Frisk couldn't stand to look at the screen any longer. They shut it off, texted Alphys to lock her door because they were heading out and thanked her for the sneak peek. They walked with their eyes to the ground out of the lab. Frisk was still very frustrated, very upset. Toriel wasn't the only one who had moments of heartbreak.

They missed their family.

Yeah, life wasn't exciting or memorable. But it was theirs. Those were Frisk's parents, those were Frisk's friends, and that was Frisk's hometown. Their whole childhood was there!

Alphys had once given Frisk a long talk where she sat Frisk down and explained that their family probably missed them too, but they had to start over again and focus on more important things. And when they saw their mental health fall into a decline, it wasn't as if they deliberately ignored them. They just… Didn't know what to do. (In Alphys's opinion) They could've done better, but they had a completely different opinion from Frisk on the subject of monsters.

Frisk felt awful.

Some ambassador they were… Look at what happened to everybody! Now most of them will never meet a nice human, and there's this newfound resentment towards the entire race. Only a small portion got to interact with Frisk's kind, they didn't get to see the months of harmony they shared.

Everything just... Fell apart.

In their depressed stupor, Frisk had wandered to a dead end in Hotland. Seeing as no one else was around, they took this as an opportunity to feel sorry for themselves. Frisk sat down on the dry, rocky ground and tucked their head into their knees.

Frisk broke down and began to cry.

Nine years. Frisk had lived here for nine years. This was home to them. If Frisk suddenly had to live above ground and function as regular human being they would fail miserably. It wasn't that, they felt like they belonged enough, but not being able to leave, not knowing how their family and friends were doing was eating away at Frisk. It was all a guise. As wonderful as the underground was, it was still a prison. Only this time, there was no escaping.

What other choice did they have? The people outside killed Asgore! They pillaged the settlements and built a big, spiked wall with a deep trench around it! They made this choice to survive.

Frisk was sobbing now. Not out of anger or regret, but out of pity.

They'll never see how amazing the earth outside is. The sun, the grass, the trees, the ocean… They'll never know how wonderful humans can be, how much kindness and compassion exists in their hearts. They just met the wrong ones; they caught a bad break. But now this was permanent.

Now Frisk was angry.

Why couldn't the SAVE POINTS be brought back?!

What's so damn complicated about showing MERCY? Toriel and Asgore were going to be their new "aunt" and "uncle", not their parents. They were going to be an extended part of the family and join them for Christmas and Thanksgiving and maybe Toriel could become a teacher like she always wanted and find a job at Frisk's school.

Frisk was going to watch Papyrus on Youtube and leave likes and comments and follow his channels. And they were going to show Sans their favorite diner and that would become their usual hangout spot. Undyne and Alphys could come over for sleepovers and they could have an anime marathon. Then whenever the whole gang got together they'd watch Mettaton on tv. Asgore would be sat at the table with Frisk's father sharing gardening tips, (their father loved tending his lawn) while Toriel and Frisk's mother were exchanging recipes and cooking dinner together in the kitchen for everyone (their mother happened to be an excellent home-cook).

If Asriel could return all of the souls, why didn't he restore the SAVE POINTS? Wasn't his deepest desire to keep RESETTING things forever? To keep the twisted GAME from ending? Too many things just didn't add up! Even he didn't know how he had done it. NONE OF IT MADE SENSE!

Frisk held back their scream. Hot tears pouring from their eyes. Frisk couldn't remember the last time they felt this worked up- if they ever had.

Two, strong, boney arms wrapped around them. "what's the matter?"

It was Sans. A mixture of worry and sadness in his expression. "that's it, now you've gotten yourself a one-way ticket to hugville." He rubbed Frisk's back and held them close. "there, see? you're alright. now talk to me."

Frisk only whimpered and resumed crying, ashamed of themselves.

Sans let out a long breath."i'll wait. just let it out." It took a few minutes for Frisk to calm down, but Sans's silent support kept them from bursting again.

The two sat there, Frisk was still sniffling. "i didn't expect to find you like this. i don't think i've ever seen you cry."

Frisk pouted, now aware of their vulnerability.

"i saw you walking around earlier, you didn't read my text? sorta looked like you needed a friend."

Frisk pulled out their cell phone. Sure enough, there it was, they must've been too out-of-it to notice.

"boo."

Sans thought he was so scary sometimes.

"i know, classic right?" He returns to his seriousness. "are you gonna tell me what's bothering you or not?" Frisk sighed, might as well fess up. They tilted their head up and looked at the high cavernous ceiling with dismay.

Sans strained his neck. "up?"

Frisk hummed.

"up… up there?" He realized.

Frisk hung their down, aware that they were crying over spilled milk. "you miss the above ground. don'tcha?"

Frisk remains silent and still, horribly afraid that they might have offended him.

"eh… should've guessed it was gonna get to ya sooner or later. after all, it's not natural for a human to be living down here." He slings his arm over their shoulder. "but… something tells me there's more to it." He whispers.

Frisk buries their face into his sweater. "what's really making you cry?" Sans asks with genuine concern.

Frisk pulled out the heart-shaped locket from underneath their shirt and clicked it open. Sans looked at the photo: It was a family portrait. An old family portrait. The picture was faded and a little torn. There was a younger-looking Toriel and Asgore standing side-by-side with loving smiles. Between them was a small child that remarkably resembled the both of them, holding a bouquet of flowers. Next to that child, was a human child- one that looked shockingly like Frisk. Sans felt his gut flip-flop at the sight.

"is this the prince? never seen him before." Sans remarked.

Frisk nodded, feeling that they had some fessing up to do. It was gonna be a long story.

Sans fondled the locket, squinting. "that's some sick photoshop right there kid. you even got the shading and lighting to look legit."

Frisk shook their head. No, that was not them! Maybe he didn't know?

"ah. so this must be chara..." Sans said, he voice suddenly darker.

Frisk blinked. So he knew after all? The underground's monsters were aware that Toriel and Asgore once had adopted a human child, but that was so long ago, only a select group were privy to the knowledge- to speak of the subject was pretty much sacrilege.

Sans had heard a little bit about Chara- a name so shrouded in mystery and woe that few people of the underground bothered to share the story. No one talked about the King and Queen's dead children. Nobody. So of course he hadn't known what they looked like until now. But there was something about the human kid in the photo that made Sans feel as cold as death. They looked near-identical to Frisk. And Sans found that disturbing. The creepy smile, the empty eyes... They didn't belong on Frisk's face.

"you miss king fluffybuns too? or is it 'family' that you miss? you're own family."

Frisk's mouth turns into a twisted frown.

"not so much? then… you must blame yourself for what happened huh?"

How could he read them so easily?

Sans sighs and shakes his head. "i'm not a wizard, if that's what you're thinkin. i don't have the willpower to memorize all those spells..."

Frisk looks at him suspiciously.

"it just makes sense you would feel that way with all the SAVE POINTS being destroyed and all."

Frisk stumbled to their knees, expression switched to pure shock. They couldn't believe their ears. Did they just hear him say what they think they heard?!

"what? why you lookin at me like that? never heard a skeleton reveal his awareness of the infinite timelines that exist in this very dimension which can be accessed via magical waypoints that create a space-time disturbance in the universe and allows the individual to alter the fabric of reality?"

Frisk stood there with their eyes wide and mouth dropped open.

Sans shrugs. "guess not."

Frisk began pinching themselves, sure that they were dreaming. But there he was. And he knew about the timelines!

"come on frisk. i'll grab us some grub. i wanna have a talk with ya." Confused and amazed, Frisk follows him without a moment's hesitance.

They didn't use a shortcut this time. Sans took Frisk to the fast-food stand that Burgerpants used to work at, now employed by Catty and Bratty.

"So like, what do you want to order?" Bratty asks.

"Yeah, cuz like, we haven't got all day." Catty comments.

"one legendary hero please." Sans orders.

"Whaaat? Like, you don't want a Glamburger? What gives?"

"Catty, don't be so rude and stuff, they can like, order whatever they want."

"Yeah, I guess so, but Glamburgers are totally like, the BEST." Catty insists.

Bratty takes the change and hands him the enormous hero. "Come again."

"Order some Glamburgers next time, so we can all like, share!" Catty adds playfully.

"What? Yeah right. You mean only with you." Bratty says accusingly.

They walk out of the hotel, Sans sits himself outside, against the wall. Frisk sits beside him, looking very blank. "hm? you wanted food too? why didn't you order?"

Frisk says nothing.

"just kidding. here, we can share." He splits the giant sandwich in half. "so… i'm sure you're wondering just how the heck do i know about SAVEPOINTS and stuff."

Frisk looks his way, munching on their half of the hero.

"well, you see? i've been studying how the world works for a long time. and i know you went into my room."

Frisk jumps up in alarm.

"nah. i'm not mad, i'm actually impressed. no one has ever made it to my room, 'cept my bro."

Still worried, and wanting to avoid conversation, they take another bite.

"have you ever heard of a guy named gaster?"

Frisk knew that name! But how, they were unsure.

"he used to be the royal scientist before alphys. was a genius, but the guy had a few screws loose, if you know what i mean."

Frisk understood.

"he's the one that built the core, and during one of his experiments, he slipped and fell right in."

They suddenly didn't like where this story was going.

"he was shattered to bits and scattered all over the underground- in a separate dimension to boot." He leans in close to Frisk, his eyes black and empty. "everyone thinks he's dead, but he's not. his body may be broken and lost, but his consciousness still watches over us in this world."

Frisk loudly gulps down their bite of sandwich, shivering.

Sans swallows the rest of his hero whole and leans back in the wall, patting his non-existent stomach in satisfaction. "he's my father."

WHAT?! Frisk nearly dropped the rest of their hero, and was now fumbling to assemble it back together from the bits that fell onto their lap.

"or was he my brother? at least... i think we're related. funny thing about us skeletons, ever wonder how we reproduce?"

Frisk was still reeling from the shock. But yes, they were curious.

"like everyone else you pervert." Sans grinned.

Frisk blushed incredibly and shot their head down.

"yeah. you can do it the old fashioned way... or just take a bit of your own bone marrow and pluck it out, put it in a safe place and pour some magic into it! wait a loooong time, then bada-bing, bada-boom, the stork monster delivers a baby skeleton." Sans turns his skull to face Frisk, clearly proud of his cheekiness.

Frisk does not look amused.

"anyway, so gaster, he's before our time, and he noticed a few things over the years."

Frisk sat up straight.

"a great case of deja-vu. things kept repeating themselves at certain intervals. then there would be this grace period- every decade, sometimes less -and it would start all over again."

Frisk wondered if it had anything to do with the power of determination.

"being the royal scientist and all, gaster knew what was up with the whole barrier-thing way back when. he figured it must've had something to do with the humans and their determination, cuz every time a human fell into the underground, the timeline would go out of whack."

Yes, he was onto something. Frisk had their own suspicions.

"turns out, you humans are really stubborn when you die. you just don't wanna go. and if you feel strongly enough, you can use that determination to go back in time right before you died."

He's right!

"but it's tricky, monsters can't do it, except for boss monsters, and only humans with a powerful will to live can summon it, so that means not every human can do it either. also, it can be used infinitely, but not flexibly. you can only LOAD your SAVE FILE wherever you last touched a SAVE POINT. RESETTING starts the whole timeline over. SAVE FILES can also be deleted or copied. so it's complicated. it's not as if humans could jump to whatever time they wanted. it drove gaster nuts, he was itching to get his hands on it."

Sans looks off into the distance. "he never got to finish his work, cuz we know he fell into the core. my brother and i were born sometime in between, and i was gaster's assistant for a few years."

But Sans isn't even that old!

"i've spent most of my life trying to find him." Sans says solemnly. "but i've made more progress finishing his work."

That explains the small lab behind his house.

"i have two theories on his identity- that either he's our father, or our brother. and i know he's not dead because papyrus and i keep aging, but seeing how he isn't whole, we don't age much. we're connected somehow. i can feel it."

This was incredible to hear from Sans.

"so, seeing that he was still alive and all, i focused my research on the timelines and picked up where he left off. if i discovered a way to time travel, i thought maybe i could rescue him." He pauses. "but i was wrong. there's no way to save gaster. he isn't affected by the timelines at all, because he doesn't exist in this dimension. in his dimension, there is no time. there's no air, no sun, no water, nothing. i think the only reason he hasn't died yet is because the old man is extremely stubborn." He says that last sentence with fondness. "so even if i could go back in time, i wouldn't find him. he didn't just break apart when he fell into the core, he erased himself from existence"

So it was hopeless?

"in our world, there is no gaster. it's as if he never lived at all."

If that's true, how could he even remember?

"if you've kept up so far, you're probably wondering how any of this ties together. well, it's not a simple as that. we were already born when he fell into the core, and he only erased his existence from that point onward. so all of his influence remained, that is, the core still existed, and his research was left behind, it's just his essence that is gone. there's proof he was once here, just not that he ever was. the timeline was shifted slightly, not perfectly- don't ask me how, cuz it's complicated. no one even remembers the poor guy. that's why paps doesn't know. but i know. cuz i got into his private archives."

Where was he going with all this?

"i'm gonna spare you the complex, science-y stuff, but yeah. all of my research and experiments devoted to finding him led me to something else."

Frisk was eager to hear it.

"maybe deja-vu runs in the family, cuz when you fell down here and started disrupting this timeline, i couldn't put my fingerbone on why things seemed so repetitive, and just why didn't anyone else notice?"

Frisk scooches closer to him.

"i have this artificial dimensional-chamber, it's a box. i put things in the box and they aren't affected by the timeline, just like whatever sad place gaster is stuck in. so i put a book in there. just for kicks. whenever you LOAD your SAVE FILE and go back to wherever you were before you died, i would get that sense of deja-vu again, and feel inclined to open the box. turns out, like i suspected, the timeline was being changed. so i put one more book in the box, a completely different book. to not get confused. if i was right, all i would have to do is wait for you to do your thing, and if i ever felt that deja-vu, i'd check the box. there it was again, the same two books that existed in the box, also existed on my bookshelf, they were the same books, just duplicated through time-travel. i did it again, and again, and again, and i linked the patterns to you. good old gaster was right, humans could go back in time to save themselves if they had determination. the books proved it."

So many things just made sense now to Frisk.

"you know what else?"

Frisk shook their head.

"i didn't actually know that you went into my room, i only assumed it."

They gasp in surprise.

"your reaction proved my point. you must have LOADED your FILE without SAVING, then spoke to me several times, because there's no way i would've given you the key. the last time i talked to you, you had this expression on your face like you've heard my spiel before, plus i had that deja-vu again. so i tested you. that triple-secret passcode i told you about? made it up on the spot."

Frisk was stunned.

"but hey, i figured i must've told you a passcode before, because you said that really gross thing." He chuckles, shattering the seriousness of the moment. "only i would think of something stupid and disgusting like that. hehehe. you sure sounded hilarious saying it out loud. man, i'm such a comedic genius."

Frisk had been fooled.

"i had a thought: if this was true, then past me was messin with ya, and he knew only the future me would recognize a passcode he made up, even if i had never heard it before. so when i heard you say it, i knew only i would tell you to say such a thing. ever since then, i've been convinced you are a time traveler."

Frisk was captivated by his plot.

"that's why i trusted you with the key to my room." He winks. "did you enjoy getting owned like a nerd?"

Frisk laughed and nodded in honesty.

"but you know. i never thought you'd get into my lab."

Frisk's cheery demeanor went grave.

"it's not a pleasant place." He says staring straight at them. "ever since we had that little discussion, you haven't looked at me the same way. like i wasn't some lazy dope anymore. you knew there was more to me than what meets the eye." He scratches the back of his skull. "i mean, yeah, the key to it was in my room, but i never expected you to find it behind my house. i kinda hoped you would fall for the prank and that would be the end of it."

Frisk wonders if Sans feels betrayed by their snooping.

"thought i forgot didn't ya?"

Frisk looks away.

"i'm not like you, frisk. i'm affected by the timeline just like everyone else. i don't remember when things are RESET, and i don't why i felt like i've done something before every time you LOAD. but because of my research and that deja-vu, i could set up traps and reminders for myself that something was fishy. gaster's notes told me about the SAVE FILES and SAVE POINTS. i learned about those before you ever showed up, so even when you go back in time, it's not farther back than when i started my research, so i can never forget that SAVE POINTS and SAVE FILES exist. with that knowledge in mind, putting two and two together isn't exactly rocket science. i'm eternally aware of the anomaly, just powerless to stop it. just like how i'm powerless to ever find gaster. there's no point in putting up a fight."

Sans stood up, but Frisk tugged at his sleeve.

"what, you wanna know why i gave up? cuz, it can't be helped. gaster can never come back to this world because he has no place in it anymore, he can't even be reached where he is. as for the foggy memories i do have of him- he wouldn't want me to waste my life trying to find him, especially since the experiments are so dangerous. if it's all gonna RESET, then even if i saved him, it would quickly be undone. i've gotta focus on taking care of my brother-that's what's more important, not impossible things."

He waits for Frisk to get up and starts walking. "and you, you've gotta focus on the present. it's no use crying over what you can't change. yeah, the SAVE POINTS are gone, that sucks, but you're alive now right? SAVE POINTS wouldn't be reliable forever, eventually when your time to go comes, you gotta accept it. so why not live your life with a smile?"

Frisk took his words in thoughtfully.

Of course, Sans was being entirely hypocritical. He wasn't going to accept the day Frisk would eventually die. They're young now, but some day… Some day Frisk was going to get old. They were going to grow old and die. And now that the SAVE POINTS are gone for good, if something awful ever happened, they couldn't come back. Frisk didn't know this, but Sans was working on a new project, one that he considered worth the effort- because he had a say-so in the matter this time around. Sans wanted his happy ending. So he wasn't going to rest until Frisk became his.