"Say hello to Laura for me!" Toriel called out with a smile as Gaster walked down the long purple hallway.

Laura? Wasn't the human Frisk? Gaster thought, pulling the collar of his turtleneck up over his mouth and nasal passage. He couldn't have Alphys' cameras catching him, he'd be with the human in an instant. But of course, that would also mean confronting… them.


It had been years ago that it had happened. Well, he presumed it had been years, anyway. He was the Royal Scientist for King Asgore, working diligently in the labs in Hotland. And one day, he received a letter from the King himself.

Now, Asgore didn't usually get involved with science. He was a sweet guy, but he knew nothing at all about science. That's why "Royal Scientist" was even a position. In a way, it was almost sad. Regardless, Gaster opened the letter immediately, and the contents nearly made him faint.

He was being allowed to research the four human souls they had gathered to attempt to create synthetic souls.

Gaster had very recently finished the CORE and was looking for a new project, but this? This was almost unreal.

As soon as he could, he took up examining the souls, trying to make them work. Trying to duplicate their energy. To do something that would give him a result.
And then, he did it.
At long last, he found the key component that separated them. Within days he had two samples ready and growing in their vats, WDG S-1 and WDG P-2. He'd even been in such a hurry that he used DNA samples from himself. Though, as they matured, he realized that while he had injected them with that odd red substance he collected from the souls, he hadn't injected them with nearly enough. That, combined with the fact that his was monster, and not human DNA, resulted in them growing into monsters' souls instead.

He couldn't just kill them, of course not, that would be awful. So he kept and raised them, as if they were his own.

Explaining them to Asgore, however, was an entirely different matter. He had ended up keeping them for quite some time before mustering up the courage to inform the king. Thankfully, Gaster and Asgore had a good bit of history together, which helped smooth the revelation over a bit.

Then he fell into the CORE…


He shook his head, blinking as he realized he had been standing in front of the last door out of the ruins for far too long. It was time to get going. He couldn't put this off forever.

He took a deep breath, pushing his hand into his pocket and adjusting his hold on the ghostless dummy under his arm. And then, his magic hands pushed the heavy stone doors open for him.

The snow was almost blinding compared to the dark of the ruins, and Gaster wasn't too proud to admit the slam of the doors shutting behind him startled him. In the end, it didn't matter. He made sure he was facing away from the camera Alphys had in the bushes before he started walking. Now, he could always teleport there, but given how many variables these timelines had, he'd rather not risk it.

He nearly tripped, however, on a heavy-looking branch that was in his path. Odd, Sans should've broken that by now. Gaster thought, walking forward.

And then the unmistakable sound of a heavy branch snapping in half echoed behind him.

Gaster was also not too proud to admit that he broke into a dead sprint.

He knew what this was, the dark, snowy forest rushing past in a blur. He knew who had set this up. That didn't mean Gaster was quite prepared to meet him.

When he reached the bridge, he could feel magic start to weigh him down, holding him in place before he crossed it, coupled with the slow, crunching footsteps behind him. The tall skeleton broke into a cold sweat.

"Don't you know how to greet a new pal?" The familiar voice sounded behind him, and without thinking, Gaster spun and shook the offered hand.

No noise came.

"what the…?" Sans started, looking down only to see the whoopee cushion still in his hand. It was just going through the hole in the stranger's hand.

Immediately, his eyelights shrank to pinpricks in his sockets, and he looked up at who was shaking his hand.

Just in time to see a magic hand pull down that collar to show his head was a skull.
Sans would've collapsed if Gaster wasn't still holding him. "dad…? dad is that actually you?"

"Snowbody but." Gaster responded with a wink, having used Sans' moment of confusion to compose himself.

There was a tense moment, before they both shared a hearty laugh. For the first time since either of them could remember.
"dad, you're actually back! i, uh, thought you'd be stuck out there forever, tibia honest." Sans said, rubbing the back of his skull. Gaster simply chuckled, patting Sans' back. "Oh, a few times I did too. But that's not important. There's a lot to discuss! Now, we should probably get to your home before Papyrus shows up…"
Sans just chuckled. "i know a shortcut."


The shortcut let out right in front of the decorated, multilevel home in the sleepy, snow-dusted town. Thus, Gaster took a moment to enjoy the peace. He had a sinking feeling it wouldn't last.

Once inside the skeletons' house, Gaster sat down, took a breath, and explained roughly everything that didn't have to do with the virus, including that he was technically not their father, but one from another timeline. He needed true answer to one specific question before dropping the "virus" bombshell.

And he so dreaded what that answer might be.

"that's a story there, g, but maybe we should tone it down for pap, yeah?" Sans said with a bit of a chuckle, setting the ketchup bottle he had drained in the course of the story down. "Oh, of course! I'm guessing you told your brother something like I was on vacation?"

"actually–"

"SANS, WHO IS THIS?" A very loud voice came from the doorway. Both skeletons turned as one to face the "armored" skeleton in the doorway. "uh, bro, this is… Gaster. y'know, dad." Papyrus took a moment to process this, causing both other skeletons to break out sweating.

And then he lunged forward, hug-tackling Gaster nearly to the floor. "DADDY!"

"It's good to see you, Papyrus." Gaster said between gasps for breath. And skeletons didn't even need to breathe. "DADDY YOU'VE MISSED SO MUCH! I'M IN THE ROYAL GUARD, I'VE GOT LOTS OF PUZZLES, I'M GONNA CAPTURE A HUMAN, I WENT ON A DATE, AND I'M GONNA BE A MASTER CHEF!"

Finally, he let go, meaning he dropped Gaster to the floor, and gasped. Loudly. "NOW THAT YOU'RE BACK, I CAN SERVE YOU SOME OF MY AMAZING SPAGHETTI!" He shouted, somehow louder than usual, before rushing off to the kitchen. Sans just chuckled, helping the scientist up. "i better go make sure he doesn't burn the house down. we'll call ya in, g." He said, leaving a key in Gaster's hand that nearly fell right through. There was a message carved into the back.

"don't forget"

They shared one last look, before Gaster had his magic hands pick up the dummy and he walked outside, Sans walking in to help his brother.
Then, Gaster took his chance, looking back at their souls.


Inside the basement, Gaster had set down the dummy, and gripped the counter hard enough to crack it. His eyelights were out and he was struggling to contain his fury, his hatred for the virus. It had done it. it had infected his sons. That was the final straw. he was going to find that thing and annihilate it.

He took a few deep breaths, calming down. Can't work angry, that just ruins the value of the work.

Once he'd calmed down, he started to tinker with the machine under the sheet. A doorway to parallel timelines was its original, intended purpose. This was followed closely by attempting to convert it into a gateway to the void. Unfortunately, it just never got there and was let in its broken state like this. Despite Sans' best attempts.

However, that didn't mean that nothing could be salvaged from it. That was how Gaster wound up holding a little stopwatch-like object with numbers like an odometer on the front. A device he had managed to figure out how to create while in the void. The upper line of numbers for total timeline resets, the lower for localized time loops. Resets and reloads. With both numbers set to all zeros, he could confidently start to work on the machine proper. It was the least he could do to try to help the him of this timeline. And perhaps, he could even repair it.

When he was called up, he had it so that it could at least power on. Sort of. It sparked. It was progress all the same, and he refused to give up on it. To him, there was nothing truly unfixable. Not a machine, or a situation.

Gaster was pulled inside by Papyrus, who certainly seemed eager. He was then sat down to a plate of what certainly looked like spaghetti. So he smiled at Papyrus, picked up his fork, and took a bite. If only he had been paying closer attention to the timelines.

The taste was indescribable, even to a scientist.

He forced himself to swallow, thanking any god there was that skeletons could not, to his knowledge, vomit. His smile was much more nervous now, and he was sweating. "Ah… This is…. A-amazing, Papyrus!" He said with a strained smile. "S-so amazing, that I couldn't bear to take another bite! You'd, ah, b-better save this for later!" Gaster said with a quick nod, pushing the plate away from him and trying to force down another wave of nausea. If he survived this, he was going to run some tests on that "spaghetti."

Papyrus simply chuckled, picking it up. "AH, YOU AREN'T THE FIRST TO HAVE THAT REACTION! MY COOKING IS AS GREAT AS I AM, AFTER ALL!" He said, scraping the pasta into a container, before placing it in the fridge. "OH, I NEARLY FORGOT! IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR METTATON'S BROADCAST! DADDY, COME JOIN US!" Papyrus shouted, grabbing Sans under his arm and vaulting the table to plop down on the couch.

Gaster sighed in relief, before following them with a wide smile and sitting on the opposite end as Papyrus, Sans between them. Usually Gaster had stopped watching by the time the human reached Hotland, as "runs" were usually firmly in place by there. When the screen turned on, Gaster had to force his eyelights to stay on.

There, on screen, was the human. The anomaly. The virus.

… Reporting the news?

Bombs?!

The brothers seemed unfazed by this, besides the fact that it was the human. They were both, in fact, very very concerned for her. Unnaturally so. Oh he knew just why, but that made it no less unsettling.

"How did the hum– Er, Laura get on Mettaton's show?" Gaster asked after a moment of watching, noting the color of her soul. It was one of the four rarer colors yet with a common subtype. Fascinating. Her age, early twenties by his estimate, was also interesting.
"he said he saw her on the cameras, then he just had to have her on his show. alph said it was like he became a brand new bot." Sans said, without taking his eyes from the screen. "thank god this is live, we get to see that the kid's alright for now."

Then Gaster's eyelights shrunk as everything clicked in his mind.