Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale.

Iterations

Preparation

Sans woke up to a giggling, wriggling Frisk burrito. He was relieved to see that even though her eyes were still a bit puffy from the previous day's crying, she seemed in good spirits. At the moment, she had yet to realize that she had woken him and was attempting to free herself from the blanket. He watched as she managed to turn herself completely around, now face down on his bed, hair fanning out around her. She was breathing hard from the effort. He wondered amusedly how long she had been at it before he had woken. She let out another laugh that was muffled by his sheets. Sans could practically feel the determination radiating from her body as she began struggling again. The blanket did not loosen, but she did end up face to face with him.

She blinked in surprise as she realized he was awake.

"having fun?"

She nodded vigorously, a wide smile on her face.

"need a hand?"

She squirmed a bit more before she admitted that she did, in fact, need some help. In response, blue magic surrounded her, picking her up. The blanket unraveled itself seemingly on its own, coming loose and shifting so it was draped around her like a cloak. Now she was free but still warm. Sans rolled off the bed and gestured at her to follow. She scooted off the bed...

...and found herself in the middle of Grillby's. She noted that it was surprisingly full for the morning. Sans led her to a table in the back.

Settling in, she remarked, "That shortcut, teleporting thing you do is really disorienting, you know?"

"yeah. it's easier when you know where you're going."

"Which you never tell me."

He just grinned.

"So why are we here?"

"It's been a while since I had Grillby's breakfast," he said, shrugging.

Frisk did not even know they served breakfast here. When breakfast was served soon after, they ate in silence. Sans finished his meal in mere moments while Frisk took longer than usual as she tried to refrain from getting food on the blanket still wrapped around her. When she finished, she looked up at Sans. As expected from Grillby's, the breakfast was delicious, but he would have sat them at the bar if they were just going to eat and chat casually.

"i think it's time we started planning what we should do," he stated, pulling out a notebook and pen from an inner jacket pocket. He also set a tape recorder down on the table.

Frisk straightened. They were finally going to take some action towards ending the loops.

"first, i think we need to break down the problem."

She nodded.

"how do they work? the resets, i mean."

She frowned. "Honestly, I'm not sure."

"you said you've forced them before."

"Like I said, normally I just die. The prompt comes up and I agree to do it all over again. The few times I did reset without dying don't really help much either. It's usually when I'm not in control of my body. After I've been used to... you know. The only way I can describe it is, I have to really want to go back to the start. I have to be desperate. Hopeless."

From across the table, she could see Sans scribble 'determination?' under a line that read 'how?'

"now we have something for the 'how' and the 'why.' in your particular case at least. the 'what' are the resets obviously. we have the 'who' that we talked about. flowey and whoever that unwanted passenger of yours is. speaking of which, you never gave me a name. you don't know it?"

She paled. The name whispered along the back of her mind.

Sans leaned closer. "you do?"

A stiff nod.

"well?"

She shook her head and whispered, "It comes if you call it."

He leaned back in his chair, considering. "... i think i still need to know. think it'll still come if you write it down?"

She did not know. Sans pushed his notebook over to her side of the table. With a shaking hand, she wrote down the name 'Chara.' As soon as her hand lifted from the tail of the last 'a,' she could hear laughter in her head. She let her head fall back against her chair with a loud thunk as a sound between a whimper and a sob escaped her throat. It had been so long since the last reset where she had not been in control of her body. Sans immediately tensed and his eye went blue.

"is it coming?"

She shook her head, sliding the notebook back over. "Not this time. Next time probably... I'm not sure how many it will stay for."

Sans pinched the area between his eye-sockets and groaned. "at least i've got a little warning this time."

She sighed. "Promise me something?"

"you know i hate making promises."

"Do it anyway."

He rolled his wrist, prompting her to go on.

"I know you can't get into the Ruins so you can't really help me there. But, when I get out of there, make sure I don't hurt anyone else, okay?"

" 's not you, kid."

"Right," she murmured. "So, promise?"

He held her gaze for a bit before relenting. "yeah, kid. i'll put you down."

"Thanks," she replied, genuine relief in her voice.

A pause. Then, "anything else you can tell me?"

She contemplated for a while. "Flowey can't reset unless he gains power somehow. I don't know why but he lost the ability to reset when I arrived."

"so he was able to do it before you..." He was writing in the journal again.

"And... it," she said, pointedly looking at the notebook. "can reset whenever it wants. But only if it's in control of my body. As for the 'where' and 'when,' I wasn't able to do this before I came down here."

At that moment, a waitress came by to ask if they wanted anything else. Patrons and staff alike were starting to shoot glances at the pair. They had been sitting there a long time.

"We should go."

He nodded and took them home.

A/N: Well, that makes it pretty obvious where I'm going with this. However, progress has been made! I had to sneak in the fluff at the beginning. It was just too tempting. Took the day off from writing yesterday to plan out some stuff for the story. I've got flow charts and Venn diagrams now. Haha.

Thanks for reading.

Until next time friendlies,

Dfsemina