Alphys wants them to stay for a little while. "W-well, no. I mean, uh, I want you guys here, but, um. You should really stay for a bit. There's a lot of, um, stuff."

Frisk crunches their raw noodles, sneaking the stray bits off their plate and into their pocket so they can feed Flowey. The Hotland morning light is sneaking in through the high windows and the Mettaton-shaped hole in the ceiling, illuminating the fact that the lab is cleaner than it has been in months. Gaster had woken them all up that morning by finding the vacuum inside a hidden closet. His trilling song as he ran the device up the walls to get at the bits of plaster was a welcome change from how everyone usually woke up. Currently, he's organizing Alphys's paperwork into neat stacks. She doesn't seem to mind. He's obeying the rules that she set out in the first place; namely that no one is allowed into the bathroom because she needs to clean it up first and that if he finds letters, he is to refrain from opening or reading them.

"What's she mean by stuff?" Chara asks, reaching for the mug of soda. "I can feel this shit rotting my teeth. God, Alphys."

Sans is munching on noodles as well. Alphys is sitting beside him, writing out notes. Frisk had tried to sneak a peek at them, but Sans had growled at them, which had not only made Chara want to crawl up the walls to get away, but also made Frisk's heart beat much too fast much too early in the morning. When they had come downstairs, he had been on the phone, talking quietly to whomever was on the other end. It hadn't been Papyrus because they would have heard him. Even his quiet voice is a few decibels louder than an acceptable volume. Then, as Alphys had set out teacups, he'd bid whoever was on the other side a pleasant goodbye and wandered over to the table to sit with the rest of them.

Sans speaks now. "That's real nice of you, Alph, but we've got to keep moving if we want to get the kid out of here."

Frisk perks up, looking at him with their head tilted. It's not much friendlier than his usual attitude towards them, but it's better than nothing. They slip their last bite of noodles into their pocket, offering Alphys a 'thank you,' and ride the up escalator up to where Flowey is waiting.

He greets them with a peevish "I'm st-starving!" and they roll their eyes as they pile their pilfered food into their hands for him. He grumbles as he eats, grumbles as he crawls back into the knapsack, grumbles as they smile at him. He's trying to make up for what he sees as unforgivable, sleeping so close to their face that they could have crushed him if they'd half a mind to do so.

"It must really tick him off to be stuck up here. Maybe we should take him downstairs. I mean, Sans has seen him. What more could happen?"

Frisk shrugs and asks "You want to come downstairs? Alphys has-" They don't even have a chance to tell him about all of Alphys's awesome cartoons.

"N-no. I don't. Sh-she's not s-so nice, you k-know." Despite their outraged scolding, Flowey refuses to say more and Frisk stumps back downstairs confused and angry. Flowey was rarely ever nice to them before, so what right does he have to be awful to poor Alphys? He only started being nice when he thought they were Chara, and that was only really after they were made to kill him. It's like all he really understands is violence.

"Not true," Chara argues. "It's probably just the heat. He's a flower. He's more vulnerable to heat." It's not as convincing when they can hear Chara's own worry, but Frisk hopes they're right. They hope it's not because of his soullessness. He'd been doing so well after all. They hop the last couple of steps and land in the middle of a conversation. Papyrus's voice rings out loud and clear, talking excitedly, and underneath it, the popping of Grillby's laughter. Then Undyne's voice overtakes them both with a roaring laugh.

Sans, Alphys, and Gaster are all sitting around Alphys's kitchen table, another of the things previously hidden in the walls. On the tabletop between them is Sans's phone, from which the voices stem. Frisk hurries over, wriggling up next to Alphys in order to beam at the camera and join the gaiety.

"HELLO, FRISK!" Papyrus cheers. Undyne's loud groan nearly swallows up Grillby's amused "Good morning, doll." They kind of like that every monster has a different way of greeting them, even if Undyne's isn't the most flattering thing ever and is paired with her going off to slump on a couch they can see in the background. But Papyrus and Grillby are still there, both smiling back.

They wave. Grillby raises a hand back and Papyrus waves so enthusiastically that the phone is caught up in the motion. They're treated to a nauseating ride through the air before Papyrus manages to restrain himself. Frisk notes the smear of blue on Grillby's shirt collar then and the smudge of coral-pink on Papyrus's cheekbone.

"We caught Mettaton's show last night," Grillby notes. He sounds amused and holds up his phone. He must have filmed a portion of the show because there's Gaster and Sans, sitting on Alphys's couch. Sans looks half asleep in the clip and there's a quiet version of Papyrus's recorded scream in the background as he realized that yes, that is his brother and father on Mettaton's TV show. "You didn't tell us you were guest stars."

"I AM AWED TO BE WITHIN THE PRESENCE OF SUCH FAMOUS PEOPLE!" Papyrus says, genuinely delighted for them. Nothing is ever false with him, not even joking enthusiasm.

Frisk claps their hands, laughing at their excitement. "What are you all doing together?"

"Undyne came back to visit and, well…" Grillby makes a series of crackling and popping noises as he turns the camera down towards the floor. A misshapen face made out of burlap glares up at them through bulging eyes. "She brought a guest."

"What? What? WHAT?" screeches the dummy, each 'what' pressing its face closer to the camera until all Frisk can see is a single eye. Grillby rescues them from it, turning the camera back up towards himself and Papyrus.

"So, they've decided to camp out here for a bit. Means I have more hands on deck."

Papyrus takes the phone and his teeth very nearly fill up the whole screen before he manages to adjust the camera. "HOW ARE YOUR ADVENTURES? I SEE THAT YOU'VE MET METTATON, WHO IS BY FAR THE UNDERGROUND'S SEXIEST RECTANGLE. AND YOU'VE MET THE GREAT DOCTOR ALPHYS!"

Alphys blushes happily. Sans snorts at 'Underground's sexiest rectangle'. Frisk wonders if the Underground even has any other sexy rectangles.

"I bet there are a few bricks sexier than him," Chara says sardonically.

"We Visited Temmie Village," Gaster says and if he expected everyone to be perfectly fine with this, he's dead wrong. Papyrus starts blinking way too fast. From her seat on the couch, Undyne gives a shout of "WHAAAAT?" while Grillby's head starts to spark. Literally no one is fine with this.

"wouldn't rate the experience tem outta tem, i have to be honest," Sans notes.

Now Frisk is incredibly curious and so is Gaster, judging by the way he's looking at everyone. "What happened with the Temmies?"

"Nothing," the group on camera says in unison. Frisk hold up their hands in surrender, even as their jaw falls open. The vehemence of those they considered their friends, it was a little astonishing.

Papyrus smiles first, even if it's not his full, thousand-watt smile. "I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO COME BACK! GRILLBY AND I ARE REARRANGING THE HOUSE! CURRENTLY, WE ARE REPAINTING THE SPARE ROOM!" That explains the colorful smudges. "FRISK, YOU LIKE THE COLOR PINK, CORRECT?"

Frisk blinks. Why would he be asking them? They're going home. It's Sans and Gaster and Papyrus who would sleep in the spare room. They nod anyway. Most colors are good colors to them. Right now, they're not so fond of blue or green, but that's just for now.

"I TOLD YOU!" Papyrus yells triumphantly.

"Of course you did," Grillby mumbles, rolling the lights in his eyes even as they crinkle at the corners again. He seems to be enjoying himself.

"WE'VE GOT BUNK BEDS FOR WHEN YOU COME BACK AND VISIT," Papyrus explains happily.

"Awww," Chara coos. "That's so sweet!" They'd forgotten to tell Papyrus of their plan to break the barrier. They do that now, Chara delighting in the way Papyrus's jaw drops. There's a scuffling sound and then Undyne appears in the screen, squinting.

"Human! You're kidding! You think you can do that? You? When we've been trying for fu- fracking years?" It's almost funny how she's both challenging them and censoring herself to protect them.

Papyrus chips in, defending them. "FRISK THE HUMAN IS VERY DETERMINED, UNDYNE! IF THEY SAY THEY CAN DO IT, THEN THEY CAN!"

"I'm determined too! Determined to noogie you until you stop talking!" Undyne tackles Papyrus out of the camera's view. Frisk can just hear the dummy's yelling over Papyrus's screaming. Thankfully, Grillby moves away from the scuffle, until the camera shows that he's in the downstairs kitchen, leaning on the stove.

"You've got only one more territory on the main path to New Home, huh?" In the quiet without Papyrus and Undyne, Grillby keeps his voice low. "I wish you all the best of luck."

"Thanks," Frisk says, beaming at him. Grillby smiles back before his expression turns serious.

"Frisk, I don't believe we've been entirely honest with you. Sans and I were discussing it this morning and we decided it was better to tell you."

"You're getting married," Chara deadpans and Frisk's face gives one massive twitch as they fight not to laugh.

"There's a lot of evidence that when you reach the castle, the king will take your soul no matter what you say or do. Down here, not much is going well for the monsters. A long time ago, there was an explosion down at the Core. Several of the monsters there died. It was a kingdom-wide tragedy."

Chara swallows loudly and Frisk can hear them rattling something around. When they focus on the sound though, they pinpoint it as being outside of their head. Mr. Gaster's hands are shaking.

"After the explosion, monsterkind experienced the worst mass epidemic since the war. Hundreds of monsters fell down, losing hope in everything. They were there one minute and the next- gone. In five years, the population was sliced in half. Monsters are desperate to get out of here. The Underground is a death trap."

The rattling seems to double and they look to Sans now. He's shivering, his bones clicking together like macabre castanets.

"The King, he has to do what's best for the people, and if taking your soul is the way to do it, he will. I know you want to go home, Frisk, but perhaps it's better if you stay down here for a while."

They don't even hesitate. "I'm going home." Chara, hovering in the mindscape, smirks at that, pride radiating off them as if they are a miniature sun.

Grillby crinkles his eyes at them gently. "I admire your hope. I hope you will find a method that will allow you to resolve this your way." He blinks and sparks white as a distant crash comes through the phone speakers. "I have to go make sure everything's copacetic upstairs. Goodbye." The call ends and Frisk sees that Grillby's contact picture on Sans's phone is the fire elemental holding an umbrella, trying to block the camera with his free hand.

Frisk pats the table near Gaster's trembling hands in the silence that follows, drawing his attention. He halfheartedly ruffles their hair in return.

Alphys drums her fingers on the table then alights upon an idea so great that she slaps her palms against the wood, nearly frightening Gaster out of his own skin. "Frisk, Mr. Gaster, Sans, do you want to watch a show with me?" she asks, obviously trying to distract them from the horror that was Grillby's summary of the group mental state of the Underground. Frisk nods enthusiastically, but holds up a hand before Alphys can recommend one. They dart up the escalator again and open their knapsack.

"I t-told you, Fr-Frisk, I d-d-don't wanna see h-her," Flowey complains as soon as they lift the flap. He's definitely looking a little wilted, for real this time, not for dramatic effect like last night. They run back downstairs and fill up a bowl with water for him, then exchange the water bowl for the DVD case they found in the dump. Flowey sucks up the water with his vines, looking disappointed that they don't want to argue with him, as they dash back downstairs, waving the case around.

"Ooh!" Alphys says, taking it from them and reading the back. "An adventure story! N-nice! I've never seen this one before!" She glances over at Gaster, who is staring hard at the case. "D-don't worry, I'm pretty sure Frisk c-can watch it." Gaster slumps back onto the couch, relieved. He's fit himself into playing the role of another surrogate parent very nicely and Frisk is glad for it. They scramble up onto the other side of the couch, leaving enough room for Alphys between them. "Sans?" the dinosaur calls. "You s-sure you d-don't want to w-watch?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, Alph." His voice comes from one of the hidden rooms in the walls. Some of these are broom closets, but others look like old laboratories. He's very interested in them, even though Gaster most definitely is not.

The anime is good, but Frisk's mind is distracted by Chara about a fourth of the way in. Chara is plotting. They close their eyes and open the inner ones to find the spirit drawing on the wall. There's a rough sketch of the badge there, along with an even cruder drawing of the one Temmie had shown them. Chara's connected them with yellow lines to doodles of Alphys, Gaster, and Goner Kid. Goner Kid is circled in red. Frisk approaches the wall, but Chara is absorbed in sketching out an image of Sans beside Alphys. They can hear them muttering. "Sans and Alphys know each other somehow, enough to have inside jokes. Sans and Gaster are related, whoops, forgot Papyrus, he's in there too. Gaster knew Goner Kid. Sans might have, Alphys might have."

Chara takes a step back to survey their work and collides with Frisk. The former leaps into the air in surprise and just keeps going. "Frisky, don't scare me like that!" they scold, floating about the headspace like a balloon.

'Sorry,' Frisk answers. They've modeled their inside voice after Chara's and Asriel's, so it has a bit of a monster's natural lilt and a little of Chara's rough sound. Chara relaxes at the voice, drifting back down to the ground. Frisk glances about at their drawings. 'This is amazing. What're you doing?' In what looks like green chalk, Chara's done little mock-ups of all the creatures they've met too. It's fascinating.

"Trying to connect everything." Chara rubs their chin. "It's hard. I'm not so good at this. Azzy liked to think, not me." They shrug, revealing that they've smudged blue on their chin. It actually looks like chalk, right down to the smeary way that the powder mocks the shape of Chara's handprint.

'Looks good to me,' Frisk objects, reaching out to touch the drawing of the badge. It is chalk. Chara beams when Frisk shows them the stain it's left on their fingers, a tribute to exactly how powerful Chara is at manipulating the mindscape. Wiping it off onto their sweater, Frisk folds their arms. 'So, whatcha got?'

Chara looks around and starts reciting, in a dull drone that reveals that they've been over these drawings thousands of times before. "Before there was an accident at the Core, there were at least three people that worked there. One was Goner Kid. Another must have been Gaster because he fell into the Core itself. I think Sans was probably there too, because he recognized the badges. There's a spare badge, but we don't know who it belongs to yet.

"Gaster fell in the Core. Sans and Papyrus were probably just kids, because Papyrus can't be too old. I mean, I don't know about Sans, but Papyrus is definitely not older than Mom."

'She's like three hundred years old,' Frisk points out skeptically. Gaster seems very young to them. He acts too much like Lee to be even nearly as old as Toriel. They mention as much and Chara considers.

"Let's estimate Sans at about thirty-five then. Papyrus would be maybe twenty then. So, if the accident at the Core was about twenty or so years ago, Sans would be early teens and Papyrus would be a baby. Sans would be old enough to remember it or maybe his mom would tell him."

'I think you're talking numbers too much,' Frisk complains, looking at a doodle of the fluffy white dog they'd pulled from Gytrot's horns with a frown. They weren't so fond of numbers, not even aboveground. Underground, where numbers usually showed up after a killing blow, they liked them even less.

Chara lets out a sigh that lasts at least a minute too long. "Fine. Goner Kid's dead and Gaster's a mess, so there's something that's bringing them back. Maybe it's something to do with those green creatures. I don't know. But Temmie said it had something to do with history. And who knows history?"

Frisk's eyes open and they mouth 'Alphys.'

The little yellow dinosaur is reluctant to tear her eyes away from her program, but Frisk tugs so insistently that she finally looks at them, at the signs they're making. Alphys fishes around for the remote, locating it on the floor and pausing just as the brightly-colored main character shouts a shrill battle cry. Gaster looks around in confusion as the highly saturated antics onscreen stop. He seemed just as invested as Alphys in the adventures of the main character and her sidekick, the funny guy.

Alphys stretches up off the couch and pads over to the table, returning with the pad and pen Gaster had been using. Frisk takes it gratefully, writing almost as soon as the pen is in their hands, writing in Chara's harried script first, then taking enough control to slow their hand. They ask Alphys if she's seen the creatures, the ones that pretend to be monsters, but before they can elaborate further, she's backing away.

"H-how do you kn-know about th-that?" she asks.

"So, she does know," Chara says triumphantly, excited at first that their hypothesis was right. Then they see how badly she's shaking, how her face has crumpled again. "Wait, what's wrong?"

Frisk asks as much and Alphys shakes her head. "Y-you knew and y-you st-stayed?" Before they can answer, she's got her hands up, hiding her face. "O-oh n-no. O-oh n-no, I'm s-s-so s-sorry." She chokes out a laugh or a sob, it's hard to tell, then flees upstairs, Chara calling after her "I think we got some wires crossed here!"

They stand for a moment before realizing in unison exactly how bad of an idea it is to let Alphys be upstairs, and chase after her. But then Alphys is gasping and Flowey is screaming and they're not going to get up there fast enough to keep either side from killing the other.

When they finally leap off the escalator, Alphys is sitting on the floor, hands pressed over her eyes and tail curled around her feet. Flowey, half-submerged in the bowl of water Frisk gave him, glances sullenly up at them. "S-see?" he says. "You f-found her out. Sh-she's n-not s-so nice after all."

Frisk's knees give out in relief and they wind up crawling the rest of the way, discarding Flowey's words like a piece of old garbage. He's grumpy because he's overheating, that's all. They nudge Alphys's arm with their head. She shudders. They sit back on their heels, writing on the pad very slowly and thoughtfully, keeping their arm touching hers at all times. They are determined to make this right. Determined to help her.

Chara's whispering suggestions in their head and they include as many as they can. Then they tear the page off the pad, fold it in half, draw two triangles with the tips crossing. They flip it over and draw a postage stamp on the upper right corner. Then they print the address of Alphys- Alphys, The Upstairs Bedroom, The Laboratory, Hotland, The Underground- and slip it through the gap between her cheek and her arm.

They don't expect her to shake even harder. Letters usually make things better. Chara has a whole bunch of memories where they wrote Asgore and Toriel and Asriel birthday letters or thank-you letters. Frisk and Lee used to communicate through letters when Frisk was very small, letters pushed under Lee's office door or letters under Frisk's breakfast plate or tucked into their pockets. Letters and blankets.

They go to yank the blanket off the bed as Gaster makes an appearance, trilling nervously. He helps them, untucking the corners so they can yank it off and wrap it over Alphys's shoulders. How much help it'll be in this heat, they're not sure. He sits at Alphys's other side, squished between her and Flowey's bowl, which he has vacated in order to hide under the bed. Over Alphys's head, he signs "What Happened?"

Frisk shrugs, leaning their head on her arm. The minutes slip away like fine sand and it gets too warm to sit together. Alphys feels like she's taken all of Hotland's heat into herself. Frisk takes one of Gaster's manifested hands out of the air and places it on Alphys's arm where their head had been, before they crawl over to their knapsack. A clean scarf, that's what they need. They wrap it around their hand and dip it in the bowl of water, scrubbing up the wet trails that Flowey's vines left on the floor with their sleeve.

When the scarf is pleasantly cool and damp, Frisk moves back to their place, patting it against Alphys's cheek in an attempt to cool her down. They don't even know where Sans is, but, for a change, they really wish he was around. Alphys knows him better than she knows them. They worry that all they're really doing is freaking her out more.

"I'm sorry that everyone's hurt," she says quietly.

At first, Frisk thinks that the words are addressed to them and they still, wondering if Alphys knows about the Resets. Then Alphys pushes herself to a standing position, holding their letter in her claws. The blanket falls in a lump on the floor. "Nobody is happy," she says, almost as if it's a question. Then she squares her shoulders. "Fr-Frisk. You're my friend, right?"

They nod.

Alphys nods back, bobbling her head like a dashboard dog. She takes a breath, like she's about to make a big speech. "I'm going to start being a better person, okay? It's, uh, the least I can do. S-so. I'm going to open your letter."

"You go, girl! Open that letter!" Chara cheers. "And then give us answers! Because I know you know!" Frisk pumps their fist in the air, cheering Alphys on as she unfolds their paper. Gaster claps a couple times, proudly, Frisk thinks. Like he's watching her graduate.

Alphys reads it. Her eyes flick up over the top of the paper to look at them questioningly. Before they can smile or wave or anything, she fussily adjusts her glasses and reads it over again. Frisk folds their hands in their lap, glancing over at Gaster. He nods, somehow conveying his faith in them with a single movement.

Alphys laughs, not the nervous laugh she usually has, but real, amused laughter. "Frisk!" she says, looking over at them. "S-Sans is an awful influence on you!"

Frisk beams. They had written her a lovely heartfelt apology, of course, but the best part had been the decorating. With Chara's help, they had covered the paper with all the lame jokes they could think of, as well as drawing a bunch of pictures of themself holding hands with Alphys. Chara did the border of flowers entirely on their own, but Frisk did all the writing. At the bottom of the page, they had written Show me Mew Mew Kissy Cutie sometime, please.

They get up and hug her again, dropping their pad to the tiles. She hugs them back, resting her chin in their hair. One of her arms lifts off their shoulders and they turn to see Gaster. He looks like he's waffling between joining the hug and not. Alphys is beckoning him forward, into the embrace. Frisk joins her, shifting over so that Gaster can enter the hug. He does so then, careful to avoid contact with Frisk. He only stays within the embrace for a few seconds, then slopes back to stand at the foot of the bed. They appreciate his caution, thinking with a mental wince about the last time.

They'd been scared by how suddenly the darkness had come on and they'd grabbed onto the closest person. Chara had told them to not be so scared, that Frisk was too confident to be scared of something like the dark. And Frisk had been so determined to prove them right. And the darkness had swallowed them and taken Gaster along. When they'd come out of it, Sans had looked horrified. Like they were a murderer all over again.

They shiver. Alphys holds them at arms length, worried. They hold up their hands, afraid to frighten her more, but looking for answers. Slipping out of her embrace, they scoop up their pad and turn to the bed. Flowey crawls reluctantly out from underneath it when signed for. His vines creep up the offered arm until he's situated properly. Then he all but glares at Alphys, daring her to make something of it.

"Stop it," Chara says, equally amused and concerned. Frisk passes the message along, then writes on their pad: 'So, how do you two know each other?'

"She f-fucking m-m-made me into th-this," Flowey snarls, warping his face and waggling a forked tongue at Alphys menacingly. Frisk, who had gone to shake a finger at him for the swear, freezes, looking askance at Alphys. She had brought Asriel back from the dead?

"I was performing experiments using Determination. St-studying its effects." Gaster, who has been listening intently, now gestures with frustration at the ceiling. Frisk sends him a questioning look, but he flaps his hand at them. It's nothing.

"I- I wanted to make Asgore happy, so I used a flower from his garden to be the first vessel."

Chara sucks in a breath. "Where our dust was scattered. Holy hell." Their confusion and horror races through Frisk's mind and their soul pulses in response. "That could have been me, Frisk. If she had found me instead of using a flower. Remind me to thank Mom for stealing my body." Frisk shakes their head to dispel the images Chara's words are calling up.

'We need answers, not scary things,' Frisk tells them, gesturing for Alphys to go on. The dinosaur shrugs, blushing. Of course there isn't more information. The result of her experiment is perched on Frisk's shoulder, looking aggravated as usual. He's all the information they need.

'What about Mettaton?' they ask instead, going for a vaguely more pleasant line. They'd never learned much about Mettaton in their other Resets. Alphys must know a little something.

Alphys sighs, averting her eyes from them and staring at the floor instead. "I b-built him to be an entertainment robot. It was a f-favor of sorts. And he turned out even b-better than I'd thought he would, but he decided he'd rather go solo and-" She has that apologetic look, like she's about to say something self-deprecating, but she catches herself in time, puffing out her cheeks. "It made him a star," she comments instead, smiling a little wistfully. Frisk wonders all of a sudden if Mettaton had been her first friend and he had left her. No wonder she's a wreck. Chara gives their presence the feeling of a hug, a gesture of possessive pride more than anything.

"A-anyway. Uh, he saw all my cameras once when he came in for repairs and, um." She winces, then fidgets. "It- it seems really dumb now, but I wanted to be a part of the story, you know? You're just so cool! Like Undyne, b-but pocket-sized! Not my pockets, but m-maybe Asgore's. And he wanted to help and I w-was so excited because it was g-going to b-be our Human Fanclub all over again, but, um. But then I met you. A-and I saw Sans's soul. And, uh." She stops and twiddles her claws, sucking in a breath. "And you're my friends now too."

Frisk smiles at her, but of course she doesn't look up and she's blushing again. Her hands fumble around each other, folding up the letter in order to fit it into her lab coat's pocket. Gaster's still staring at the ceiling as if someone is going to come crashing through it and rescue him. "If silence can be pregnant, this one's expecting twins," Chara says disapprovingly. The tail end of their sentence is lost, as quite abruptly, Alphys's head whips up.

"Oh! And if we're friends, we can exchange cell numbers! We can text all the time!"

Frisk can see exactly two separate problems with this idea, but they obligingly hand over their phone. Alphys takes it with slowly dawning horror, dangling it between two claws like it's a cockroach. "Where did you get this phone?" she asks. "It looks ancient! It doesn't even have a texting feature!" This last was said with such revulsion that Frisk had to bite the inside of their cheek to keep from laughing. They can kind of see why she and Mettaton had become friends in the first place. She's actually pretty dramatic herself.

Alphys examines the phone a minute, then says "I think I can upgrade it for you, if you want."

"Say yes! Maybe she'll give it super cool magical powers!"

'Were you watching that anime too?' Frisk teases as they nod to Alphys. Chara's essence turns an embarrassed pink.

"Background noise helps me think!" they say defensively, turning back to their grafftied walls. After a time where they pretend to study their work, they comment "I liked that part where the nice guy turned out to be crazy and the background music went nuts."

Frisk snickers as Alphys darts off down the escalator, but Chara's thoughts pulse grey. Their thoughtful color. 'What's the matter?'

"What was she saying about-?"

Frisk sees movement out of the corner of their eye and asks Chara to put a pin in that real fast.

Gaster has seated himself on the bed, one hand absentmindedly fixing the folds in the sheets. "You Were Asking Her About The Abominations, Were You Not?" he asks.

"Yeah." They sit down and press their spine to the wall, tilting their head back until it meets the coolness. The heat slides off the walls without warming them and it's lovely after a morning of anxiety. They might have to ask if they can use Alphys's bathroom to take a shower. "What did she mean about Sans's soul?" Chara complains that this was what they were going to say.

Gaster rattles quietly to himself, an old, almost mechanical sound. "I Believe," he answers, piecing together his words as if they are the parts of a jigsaw puzzle "That Sans Has A Damaged Soul. If My Hypothesis Proves Correct, You Have One As Well, Presumably For The Same Reason."

Their heart had skipped a beat at 'damaged' and now completely stops. Chara makes a concerned noise. "How would he know?" they ask, inserting a note of warning when they see what Frisk is thinking of doing.

Rather than heeding them, Frisk pulls out their soul for inspection, showing it to Gaster. They trust him, they trust him and Alpys both, and they think this trust at Chara, fiercely. Their soul, it still hurts, but it feels less like a stab wound and more like a headache during a cold and it gets dimmer as Gaster looks at it. They feel…safe.

Alphys comes back up the stairs just about the same time Gaster is picking up the pen and writing down a couple notes in a strange script. To her credit, she doesn't gasp or grow upset, not even when the gashes flare in Frisk's alarm. Instead, she comes and sits down, showing them the new features of their phone. "I even signed you up for the Undernet. It's the Underground's most p-popular social network. If you do wind up n-needing help, y-you can just ping me!" The quavering note in her voice suggests that she's doing this as a distraction. They throw themself into the offered topic, stealing the pen every so often to write questions as she demonstrates and Gaster hums to himself.

Alphys runs out of topics fairly quickly once Frisk makes it clear that they are not interested in fanfiction, although it is indeed very cool that she got on the top ten most popular fics list. Despite themself, the silence draws their attention back to Gaster. He is still now, watching their soul pulse. His eyes are focused on the thick tarlike substance that breaks up the endless expanses of red. "Those Would Be From Your Second Soul, I Presume? One Of The Other Fallen Humans?"

"Flowey, could you translate for Alphys?" It wouldn't be fair to leave her out of the conversation. The flower shakes his head vehemently as he flops off their shoulder and into their lap.

"Nah, kid, I got this." Sans, looking as tired as if he had decided to run up the down escalator, drops down to sit next to the dinosaur. Frisk does their best not to suck their soul back into their chest like they're slurping spaghetti. With him there, they don't feel as safe. Instead they feel guilty. "I fell asleep at the kitchen table. Guess I was bone-tired." The explanation doesn't account for wherever he was when they were watching anime, but Frisk can't bring themself to judge. He hadn't even put the emphasis on 'bone' in order to alert them to the pun. Maybe he wasn't even making one.

"Do not tell me you're forgetting what the guy did to us."

'Don't tell me you forgot that we deserved it,' Frisk counters, nodding their head towards Gaster to answer his previous question. To Sans, they say "You and me've got the same thing."

He flicks his eyes over to their soul and shrugs, only the momentary dimming of his eyes conveying anything more than disinterest. The sight of their gashes bothers him, bothers him more than he wants to let on. They wonder about that. Are their gashes worse? The thought makes their heart thump in their ribcage. Are they going to die? "Show me," they demand, pointing to his chest with one grubby finger.

"Little forward, aren't you?" he answers, translating for Alphys almost as an afterthought.

"What caused it? What did it?"

"We did. You and me, kid. We did the same thing over and over and got ourselves well and truly stuck." The skeleton sticks his hands in his pockets, then decides against it and simply rests his palms on his knees. Nothing about him is menacing. There's no pale blue, no gold, just the plum darkness of shadows under his eyesockets and the way he slumps, like he's a balloon and someone's let all the air out of him.

Frisk can't think of anything to say, so they settle for the thing they'll never be able to say enough. "I'm sorry."

He laughs. "I can't say it's okay. I hope you weren't expecting that."

They shake their head. They're never going to expect that. Their whole life will be spent waiting for the day when someone says it, but they don't think they'll ever expect it. They really want to call Mom right now, but they settle for the next best thing. Alphys makes a little surprised sound when they clamber over to lean into her, but she winds up wrapping her arms around them anyway.

"It's an interesting case," Alphys says, resting her chin on their head again. "Souls are naturally made of love and trust and compassion. Somehow the two of you managed to extend LOVE rather than love. If you didn't know, Frisk, LOVE is Level of Violence Earned. It's the anti-thesis of everything in a soul. If you kill someone, your LOVE increases and the basic integrity of your soul weakens. Your HoPe may increase or decrease at any given time. You two, you're both at level one of your LOVE, but your souls are acting like you're on levels beyond anything I've seen. I mean, my mom researched parallel universes, but this is the first time I've seen anything that could prove her correct." She glows for a minute at the thought.

"How do we fix it?"

Alphys adjusts her glasses apologetically. "I-I actually don't know. Frisk, you're already starting to heal, which might be a human thing or it might be related to other factors."

"One question down. How about we ask about the glitch creatures now?" Chara asks. Frisk agrees.

"What are the green creatures? And nobody be tricky about it!" The question comes out more demanding than it should and Alphys laughs a little at their expression, screwed up in a comical ferocity. No one else is laughing though. Gaster slides off the bed, hitting the floor with a wet smack.

"The Abominations? I Believe That What Happened At The Core Called Them."

"That was eons ago, doc. Why would they show up now?" Frisk turns towards Sans's voice, interested. He had been there too. Had he worked in the Core as well? He catches them looking and half-smiles.

"The Fabric Of Time Was Rent Asunder," Gaster explains. "It Must Have Left Holes. If There Is Anything I Have Learned, It Is What Humans Call Newton's Third Law."

"Every action deserves an equal and opposite reaction," Sans says.

"Newton's Third Law?" Alphys asks, completely out of the loop now.

"What happened then?" Frisk asks, looking from Sans at their elbow to Gaster by the bed. This is like the world's weirdest slumber party and the worst. With every question they ask, they can feel the tension climb a few more levels. "What happened at the Core? You fell in-"

"And Something Else Crawled Out. Presumably The Same Creature That Is Corrupting Our World."

A horrible silence follows, as Gaster lowers his hand to the floor. Sans's eyes are winking in and out of existence. It feels like the silence after watching a horror movie. Not even the light curling in through the hole in the ceiling seems right. The lava's red tinge gives it a sinister cast. Any minute now something could come through the window.

Alphys shivers and the motion makes Frisk jump. Quickly, Alphys pats their head, like she's soothing a puppy. "Th-that's it," she says. "I know what I said about you staying here w-was right, but th-this proves it. Y-you're going to stay here and we- we're going to have a picnic!"

Everyone assembled looks blankly at her. Alphys huffs. "We-we're going to have a picnic and b-be good friends and we-we're going to hang on a little longer, okay?" Her knees are trembling under her lab coat. It's taking everything she has to boss them around like this. Frisk thinks of another world, where Alphys led everyone into safety. Where she had to be the boss. The role fits her ill here, where the only role she's ever known is that of the anxious scientist, but it is like a too large sweater unwrapped at Christmas. After a few times wearing it, the weight is no longer noticeable and the words people always say seem like they might come true.

You'll grow into it.