First thing I need to say is that I am very very sorry for the long delay on this chapter. I never intended to wait this long on writing this one, and certainly not this long on posting it. Lot's of things have been happening for me recently, and that's all kinda gotten in the way of my writing. Back to our regularly scheduled AN, thanks to Mr. jal, KaidaShi, dream1990, and Kalmarin for following. Also thanks to all of you excepting dream (I still love you anyway for following dream =^.^=) for adding this to your favorites. I can't promise I'll be more regular with my updates in the future, but I will try my hardest not to let this happen again, sorry guys.


Sans

"Kid, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, whatever it is you did, Frisk isn't dying anymore. Well, not as quickly, at least. I'm going to go get help, I'll be right back. Don't budge." "Not that he could if he wanted to." Sans was a little more shaken up than he realized. When he took a shortcut to Alphys' basement, Sans almost materialized directly inside of her equipment lying in the corner of the room.

"WOAH! Ok Sans! Deep breaths in… and out… everything is going to be just fine. Not like anyone you care about is on death's doorstep or anything." He was having some difficulty calming down, to say the least.

The door to the basement opened, admitting one yellow, almost dinosaur-ish monster.

"Wh-what's goin- Sans?! What are you doing here? How did you get here? Where's Frisk? Why do you look like you've seen a-" Sans cut Alphys off in the middle of her question.

"Alphys, listen. I need your help." Sans grabbed Alphys' arm at the wrist and got prepared to jump back to his previous location.

"What do you mean? Sans, what do you need my- what just happened?! How'd we get here? Can you teleport Sans?" Alphys was having a bit of an odd day.

"Just help me get them out of here, and back to your lab. I can explain everything there." Sans walked into the next room.

"Them? Who's the other?" Alphys answered her own question just one moment afterwards. "How is he here?! Why are they like this?! Sans, why does Frisk's SOUL look like someone tried to drain it?!"

"Just pick up Frisk, I've got this one." Sans didn't want to risk "shortcutting" the two into the floor, and he couldn't carry them both (he also didn't even want to try levitating them with the current state of their SOULs), hence why Alphys was here.

Once Alphys had Frisk off the ground, Sans touched his elbow to Alphys' arm, and brought them back to her basement. He was relieved to see that they had all made it back successfully.

"OK! Now that we're back… What the HELL is going on?!" Alphys was a little shaken up with the current state of things.

"You'll learn everything in a minute. First, I need to know if they're going to survive, and if not, how we can make it so that they will." That was all Sans was focused on. He knew Toriel would probably kill him if anything happened to Frisk, and he wasn't exactly indifferent when it came to the kiddo's life.

"Fine, bring them into that room. I keep most of my diagnostic equipment in there." Alphys gestured to a door opposite from the stairs to the rest of the house.

Sans brought Frisk in first. The room was larger than he expected. It was a lot like the Bedroom in the True Lab. There were fewer beds though. "I guess Alphy didn't expect to be doing any more large scale experimentation." He set Frisk down on one of the beds closest to the door. When he brought Asriel in, Sans had him one bed over.

Alphys was already busy hooking up the instruments and equipment she would need. Sans recognized most of the devices she was using, but not all. He may have been a part of research on SOULs in the past, but he gave that up a long time ago.

"Is there anything else you need me to do?" Sans didn't want to just stand there awkwardly as Alphys got to work.

"I should be alright, thanks."

"I'll be waiting outside then, no reason for me to be here if there's nothing I can do." Sans opened the door back to the main basement, walked out, and sat down next to the door.

Suddenly, the door was opened rather forcefully. "Oh no."

"Hey Alphys, what's with all the-… Sans?" Undyne looked a bit confused, most likely on how and why Sans was in her basement.

"Hi Undyne, what's up?"

"Just wondering what's going on. And how you're here."

"Why? Something smell fishy? If so, it's probably you." Sans was doing what he does best.

"I've heard that one before. And yes, something does smell fishy. What's all the yelling about?" Undyne wasn't even fazed.

"Just some project Alphys is working on. She wants my help but I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."

"She didn't sound happy. How are things going?"

"Pretty well actually. She's just working herself down to the bone, that's all." Sans was trying his best to distract Undyne. He was pretty sure it was working.

"Is she now? Think I'll be able to help?" Ok, so maybe Sans wasn't so sure about that.

"Nah, she's just doing some 'sciency' stuff. No kelp required."

"That one was a stretch and you know it." Undyne was smirking though. "Well, if she doesn't need any help, I'm going to go watch something. Tell her I can do anything if she needs it."

"That was close." Sans was very relieved to see Undyne go back upstairs. Now that he was alone, his thoughts returned to the two this mess he found himself so tangled in came from. "You better not have gone and gotten yourself killed for him kiddo."

"How am I going to explain this to Toriel?"

Sans waited for an hour while Alphys ran her tests. It was just when Sans started to doze off when Alphys came out and gave him the results.

"Sans?"

"I'm awake, what took so long Alphy?"

"The tests were m-more complicated than I had an-anticipated."

"What do you mean?" Sans was immediately more worried than before. "She's started her stuttering. That's not a good sign."

"W-well… Th-there's the good news. A-and the b-bad news."

"Good news first." At this point, Sans just needed to hear some good news.

"W-well… they're both g-going to live. I-it'll take some t-time, but Asriel's S-SOUL is recovering."

"And Frisk?" Sans definitely picked up on the fact that Alphys had made no mention of Frisk's SOUL.

"Umm… well, y-you see, Frisk's SOUL i-is not changing. F-for better or w-worse. Asriel w-will wake up in a f-few d-days. I don't kn-know if Frisk will ever w-wake up." Alphys was trying to stay calm. She wasn't doing such a good job.

"Damnit Frisk! Why'd you have to go and do this?!" Sans drew a deep breath… and released it. "… Is there anything else?"

"Th-there is, a-actually. I don't know i-if it's good or bad, b-but I have hope. There s-seems to be some s-sort of a connection b-between their SOULs now. M-maybe, if I h-have more t-time to study it, when Asriel f-fully recovers, we can u-use it to h-help Frisk. B-but there's also the ch-chance it may n-negatively affect Asriel."

"We'll try to be optimistic here and call it a glimmer of hope. You should keep looking into it. Other than that though, all we can do is watch and wait." Sans hoped that they could find some way to just make it all better, fix the whole thing. "That's not how life works though, and I know that better than anyone. You have to fight for what you want, and maybe you'll find what you need."

"Y-yeah, I'll continue t-to check the b-bond." Sans was going to have to help Alphys through this, or at least help keep her from worrying other people.

"It's the best we can do right now. Don't worry Alphy; everything is going to work out alright. I think we should take some time before we tell anyone about this though, especially about Him. We need to be careful and plan out how we explain it all."

"Th-that makes sense, but umm… is-isn't T-Toriel expecting F-Frisk home soon?"

Sans gave Alphys a reassuring smile "Don't worry, I'll handle it."

"Toriel's not gonna like finding out her daughter is in a coma."

"And I just volunteered to be the one to tell her."

"Crap."

Asriel

Asriel found himself lying under the blankets of a soft bed when he woke up. "I need to quit passing out. There's no way this can be good for you." He raised himself into a sitting position. It was harder than he expected, but Asriel managed. Once he had his back against the pillows at the head of the bed, he examined the rest of the room. It was pretty small, and it had nothing in it besides the bed, him, a mirror on the wall the bed faced, and a chair. It seemed like an unused guest room or something along those lines. Now that his surroundings had been identified, Asriel noticed he felt strange. Like he was empty, or missing something. He didn't get much time to think about this, as the door opened quickly afterwards. Sans came walking in with a phone to his "ear" as he talked.

"Yeah, his condition hasn't seemed to change all that much, but-"

That was when he noticed Asriel.

"Hey, I'll call you back Alphy, he's awake."

Sans hung up, and put the phone in his jacket pocket. Then, he walked over to the chair by the bed and took a seat.

"Heya kid. How're ya feeling?" He said this pretty calmly, which surprised Asriel a little.

"Uh… tired I guess?" Asriel realized that it was out of his mouth this voice came, and was shocked. "I don't remember my voice being this deep… wait… that's right, I began to age as a flower when my SOUL got trapped after my battle with Frisk. I guess it makes sense that it would transfer over."

"Even after this long a nap? Actually, I can't blame ya. After all you've been through; I'd sleep for a year. How about the essentials? Want something to drink or eat?"

The empty feeling made more sense once Asriel remembered that eating was a thing he needed to do now. When he thought about it, food seemed an amazing idea.

"Yeah, that would be great, thanks."

"Alrighty then, I'll get right back to you in a minute." Having found himself something to do other than sit there awkwardly, Sans went to grab some food.

It didn't take too long for him to return with a plate of cinnamon buns and a glass of orange juice. Asriel's stomach growled at the sight of sustenance. He hadn't eaten for long, long time.

"Here ya go kid. Sounds like ya needed it more than you let on." Sans smirked at that comment.

Asriel laughed a little back as he ate. "Maybe you should try my diet. A few centuries without food and you'd be a little hungry too." It felt so good to be alive again!

"Hey, listen here kid. I'm not fat, just big-boned."

Asriel grinned. The last time he had been this happy, was far more than a little while ago.

"How is everyone handling the fact that I'm back?" He had guessed that Sans would have given everyone the news.

"Umm… about that… Alphys and I, we uh… decided it would be better to keep that information from public ears until we had taken time to think on how to tell everyone, and you were well enough to be there yourself." Sans wasn't sure how he thought the kid would take hearing that.

"Oh… I can see why you would do that. We can tell them now though, right?"

"I still think we might wanna wait a little longer kid, just to be safe."

"*sigh* alright… wait, what about Frisk? How's she doing? Is she ok?"

Before Sans could respond Asriel heard a knock on a door away from the room he was in.

"Let me answer that." Sans dashed from the room and closed the door.

Asriel (with great effort) stood up and walked unsteadily to place his head against the door. He could hear what was going on in the room behind it pretty well, if a little muffled.

"Oh, heya Tori. How's it goin'?

"Sans…"

"Yes?"

"Please, I only wish to know what happened. Why is she like this?" Asriel's mother sounded upset.

"Tori, I'm sorry, I really am. I can't give you the details yet. Just know that Alphys is working on a way to help her. If Alphys has just a little more time, why, the kiddo will be up and about just fine."

"I understand that you and Alphys are trying to fix what happened, but spare me the waiting. Why is Frisk in a coma?"

Asriel had already begun to guess at what they were talking about. Even having eaten, he still felt strange and absent. When Toriel said that last bit, Asriel put two and two together. "It's my fault. She did it for me."

"What reason is there to keep this from me? Why can't you tell me?"

"Look, Tori, I just can't. I promise, and you know I don't make promises lightly, that the moment I can tell you, you'll know everything there is to know, ok?"

Asriel turned the knob on the door, and took a few steps forward.

"I'm why she's not waking up. It's my fault." Asriel brought himself to look his mother in her eyes.

They were wide in disbelief and shock.

"I… Asriel?" She walked towards him, and reached out a hand to his cheek. "How are you…? This isn't possible. You can't be real." There were tears running down her face.

"I am Mom." His voice was cracked with tears of his own. Asriel held Toriel's hand against his cheek with his hand. "Frisk brought me back. She couldn't leave me behind." He was crying too now. "I'm really here."

"How did she…?" She stopped there, and pulled Asriel into a hug so tight he almost couldn't breathe. Toriel wasn't letting going to let her son go again (figuratively, not literally). Eventually, she freed him from her embrace. As happy as she was to see her son again, it didn't change the fact that Frisk was still in a coma. "Now" she glared at Sans after the now (probably for not telling her) "Can you tell me what happened?"

"*sigh* well, I guess it went better than we expected. And yes, I can fill you in." Sans explained everything to Toriel, not just what happened four days ago. Well, everything but the resets. He explained Flowey, the battle between Frisk and Asriel, the events before leaving the Underground, and everything which came after.

"I was out for four days? Geez." Somehow, that seemed the strangest part to Asriel at the moment.

"You coulda been out for way more kid."

"Well, regardless of how long I was out, there's someone who still is. And it's because of me." Asriel was giving himself a bit of a hard time for Frisk's decision.

Sans tried to lift his spirits. "Maybe so kid, but you might also be what fixes it."

Toriel caught on quickly. "Didn't you say something about a 'bond' between their SOULs Sans? Wouldn't that be of any use?"

"That's what Alphy and I are lookin' into. For now though, he should rest up. Who knows? Maybe if his SOUL fully recovers, Frisk's may begin to as well."

At that moment, Papyrus burst in through the still open doorway, panting as if he ran all the way across town.

"SANS! I WAS RECENTLY INFORMED THAT TORIEL IS- oh, she's already here. Well, I still faithfully performed my duty as requested, so I consider this a job well done! Nyeh heh heh!" Papyrus walked up the stairs to his room and shut himself in. They could hear him yelling enthusiastically about how "outstandingly in shape" (as he put it) he is for being able to run all the way across the town in less than a minute without taking a break.

"Well…" Toriel was the first to recover from that "That was odd. Why did he do that exactly?"

"I set him up as the 'sentry'. He was supposed to let me know if someone was coming. I guess he got sidetracked by something." Sans shrugged at that last bit. "As I was saying though, Asriel, you're still recovering, despite what you may think. And we still need to do more research on the connection between you and Frisk before we make any decisions on what to do with you two. It'd probably best for you to take a few days off."

"What about everyone else? What about Dad? Shouldn't they all know I'm back?" Asriel didn't want to lie in a bed for a few days while nothing happened.

"If Sans and Alphys believe you should rest my child, then I am in agreement with them. We can organize something when you are more ready." Toriel knew when someone else knew what was best.

"If you guys think it will help, I guess it's for the best." Asriel said that a little sullenly, like a child waking up on Christmas morning only to be told it was too early to open presents.

Sans and Toriel helped Asriel, who was still dizzy and unsteady on his feet, back to the guest room in Sans' house. As he lay down on the bed, he realized how tired he still felt. When he closed his eyes, Asriel almost immediately fell asleep. His dreams were of happy possibilities, and of the life he had been given back.

Unfortunately, his dreams did not mirror those from across the bond...


I'll be the first to admit it, I'm not the best at making puns. However, I found this amazing thing that I can use. It's called a third main character. I no longer have to write from Sans' point of view as often, so you guys don't have to suffer through my actually terrible puns (not just Sans' normal brand of terrible). (Anyone who read this before I changed it, sorry for the whole section on feedback. I realized it sounded mean and like a demand, and so I removed it.) Love you guys and see you all next chapter!

With [insert something suitable here],

~ Frisk Dreemurr