The spell keeping Ms. Campton in place shattered. She bolted past Asgore's throne and fell to her knees in front of her child, wrapping her arms around Avery's neck. "It's you," she sobbed. "It's you, it's you, ah, Ah can't…" Her son hugged her back, sniffling and rubbing his eyes against her shoulder.

"Ah hurt dad," he cried back. "Ah didn't know, Ah didn't see, but-"

"Never mind," Mary said. "It was an accident. You didn't mean no harm, you was trying to protect us. You did just what you were supposed to."

Asgore rose to his feet as his jaw dropped. He had seen this child before, only once. At that time his eyes had been closed, the color was leaving his face, and blood was pouring from a bullet wound in the side of his head. Asgore had watched as the child's pulse had slowed and his yellow soul erupted from his body. It fell to him to voice the word every other person in the room was thinking: "Impossible."

Avery Campton, the seventh human child to fall into Mt. Ebott, looked up at the king of monsters and wiped his eyes with a sniffle. "You're Mr. Asgore, arencha?" He calmly reached for the right side of his head and pushed his hair aside to reveal a small circular scar at his temple. "Sorry Ah don't knew fer sure, Ah reckon Ah was lookin' kinda poorly the last time we met."

His mother looked at the wound incredulously. She rubbed it with her fingers, seeing but not believing. "This…"

The boy shrugged and looked to the side. "I figgered things'd work out, if there were no more killers in the underground. I was the only one left so I had to go. I'm sorry, it just… it made sense, at the time." Then he was caught in a bearhug as his mother clasped him tightly around the shoulders.

Beatrice turned her head to her security man with an intense purpose. "… How many children are on the property?"

The man wiped his eyes and returned to his sense of professionalism with a cough. "Um… there may be as many as five more, ma'am. So six if you count this young man here."

Beatrice continued smiling as though nothing was wrong. "Six, you say. Six. Hmmmmm." The adults all looked at each other, each one thinking the same impossible thought. The truth was as clear as it was unbelievable. "Bring them here," Beatrice demanded. "Calmly, carefully. Do not harm even a single one of them, do you understand me?" The man saluted and strode out the door in calm but hurried steps.

A stunned silence fell over the gathered humans and monsters. Penny was the first to move, looking from Beatrice to Avery. "You… you don't really think…?"

Avery nodded. "It's jes' whatcha think. We're okay. I happened to find y'all first but we're alive, we're all alive. So don't any of you hurt Mr. Dreemurr, aight?"

"Avery!" his mother shouted. "He's the scum-suckin'-

"He had a rough time of it," Avery stood his ground. "He didn't have any good choices ta make. He did the best he could and tried to keep us all alive. I'm askin' ya, I'm beggin' ya from all of us… don't do nuthin' to hurt 'im."

For a moment Mary looked as though she was going to lash out. Instead her shoulders relaxed and she squeezed her boy. "A'ight. I ain't never gonna like 'im, but Ah won't kill 'im."

"You have a yellow soul, young one," Asgore said, getting down on one knee. "It's the color of Justice. An ambition to mold the world into a shape better than what it is now, conviction that a better world is possible. I am… immensely grateful that your vision of the future has me in it."

Avery put out his hand for a shake. "You never hurt me none. You got a good heart yerself, Mr. Dreemurr." Asgore reached out and took Avery's hand between his thumb and forefinger, pumping once.

Amanda stepped forward. "I don't know how you did it," she said to Asgore. "But… we may owe you an apology."

Asgore released Avery's hand and swallowed. He rose to his feet and held out his hands. "I… I am glad for this fortunate event, but I had nothing to do with it. I-"

"Enough!" Beatrice shouted, her smile vanishing. Her eyes blazed with a white-hot fire. "You are a fool if you say another word. Take the credit for it, you boob. You are not so stupid as to think we were going to have tea and cookies before sending you off on your way, are you? Either I was going to have you arrested or let the widow Campton kill you herself, but before these children appeared you were not going to leave this house under your own power. So you don't know how it happened, that's no real trouble. Can't you simply say magic returned them to life?"

"But magic can't do that!" he protested. "Magic isn't enough to revive the dead! You would have to be a god!"

"An act of God, then?" Beatrice sighed but she replaced the smile on her face. "Very well, we will leave it at that. I suppose we will have time to teach you the finer arts of diplomacy."

Time. Time. Suddenly everything clicked for Asgore. Too late he realized what had struck him as odd. The mayor had called Beatrice yesterday evening and told her of the existence of monsters and the fate of the children. Between then and now she had investigated and found the entrance to the Underground, spoke with the relatives of the fallen children and gotten them to agree to this meeting, researched Chara, and had the throne carved for him. Could all that really have been done in a single day? And then there was the strange disconnect between what she said and what she conveyed; her words and her moods did not match. What if it was not her idiosyncrasy, but instead Beatrice was simply a bad actor? And the children! They could only have escaped the Underground at a single moment, when every monster was still unconscious following the appearance of that flower four full days ago! Where had they been between then and now? What if Beatrice had not had a single day, but an entire weekend to plan this meeting? And beyond all of that, how could the children have made their appearance at this precise place and time? The coincidence was too outrageous to believe.

He stared hard into Beatrice's eyes, his question written on his face. Did you know? She looked back unflinchingly and answered with narrowed eyes, a blush on her cheeks, and a grin that widened to swallow the earth.

Frisk sat on the steps of the school. The buses had all left and most of the other kids had parents or guardians pick them up already. The substitute, Mr. Moulton, waited with them. At first he tried to ask about Frisk's time in class and how they were liking the school, but after being rebuffed he did not try to strike up conversation again.

Silas' white sedan pulled up and Frisk identified it as belonging to their guardian. Mr. Moulton let them go and Frisk got into the car, staring at the backpack set between their feet while they snapped their seatbelt on.

Silas asked, "Finished your second day. How are your classmates treating you?"

Frisk shrugged. They had been looking forward to this all day. Time to be all alone with Silas. But now that it was here their throat closed up and their stomach twisted. They stole a glance at him but he was not even looking, the road taking up his full attention. "I get ignored. I don't fit in, yet." The last word had been awkwardly stapled onto the end in an effort to disguise the meaning of what they said.

Silas did not notice the deception; his eyebrow would have raised if he had. "It's been too long since I was a child," he coughed. "And I never transfered schools mid-year. I'm not sure whether that's normal or not. But I'm sure the other kids will accept you in time."

Everyone was always so sure of that. Who did they really think they were fooling? But Frisk said nothing to contradict what they knew in their heart was not true. Every time they opened their mouth they couldn't help but wonder whether they were going to say something stupid. Because they were going to, sooner or later, and at first Silas would laugh and think Frisk was being silly. But that wouldn't last. He would not think that forever. Frisk looked out the window at the rows of packed-together houses with wide driveways and front laws the size of postage stamps. Why? Even after freeing the Underground, why had nothing changed for them?

They asked, "Do you think Asgore and Toriel are okay?"

"I hope they are," Silas replied. "But I have no way of knowing. Neither of them have cell phones and they likely would not be able to get away to use them anyway. All we can do now is pray for them."

Frisk sunk further into the seat and watched suburbia pass by. "Mmm."

The chairs were moved around while the rest of the children were rounded up. Instead of an inquisitorial semi-circle around Asgore's throne, now all the adults were in a line facing the door. Each of them wrung their hands and shuffled their feet and held their breath. Each trying to remember, what happened the last time we saw our children? How did they leave us? How were they feeling then? And how had the intervening years and decades treated them? Toriel and Asgore were nervous as well. Their hope was even more impossible: that the estimates were wrong and it was actually eight children who had broken through the barrier between life and death.

The first child to arrive after Avery was a young girl with a round face. Her brown hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, revealing the tiny widow's peak at the top of her hairline. She started on being brought into a room with so many grown-ups and looked ready to shout or scream if she did not seize up first, then shook off her escort to bolt for Toriel. She wrapped her hands around the boss monster's stomach, trembling. Marijane, poor sweet Marijane. Toriel swallowed and sent an apologetic look over to her parents. This child, Toriel has raised this child as her own for five years. Nearly half her life had been spent away from her parents… would she even recognize them now?

Amanda and Brian Sunapee silently agreed who would be better suited to appeal to their daughter. Amanda stepped forward. "Marijane? That's your name now, isn't it?" The girl turned at the sound of her name but made no move to release Toriel. She had been so small when she first fell to the underground, the last time she saw her parents, but now she was nearly five feet tall. Amanda barely needed to squat to put herself on eye level with her daughter. "I know we weren't good to you before. I'm sorry we didn't understand. We've spent… so, so long, regretting what we did. We have wanted to make it up to you all this time. And we would be, incredibly grateful if you gave us a chance to do that. If you would forgive us, and let us be your mommy and daddy again."

Marijane swallowed and looked up at Toriel. For advice, or for permission? Toriel patted her head softly. "Only you can make the choice," she said. "Only you truly know your own heart. But I was honored to take care of you those five years, and I learned a bit about you. And I think you have been looking forward to this day when you could show them the good, strong, kind girl you've grown up to be."

Toriel swallowed her tears. It felt like she was letting her go off to her death all over again. But the moment Marijane released her she knew it was for the best. The human girl took a few tentative steps forward, looked back at Toriel with a complicated smile, then ran toward her parents. She hugged her mother and breathed in through clenched teeth. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have run away. I was young, and stupid, and I freaked out."

"It's fine," Amanda said, and Brian finally joined them in a family hug. "It's fine. We're sorry too. We're just glad you're back and you're safe. That's all that matters."

"Soon," Marijane said through a tight throat. "My body… it's going to turn into something else. Something I don't want. I left Toriel because I thought humans might… that they could fix me." She opened her mouth to say more but was unable. Her eyes did the pleading for her.

"There are some options." Amanda squeezed her daughter's shoulders. "After you disappeared, we learned all we could. There are things we can do, things we can try. We want you to be happy, and we'll figure out the best way to get there." Marijane buried her face in her mother's breast and sobbed.

While they scooted off to a corner of the room for privacy a dark-skinned lad was the next to enter, being led by the arm by one of Beatrice's tuxedo-clad security agents. He had a tight face and and a head that looked large but was not, an illusion created by hair shaved almost to the skin. Tyrone Eaton yanked his arm free and rubbed his hand with a scowl. Shakira stood and walked over to him, her face carefully neutral. The younger sister now towered over her brother, and he snickered as he looked up into her face. "What's so funny?" she asked.

Tyrone waved off, "It's nothing. I just… you remember that time when you were four, and you got real mad and swore red-faced that someday you were going to grow up to be older than me?"

"You idiot!" she screamed, falling to her knees to wrap her arms around him before anyone could react. Her disguise of indifference crumbled in an instant. "You big, dumb idiot… don't you ever scare me like that again!"

Tyrone shuffled nervously from one foot to the other before slowly, haltingly, hugging his sister back. "… Sorry. I shouldn't've left you alone."

"I owe you nuthin'," she said with a cracking voice. "An' you've got a lot to make up for. So I ain't letting you go. I'm gonna keep you forever. You'll never be free again, you hear me?"

"Yeah," he nodded into her shoulder. "I gotcha. Thanks… and sorry again."

Ms. Eaton had barely made it back to her chair with her brother in tow before the next child in the procession was brought it. It was a tall and slender girl of almost fourteen years. Her black hair was done up in braids and she deliberately favored her right leg as she walked. Asgore felt his throat clench. The last time he had seen this girl she had been lying on the side of the streets of the capital, covered in dust. Rebecca Troy entered the room staring at her shoes, holding the security agents' hand in a white-knuckle death grip. Henry and Kyle rushed forward, hugging her while blubbering indecipherable words of comfort. The agent made himself scarce and released her, but she did not return her fathers' affection. "Wait," she said as she extricated herself. "Wait. There's… something I need to do first, before anything." She walked with slow, deliberative steps to Asgore and craned her neck to look up at him with shimmering eyes. "I… I'm sorry. I hurt… I killed so many of your people. They aren't ever coming back. There's no excuse for what I've done. I know I should be grateful for another chance at life. But if it's what you want, I won't stop you from taking your revenge."

"Becca, no!" Kyle said. "We just got you back, you can't-"

"You were going to kill him," Rebecca snapped. "Don't tell me you weren't! If he deserved to die for six deaths, I deserve to die for forty. Like… can you even grasp that? Forty! Each of them was important to someone! Forty Lillys, forty Averys, forty Rebeccas! And it'll never be better, nothing can ever make it better!" She bared her teeth and sunk to her knees, rubbing at her eyes. "I'm sorry!" Rebecca sobbed. "I'm sorry! I-I…"

Her fathers watched on, helpless. Even Toriel could only cover her mouth and cry silently. Asgore stepped in front of her, his face a mask of sorrow. "I don't want your life, Rebecca. I will not be so ungrateful that I would refuse to extend the mercy granted to me. Rise, and return to your own life. Find a way to move on, and carry your mistakes with you. That is the best any of us can do."

Rebecca continued sobbing, unable to answer. Asgore knelt down and opened his arms, and she dived into them while continuing to cry. He patted her on the head; he had never wanted to hurt anyone, not even her, not even after what she had done. He was sure she once thought the same way, before an untold number of deaths broke her down. "You were in a terrible situation," Asgore said quietly. "I know some of it, but only another one of the children who fell down can ever truly understand. It should not have happened to anyone, let alone someone as young as you. All of us have a limit. I am sorry, for my part in pushing you past yours."

She nodded and wiped the tears off her cheeks with her sleeves. "What about… the others? Their families, their friends? You can't… really speak for all of them, can you? Surely-"

So she was looking for someone to take the pain of her sins away in the most final way possible. Another feeling he could intimately relate to. "There has been enough hatred. More killing will not solve anything. Go. Your own parents can comfort you better than I ever will. Do not let the single act you regret be all you are known for." He released her and she went back to the loving arms of her fathers.

A stocky boy was led in next, wearing semi-formal clothing that did not quite fit with his thick, working-class face. His nose was his most prominent feature, if only because it had clearly taken a bad hit at some point and healed slightly crooked. His brown hair curled up at the edges, messy in the way that only someone who has never held a comb in their life can manage. He walked in on tiptoe and scanned the crowd, his face brightening as he saw Penny. "Mom!" Skye Harris shouted, waving his arm. "Mom, I'm here!" Penny opened her arms for a hug. He hesitated slightly, guaging the rest of the room for whether it would be embarrassing for a quick moment before throwing caution to the wind and embracing his mother with a laugh. He pulled away with a curious expression, looking around the room one more time. "… Where's dad?"

Penny sucked in air. "I'm sorry," she said. "Losing you… it tore him up inside. He was never the same. Whatever else you feel about him, he loved you and… he couldn't go on without you."

Skye stared at his mother as his smile slid off his face. "Oh," he said finally, with no inflection. "Oh, right. I guess I should have figured… okay. Okay." He scratched at his head and motioned toward the couch. "I guess we should, sit down. Make room for the others, y'know." It made Toriel's heart ache to see him like that, but there was nothing she could do right now. She knew Skye was more emotionally distant than any of the other children she knew, possibly even more so than Chara had been, and he would not be able to let himself go in so public a place. He would control himself until he was alone, and even then he would grieve in a very quiet, very private way so no one else would know what was happening. That was the way he was.

Last but certainly not least was Beatrice's niece. Lilly Thompson had been born more than thirty years ago. She should have been a healthy middle-aged woman. Instead here she was, still a young girl yet to come into her own as a woman, the exact same age she was when she died. Her pale face and long blond hair She did not need to scan the crowd for her aunt; her eyes went right to the seat behind the desk, reserved for the most important person in the room, and there Beatrice was. "You got old," Lilly said with a smirk, tears at the corners of her eyes.

"It is not my fault you took your sweet time," Beatrice chided. She stood up from her seat, leaning heavily on a cane. When she was sitting she projected immortal and unshakable strength; when she stood her shoulders were hunched and her footing unsteady, even her cane hand wobbled, and it struck Asgore just then that Beatrice was very old indeed. She continued in a softer tone, "It is good to see you again, dear. Come here, let me get a good look at you." Lilly stepped around the line of envious parents and over to her aunt to share a hug. "I have missed you."

Now that Asgore knew what to look for it was obvious; Beatrice and Lilly acted as though they had spent a weekend apart, rather than a long absence of twenty four years. Should he say something about it? No… regardless of her aims, it would solve nothing to make an accusation he could not prove, especially when he had no idea why she would hide the children's return. He glanced at Toriel and saw in her face the same calculation. Of course she saw through it, if Beatrice's artifice could not fool Asgore of course Toriel would catch it as well. Even after being separated for thirty years they could understand each other without speaking a word. Toriel looked away first but her face was set: for now staying quiet would be for the best.

Asgore waited, his eye on the door, but it seemed all the children had been accounted for. His insides felt like they were being crumpled up to get tossed into the garbage. He was being greedy, he knew that. After six miracles it would be nothing short of avarice to wish for a seventh, let alone an eighth. And yet… and yet. He could not help feeling bitter. Seven families suffered loss. Six of them found peace. One was left out. Why? Was this a punishment for his anger?

Beatrice explained, "I've already had the papers contacted. The press ought to be told of the return of our children as well as the people who made it possible. Ah ah, don't you argue Mr. Dreemurr, you are never going to have more favorable circumstances to announce the return of monsters than this. I've been told you may have need of the campgrounds around Mt. Ebott, or at least the land it rests on. We may talk of that tomorrow; for now we must give all the world this wonderful news. Don't you think so, your majesty?"

He should be happy. Ecstatic even. The guillotine blade which had been threatening him since the barrier was destroyed had vanished, and the single greatest obstacle to monster integration was now cleared. But he could not enjoy it because he did not understand Beatrice's motives. She had engineered this play without the knowledge of the other parents, but to what end? If she wanted him dead she could have easily killed him without the production. He and Silas had been warned over and over that there was not a speck of honest altruism in her body. Money could not have been the concern, she was worth far more than the entire combined wealth of the monsters. So what was she after? He could not shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap far more devious than the threat he had faced down.

He set those concerns aside. For the moment he would go along with whatever she had planned out of expedience. "Very well, Ms. Lincoln. Let us go make history. Ah, but first, can I make a phone call…?"

Silas had barely gotten in the door when the phone started ringing. What rotten luck. He picked up the phone and started taking off his suit jacket. "Pembrooke residence."

"Uh, buddy, we got a serious problem here…"

Marty? Damn it. Beatrice's mansion was thirty minutes away, he'd never make it there in time. He reversed his direction to put his coat back on, swapping his phone from one hand to the other as he pulled it over his shoulders. "You're going to have to handle it yourself until I arrive. Get Toriel and Asgore out of there, I can't-"

"Hullo?" came Asgore's voice from the other end of the phone, sounding nonchalant. "Silas, are you there?"

"Yes, yes, I'm here, what's the matter? I'm putting you on speaker. What's going on?" He waved over the three monsters and pointed to his phone. Undyne and Papyrus walked over quizzically; Alphys did not move from her spot at the computer but turned her head to listen better.

"Oh! Toriel and I met with the parents of the other children. It was, er, a little touch-and-go for a moment, but things went better than we had any right to expect. Only, um, I think it might be better if you could, uh, get Alphys and Undyne back to the Underground."

Silas's heartbeat rabbited against his chest. He struggled to keep his panic out of his voice. "Asgore, when answering a question you have to be precise. What. Happened?"

There was a pause and he heard rustling as the phone changed hands once again. "Silas?" This time it was Toriel's voice, her voice cracked from recently shed tears. "My ex-husband's incompetence has worked out in our favor for once, as it turns out he can't even kill children properly. They're alive. All of them, all six of the humans who fell after Chara, they all lived."

Toriel repetitions of that basic fact were necessary: Silas, the monsters, and even Frisk stared at the phone in wide-eyed silence. The worry Silas had been feeling drained away, leaving him too exhausted to fully process what he just heard. That must be the problem, right? Surely Toriel did not just say… well. He swallowed saliva to soothe his suddenly dry throat. "That's… impossible."

"That's what I said!" Asgore complained in the background, but the phone only barely picked his voice up and Toriel did not acknowledge it.

Instead she continued, "To take advantage of this opportunity, we are going to announce their survival and our existence to the world. I realize we had not planned on this, but in the circumstances-"

Silas agreed, "It's not ideal, but it probably can't be avoided, right. Are you sure you're ready? We haven't gone over what you were going to say nor finalized your plans for reintegration."

"Asgore has almost a thousand years of practice at public speaking. I am confident in his abilities in that area if nothing else. To begin, I expect most of today and the next few days will be informational; humans know nothing about us so we have to start from the beginning with magic, and the barrier, and everything. As you've said before, anything more than that will be too much at once."

Made sense. Silas rubbed at his eyes. "So tell me again why you need me to drive back to Mt. Ebott?"

"When we tell the humans where the monsters have been until now, the mountain will become very busy. We need Undyne there to make sure humans do not swarm inside. We will also need Alphys to begin planning logistics for the move. I feel given her… abilities and shortcomings, it would be best to keep her in a background role for now."

"I-I-I was thinking of going back down anyway," Alphys said, clicking her claws together. "I wanted to set up a relay so the Underground could connect to the human internet and television."

Toriel paused. "If you feel that is a valuable use of your time."

"Sounds like a plan," Silas said. "I'll get them to the Underground. What about Papyrus?"

"I am sorry he cannot be here when monsters make their debut. Tomorrow we will need our ambassador to begin his work, but for today please relax and get your rest. None of us will be getting much in the near future." Papyrus seemed disappointed but said nothing.

That still left one person unaccounted for. "Frisk, would you like to go with me or stay with Papyrus?"

He expected the child to jump at the chance to stay with Papyrus rather than subject themself to another car ride with the guardian they only sort of tolerated. So it came as a surprise when Frisk nodded and said, "I… I'd like to stay with you." They smiled and added, "I-I mean, it might be a little bit before I can see Alphys and Undyne again. I'd like to say 'See you later'."

Oh, right. That made sense. "Alright, I'll leave things in your capable hands, Toriel. Remember, when the news cameras are on you have to present a united front. I understand you and Asgore-"

"I am well aware of my duties," Toriel replied. She sighed and the hostility drained from her voice. "I apologize, this has been a rather emotional day. It will be good to get back to your house… already your couch feels like home."

"That reminds me, if you're going to be staying on to help with Frisk-"

"The couch is fine for the moment, we can discuss other arrangements later. I apologize, I am being informed the reporters are beginning to gather in the conference room and I must prepare. Do not worry, I am sure Marty can get us home safely when all is said and done. I may be home late, so make sure Frisk gets dinner and their homework done. I love you, Frisk, so be good, won't you?" Frisk made an affirmative sound and they said their goodbyes before the call terminated.

Silas returned his phone to its spot on the wall with a sigh. Well, so much for a quiet evening at home.

Susan was spending a second day in a row sick, which was ridiculous. She had never gotten laid out by a cold like this before. Normally she would be able to fight it off or rally or at least force herself to go out and face the world. But she thought of her kids, the ones she only saw for a few hours a day but still thought of as 'her kids'. She could imagine them now, wide smiles with missing teeth as they said "Good morning Miss Lee-ow!". And the moment she saw them, she knew the thought that would barge into her head would be, "Some monster, who I've only ever seen being funny and nice, looked a child like this in the eye and decided to murder them in cold blood". She could not handle that thought without breaking down crying.

She was watching reruns of some very old sitcom, dozing in and out to the hypnotic rhythm of canned laughter when it happened. The B-grade actor's line cut off in mid-punchline, replaced by the tense and self-important jingle of the evening news. She opened one eye, puzzled. A newscaster behind a desk, his face pale, spoke directly into the camera. "We come to you with a report that defies all belief. We strongly suggest to everyone watching they find a place to sit down. Weymouth and the surrounding towns have been plagued by an epidemic of missing children, seven in the last twenty seven years. Three days ago we brought you news that eight year old Frisk Holder, the latest of the missing, had been found unharmed and placed with a new foster family. Today, we have learned the six other missing children have also been found alive and been reunited with their families. Even more inexplicably they are being accompanied by monsters, friendly monsters, who the children credit with keeping them safe. We go live now to the scene, where-"

Susan bolted upright, knocking her blanket off the couch. She stared at the screen in dumbfounded amazement. "They're… they're alive…?"

There the kids were, six of them, standing with people who looked like their parents. Some were awkward and embarrassed, others were waving and smiling, but all of them looked almost exactly how they did when they went missing. And in the center of them was Asgore, standing at a too-small podium and addressing the crowd of reporters with regal grace and commanding power only a King could claim. "Er-hrm, yes. I come to you today with hope and humility. I am aware that our appearance can be shocking. I know we defy many of your cherished beliefs simply by the nature of our existence. There is so much I wish to say. I want to tell you-"

"Dear me, what is this?" Shuchun's mom shouted, one hand on her chest. She had entered the room without Susan even noticing. "That… that's not a costume, is it?"

Susan leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around her mom. She bounced up and down while giggling, "They're alive! Mom, mom, I can't believe it they're alive! Ahahahaha it's great, it's so great, they're alive!"

Her mother smiled thinly. "So glad to see you in good health again. Tomorrow you go back to work."

She could not believe what she was hearing. "That's what you're focused on? Don't you understand how huge this is?!"

"Shuchun, what I understand could scarcely fill a thimble. The world is much too complicated to be smart all the time. Monsters? People coming back from the dead? Too much for me! So tomorrow the sun will rise, the bills will be due, and so you will go to work. Now sit down, but leave some room on the couch. This I have to see!"

Mother and daughter sat down on the sofa to watch history being made. But in the back of her mind Susan was thinking back to a few days prior, when she abandoned the monsters for their part in the deaths of those children. Damn it, if they were alive the whole time then what was the point of all that? Couldn't they have just told her? And now, what was she going to say to them?

"So Dr. Gaster revived the humans?"

"that's what it looks like," Sans told Dogamy, taking another careful sip from a bottle of water while he watched the sunset. It had been hours since his attack, and he was only now feeling well enough to be up and about. The fresh air helped, as did the orange view of the countryside. "gaster created the soul jars so the human souls would stay preserved until they were ready to use. at the same time he theorized a 'body jar', something he could stick the empty bodies into to keep them from spoiling. he figured he could research how the human body worked… lemme see if i remember his exact words, 'without that patient consent malarkey getting in the way'. he told me he had no plans to make them but evidently he changed his mind without letting me in on it. he must have secretly stolen the bodies after asgore laid them in their coffins, confident the king wouldn't bother to check to see if they were still there."

Dogaressa rubbed her chin. "(So he put the bodies in the, uh, body jars, built a secret passage in the barrier room to hide them… and then?)"

Sans waved a hand in the air. "the central computer drive has been wiped, but i bet there was a program there to restore the bodies. heal the wounds that killed them, make them 'alive' again. then after the souls got released they found their way here and went back into their bodies. again, gaster must have planned for that; betcha those hangars weren't empty when the kids woke up. he probably even left a note for 'em, judging by the clean spot on the table. so the kids exit the chamber while closing the secret door behind them, walk past all of us that are soundly asleep, and out into the world. after that… who knows. but yeah, 110% those kids are alive."

"Amazing!" Dogamy panted happily. "That Dr. Gaster is incredible to have pulled that off!"

"yeah, amazing." Even as Sans said it he knew his theory was garbage. There was a sizable hole: the seventh human, the yellow soul. Gaster was already gone by the time that soul was collected, so there should not have been anyone to steal the body away and put it into the secret chamber. The only way that theoretical plan could have gone off without a hitch after Gaster's disappearance was if he had a secret co-conspirator, someone he trusted more than Sans yet had absolutely no public dealings with. Was there anyone like that? Sans sincerely doubted it. But any other hypothesis he could make was even more crazy: Alphys couldn't have pulled off something like this and kept it secret from Sans; none of the other scientists had anywhere near the clandestine resources to do this right under the King's nose; and, well, everyone loved Asgore but to be blunt he was not clever enough to do something like this. Then there was the computer. It had apparently been set to format itself after completing the task of reviving the dead children. Why? What secrets were they trying to hide?

The Dogi's ears perked up. "Someone's coming," Dogamy said, sniffing the air. "Really fast. Sounds like…"

"(The captain?)"

A cloud of dirt and dust billowed out from beneath the treetops, with more being kicked out in a trail leading directly up the mountain. Trees shook, the ground rumbled, and a faint-but-growing-louder shout of "nnngggaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!"boomed into the air. A blue-green blur shot up from below the edge of the cliff and Undyne, holding Alphys in a bridal carry, hung in the air for a brief moment before landing amongst the gathered monsters. What, she ran straight up the side of the sheer cliff? Even Sans was impressed. She landed with a thud, kicking up yet more dust into the air. Undyne placed Alphys on the ground and the yellow dinosaur hugged the dirt path for stability. The poor scientist looked ready to lose her lunch. Undyne then spun on her heel, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted down the mountain, "TIME!" The Dogi had to cover their ears against the sonic assault, and the echo lasted five full seconds. She explained at a normal volume, "I really ought to be holding the stopwatch myself, but we didn't have one. Ah well, Silas'll tell me what my time was when we come back. Phew, you done with that?" She pointed at Sans' bottle of water, only half-empty despite him nursing it for the past hour.

Sans handed it over dutifully. She was going to have another attack if she did not rehydrate. "take it. you seem pretty happy. i guess there isn't a horde of bloodthirsty humans on your trail?"

Undyne finished off the bottle of water in one gulp and wiped her mouth on her forearm. "Nah, we got a ride from Silas. Uh, he's a guy we met on the surface who's been helping us out a lot. But enough about that!" Undyne said with a wide grin on her face. "You have no idea how crazy things just got!"

AN: The plan was to get this out sometime before vacation ended and I succeeded at that by a slim margin, but between a sick wife and the normal holiday craziness I got a lot less done than I wanted. Such is life.
So. This plot development comes from two places: the idea that monsters would be easily accepted on the surface after being at the very least negligent in the deaths of children is optimistic even by Undertale's standards, and the coffins are revealed to be open and empty during the post-pacifist walkabout and need to be explained. I figured, why not let each problem solve the other? We'll be checking in on the other kids periodically from here on out, but they aren't going to be major characters. They and their parents have their own lives and their own problems separate from what the monsters are up to, and while I would love to follow them I need to limit the scope of this fic if I want to finish it in a reasonable timeframe! After all, one could probably make the argument I've got too many irons in the fire as it is...