A/N: I apologize if the last chapter seemed a little rushed guys, I was trying to get an update out at the time so I didn't break my promise, but here I am, breaking it a few weeks later without an update. I'll try to make up for it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale or any associated characters, those rights belong to Toby Fox.

Chapter 6

Between Timeline 1: 1st Save & 2nd Save

When Chara would 'come to', well, she really didn't come to. The girl hadn't even been really aware that she had died. All she could feel was a strange thrumming, and outside of that a familiar, almost comforting suffocating sensation. Even then, the child found it hard to describe, and she still did. The Void would always prove a hard place to explain. If things had been functioning as they were supposed to, Chara shouldn't have even felt this place's existence. Though something kept her there. What she could barely refer to as the scattered remnants of her mind wandered for a seeming eternity, for there was nothing to mark the passage of time in the void. It lazily, exhaustedly, tried to slug through the single thread of existence that kept her in the Void.

A vague noise cut it's way through the void, almost sounding like a voice(?), and a familiar bubbling feeling welled up inside the remnants of her mind. It acted like a warm glue, and slowly dragged her mind back together, and once again Chara could open her eyes. The sight that met her eyes certainly held to be the strangest she had seen as of yet.. A vague tug on something internally brought her eyes to a red light, and she metaphorically jumped back when her eyes landed on the small, broken, red heart that laid in front of her. The heck?

With a brief moment of hesitation, the girl tried to logically think this through. Where was she? (In the blackest of freaking abysses) What time was it? (How the heck could she even guess that?) How did she… Oh. Chara then remembered she had died, and that reality hit her like an eighteen wheeler.

(Ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman-) All Chara could do for a few more minutes was metaphorically panic. Her mind went into complete disarray and her usual ration behavior dropped.

"What am I gonna do? Ohmanohman! Frisk! Sans! Ms. Toriel! Mr. Asgore…." She choked the last name out in desperation. Was this what the afterlife consisted of? She just wanted someone by this point. An instinct told her this wasn't natural and never was supposed to be. That same instinct brought up another, hypocritical thought. There was more to live for and she couldn't let the natural happen and let her pass on. Why didn't she die? Through misted eyes, she watched the broken heart, almost expecting some type of reply from-whatever the heck it was.

The red shimmered, and the heart seemed to give a broken sigh, visibly shifting against the pitch-black backdrop. Chara let out a terrified squeak and backed away from the thing. Did it have a pulse?! Tensely, she watched it, and after a rough estimate of a minute of nothing happening, the girl's original, terrified thoughts started to fade.

Curiosity started to take over. The poor, torn….thing, looked wretched. In a bout of sympathy, the preteen reached out to absently touch it, her determination to satisfy her curiosity trickling in as well. An odd thing occurred the moment of supposed contact, the previously dark void around her flashed to life with a blinding light. Chara's eyes closed, and blinked open, and what met her eyes this time caused her to stumble. She could physically stumble back in shock as well.

Here she was, walking down the hallway to investigate a noise she had heard along with Frisk and Sans. Previously mentioned people stood behind her, as scared stiff as she remembered. Chara completely stopped, causing a chain reaction similar to a domino effect. Frisk ran into her, knocking them both over, and Sans fell into them in surprise. Again, they were in a disheveled heap, with a stunned Chara crushed at the bottom.

"C-Chara, are you alright?" Frisk asked quietly as she squirmed out of the pile. That had been an unusual action by Chara, and Frisk couldn't help but be curiously worried about Chara. A groan and glance reminded her about Sans and the little girl helped pull the skeleton off of her sister. Sans adjusted the overly large jacket he wore so it wasn't dangling so much.

Chara herself had started to get up, but had stopped halfway through, and currently was on her hands and knees and staring at one of her hands. Admittedly, she liked not being dead, who wouldn't? To suddenly come back like that would have been a shock to any person though, and this twelve year old couldn't comprehend the fact. She wasn't supposed to be here. Her time had surely ended. Even considering the slightest chance she could come back, wouldn't it have to be back- in the room up ahead? Not back a few minutes down the hall. Nature didn't support either actions of what she knew had occurred.

"chara?" A louder voice called, knocking Chara out of her reverie and making her jump. The girl slowly sat back on her legs and glanced up at the two figures dumbfoundedly. Her sister dropped to her knees and examined her. Frisk and Chara's eyes met for the longest moment, leaving Sans uncomfortable. With his grin, he glanced towards the wall nervously. Everything remained almost frozen for a moment. A tense, unsure moment of concern and nervous glances towards the end of the hall. The two younger children were starting to let their imagination run wild, with their older guide so out of sorts.

"chara? Are you alright? P-please talk to us." Sans pleaded as he came closer to becoming hysterical. Any type of acknowledgement would do for him at this point. This note of desperation brought Chara back to reality.

"Calm down, there, buddy." Chara commented dryly, shaking her head and trying to play off the weird silence. "I'm fine." Though as those words came out, she glanced away nervously. Lying didn't come quite so naturally to her. Frisk noticed the evasive facial expressions and put her hands on Chara's shoulders rather firmly. It startled her older sister into looking directly into her eyes. When Chara saw what Frisk was trying to do, the older sister's face twisted into one of the kind of determination not to tell from fear. Frisk's became a similar copy to Chara's, except it was kinder and more open. They stayed like that for a few minutes.

Squirming from where he stood already, Sans felt uncomfortable and turned away from the sisters. A tense and scared mood caused a scream to escape him as he nearly ran into something. The skeleton tried to brush it away and fell onto his rear in his panic. That gave him the view to see the true form of what he had run into. Looking up, his fear calmed and was rather soothed by the appearance of the Queen. Asgore coming to stand next to her caused Sans to release a tension filled sigh.

Toriel, with confusion written into her still somehow kind face, kneeled in front of Sans. She offered him a hand to help him off the ground. This action confused Sans momentarily, and he shook his head.

"c-chara needs you more, m-miss." He pointed a bony finger to the siblings, who had stopped their staring contest at his scream and had been watching in disbelief since. At Sans' words, Frisk jumped up and away from her sister with a vigorous nod of agreement. The little girl then moved to drag Toriel towards Chara. By this time the girl had stood up, and her eyes were darting away again; her body posture suggested she was nervous from something again. This only made Frisk's insistency and intensity become worrying to Toriel.

"Are you alright, Chara? What's going on?"

Chara couldn't find a proper answer to satisfy Toriel. She couldn't meet the nice monster's eyes nor did the child want to sound like a lunatic. For now, Chara wanted to play it off as a dream. A terrifying hallucination of her supposedly acting up hormones while she was turning into a teen.

"Well, Mrs. Toriel, we heard a really loud noise from the room up ahead." The girl played off easily, glad that her uneasiness at lying played off as the rambling of a scared child. Though she couldn't stop herself from jumping when Asgore's deep voice started.

"There was?" He placed a hand on Toriel's shoulder and shared a meaningful look with her.

"Yeah, we were going to investigate it."

"You should let us go take a look at it. Why don't you children head back?" Asgore replied, tone warmingly suggestive and calm. Behind him, Sans and Frisk were looking dubiously at Chara, though didn't raise a peep.

"S-sure, come along Frisk, Sans." Chara replied with almost expectant haste, and she carefully slipped past the monarchs to her sister and Sans. Grabbing their arms (and both Frisk and Sans noticed, with a wince, that she clenched them tightly), Chara started dragging them away. She had hoped her rush to get out of there would pass as anxiety, but it served to worry Toriel and Asgore further. They spent a moment to glance back at the retreating children.

Chara managed to drag them back to the stairs before Sans and Frisk were fed up. With a quick reassuring glance towards each other, the two dived into the pile of leaves, pulling a surprised Chara with them.

"G-guys! What was that for?!" Chara asked loudly, annoyed and startled. She sat up rather abruptly and shook the leaves off.

"you lied to them, Chara."

"Lied? I told them the entire truth, Sans! I don't understand why you would accuse me of such an action." The whole thing hadn't been a lie, but at the part of 'telling the whole truth', Chara realized her untruthful action yet again and couldn't meet Sans' eyes. Frisk, who had sat up the moment she could and had noticed Chara's actions, huffed in silent agitation and gestured violently. Sans took that cue.

"See, your lying." He replied, trying to imitate the rather dry annoyance Chara exhibited sometimes, though the rendition was poor. Chara didn't react to the imitation, and earlier she would have been annoyed and irritated beyond belief at it. Sans wasn't sure what else to do.

"c-chara, did something happen? I was sure I felt something." Frisk's eyes darted to Sans in confusion, and then back to her sister. She physically flinched at the fear visible in her older sister's eyes.

"Don't ever ask that question again!" Chara yelled, terrified at the thought that anyone might know. No, no one needed to know. Chara shook like a leaf as she turned and started walking back the way the King and Queen had come.