother's ramblings before turning on his heel and darting into the house. He'd barely stepped through the threshold before he was in his bedroom once more. He stared down into his hands, his whole body trembling to the point that he could almost hear his bones rattling. They were still there. In his left hand he held the fused crystal from earlier, its smooth side curving into a gentle arch. In his right hand he held the crystal given to him by the strange creature, its shape vaguely resembling a check mark. Slowly, with more care than he could remember having ever used on anything in his life, he brought the two pieces together. They fused just like the ones from earlier, and now he could start to see a shape forming. It almost looked like the top crest of a heart-shaped crystal. He fought to keep his hands from shaking too much, fought to keep the significance of what he was now holding from overwhelming him. It was the shattered remains of a crystalized soul.

More importantly, it was the remains of W.D. Gaster's soul.