Just a quick continuity note before we begin; I'm retconning Toriel's soul. I've previously said and described it as green, but after serious deliberation I believe dark blue fits her better and will be editing previous chapters to reflect this. I'm mainly leaving this note here to assure people their memory is not playing tricks on them.

WARNING: This chapter contains discussions of suicide, child abuse, infidelity, and child abandonment.


Perhaps it would be easier to understand if what happened in that brief span of time could be known. If one could see what nobody was around to see the truth of it all would be plain. So let us go back, to the moment where it all happened.

This was the place formerly known as the barrier room. The barrier itself had been destroyed. The monsters were scattered around the room, unconscious after Asriel released their bodies and souls. Frisk was also unconscious, their body giving out after the trauma of their final battle. Chara was gone, but only for a moment. At this precise instant they were receiving the pieces of their soul the other children had carried with them on their own journeys. None of them were aware of what was happening in this room. No one was awake.

Papyrus sat up, white lights appearing in his eyesockets. He took in the scene around him, his gaze lingering for a brief moment on Sans, then he stood up. He briskly walked past the fallen human, walked past everyone, down the hall and through the throne room and down the stairs to Asgore's basement. Here there were several coffins lined up, each closed and decorated with a colored heart. Papyrus walked past the first coffin with the red heart and strained against the lid of the second one. He pushed it open, revealing it to be empty. He did not bother checking inside; instead he moved to the next one and pushed it open too. So he went down the line until all of them were open except the first. He checked his handiwork, nodded, and walked back up the stairs. He returned to the spot where he awoke and got comfortable in the exact position he was in when he started. "There should be just one more," he said to himself as the lights in his eyes went out and he slumped against the wall, instantly asleep.

If one could understand why he did all this, many secrets of the universe would be revealed.

Only a moment later Chara returned, hovering over Frisk's form. They called to try and wake Frisk up but it was clear after a few attempts this would not work. The monsters began waking up before long. They carefully moved Frisk to the earlier hallway, and Chara had no choice but to follow them. This left the barrier room empty.

About twenty minutes after they left a hidden door slipped open in the barrier room. Six human children carefully stepped out in clean clothes but wet hair. The last one out of the corridor closed the door behind them, and it connected to the wall so seemlessly it would be impossible to imagine a door was even there. The children wordlessly crept out of the chamber to the north, out of the underground.

It was not yet sunset, but no more than a couple hours of daylight remained. The dark-skinned child, Tyrone, grumbled, "No rest for the weary, I guess. So what now?"

Marijane wrung her hands in her dress, taking in the countryside. "I… I don't know. What can we do, where can we go?"

"We get off the mountain," Skye said, shielding his eyes from the sun. "We figure everything else out on the way down. Not that I don't want to say hello, but… you know."

Lilly held up a ream of comb-bound paper and opened it up, reading through the entries contained in it. After a moment she nodded. "My aunt owns most of the land around Mt. Ebott. She's supposed to… well, she's mentioned here anyway. We can show ourselves to her and explain what happened. She'll know what to do."

Most of the other children nodded, but Rebecca strayed from the group. She calmly walked up to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the long drop into the forest below. Avery grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back roughly, causing her to lose her balance and fall over. "Don't you dare," Avery warned. "Ah know what you were thinking, Ah been down that road, and believe me, it don't solve nuthin'. Ah ain't gonna be the one to tell your folks their daughter was alive but Ah let her go off herself."

Rebecca shook her head, silent tears running down her cheeks. "You don't understand. I was supposed to be dead, it wasn't supposed to matter. I… I killed them. For no reason, just to shove their deaths in that skeleton's face! I'm not like that, I was raised better than that, I shouldn't have-"

"Alright, alright," Avery said, dropping to one knee. "Look, Ah know what it's like to kill someone. The guilt what comes with it. You feel like your insides are all churned up. It hurts so bad, you'd do anythin' to make it stop. I get it. I really do." He pointed at her. "But you read that there book, the same as me, and we got roles to play. We have LOVE so we gotta carry it, no matter what comes with it. You get me?" Rebecca sniffled and wiped her nose, but nodded. "Then c'mon, git up, easy does it, there we go."

"Point of clarification," Tyrone offered. "I don't have LOVE currently, but in one attempt before I reset I got up to 19."

"I remember that one, all right," Marijane said through a strained jaw. "You even killed Toriel. You killed me! Snuck up behind me and choked me out like a coward!"

Tyrone shrugged. "You remembered Resets and Loads, so I had to get you in one shot. Besides, even with all that LOVE I couldn't beat Gaster. So I Reset and it didn't happen."

"So what if it did work? Would you have left us all dead?"

Tyrone gave his response by rubbing the back of his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Marijane bared her teeth and strode toward him, hands up in claws to grab him. "You sick son of a-"

"Cut it out!" Skye said, pushing his way between them. "Look, you two have got some issues to work out, I get it. But for now we all gotta work together, right? This is bigger than any of us, bigger than our grudges. So let's just… cool it for now, okay?" Marijane glared at Tyrone one more time before turning away. Tyrone shrugged.

Lilly sighed. "Come on, we have to be out of sight before the monsters come. They can't know we're alive yet." She began walking down the path and the others followed with varying levels of enthusiasm and reluctance.


Navy blue suit. White button-down shirt. Black shoes. Dark socks. Blue tie in a half-Windsor knot. In a time long past warriors would put on their armor before heading to battle. The style, the field, and even the method of doing battle had changed but the purpose had not. The attire of the modern knight was meant to single them out as a master of their craft, someone who had put in long hours into their craft and demanded respect. For the professional, how they looked was much of a part of their duty as their skills. Of course in the old days even the most ardent of knights might pause before fighting on a Sunday. But for warriors of the modern day piety was no longer a valid reason to delay battle.

Silas knocked on the door of the lab. Within a few moments it slid open to reveal an anxious yellow lizard in a lab coat. "I-I-I'm not sure this is a good idea," Alphys said, though she stepped out of his way. "She's, uh, still in shock, I think. And her mental state is still fragile. She, might not be in the right frame of mind to listen."

"Good," Silas said, stepping inside the lab. "Because this time I'm going to be the one to listen." Toriel was not far inside the lab; she sat in a swiveling office chair, staring at an empty space on the wall. Her fur was matted in spots and her robe had stains from the food she had been making the day she left. "Toriel," he called out. "I'd like to talk to you."

"I was not aware there was anything left to discuss."

He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her. She did not turn her head away but she averted her gaze. "What happened in that kitchen was… is, not who I am. I make a living empathizing with some of the worst of humanity. People who lie to my face about what happened and what they did. People who admit it and feel no remorse whatsoever. And my job often requires me to make sure they escape the consequences of their actions because there isn't enough evidence to prove it, or because the state violated their rights to get that proof, or simply because I can. Even if I know they're guilty, I still do it because it's important for everyone to have someone in their corner. I can't do that on the one hand and condemn you on the other. Let me try again. I will be your attorney. I'll hear from you what happened and I'll get you off the hook. I'll prove you don't deserve to be punished."

She picked at a hole in the armrest with one claw. "What could that matter? I hurt Frisk. I have confessed. What else is there to say?"

"Even if you are guilty, there can be mitigating circumstances. I've seen you, personally, interact with them, and there is no doubt in my mind you care about Frisk. And I understand you may not want to trust me after my… poor reaction a few days ago. But I need to know what was going through your mind. Take me back there. Help me understand and empathize with you. Please."

She did not have the energy to argue back and so she told him. How she came to the patch of flowers every day to tend to Chara's grave and see if another human had fallen down. How she gave Frisk all the information they would need to survive in the Ruins. How she did her best to distract dissuade, and ultimately warn Frisk away from the rest of the underground. And, of course, their battle. The one where Frisk refused to fight back. "Yes I held back," she explained. "Yes I did my best not to hurt them. Yes I missed them on purpose when an attack would have finished them. Does that make what I did any better? No! It means I knew they could have been hurt or killed and did it anyway!" She covered her face with her hands and wailed, "I am a horrible, horrible mother!" If she had anything else left to say it was drowned out by heaving sobs.

Silas rubbed his chin, leaving Toriel to work out her emotions. He needed time to process his thoughts. But Alphys, as all socially anxious people do, felt that she was supposed to say or do something but was unsure what. "… I-I-I think!" she began. "We, you know, we all do the best we can, with what we have to work with. And, yeah, you made a mistake. Maybe even a really big one. But I think someone who didn't care about Frisk wouldn't be beating themself up over it so much. And, well, one mistake shouldn't be-"

"But I keep making it!" Toriel shrieked. "Time after time, children come into my care and I let them down! Nine children have fallen into my care, eight died, and the ninth nearly died by my own hand! What kind of mother loses eight children and still does not learn her lesson?!"

"Hold up," Silas said, holding out a hand. "You said 'eight children'… so Asriel, Chara, and the six others…? Is that what you were thinking? That by letting them go through those doors it was the same as sending them to their doom?"

"What could that matter?" she said. "It changes nothing."

"No, it changes quite a bit." He tapped a finger against his chin. "There's a set of laws, called 'Good Samaritan' laws, that protect people from being prosecuted for harming others if that harm was done in the service of preventing even greater harm. Someone who yanks a child so roughly they dislocate the child's shoulder to prevent them from walking off a cliff is not an abuser. You had a reasonable belief, borne out by the deaths of the six previous children, that allowing Frisk through those doors would kill them. I could never prove you did not attack Frisk, but your motives were pure and thus you are blameless. There's no case under the law."

As if by alchemy her sorrow was transmuted into rage, slamming her fists down on Alphys's desk and sending candy wrappers, empty soda cans, and crumbs flying in every direction. "The law!" she sputtered. "You speak as if the law is the only arbiter of justice! Asgore's decree to kill children was the law, but that did not make it right! Did you actually think, in your arrogance, that you could find some loophole or, or technicality and I would thank you for lifting the weight of guilt off my shoulders? You have done no such thing! No matter how you wheedle and slither and equivocate it will not change the simple truth, I hurt Frisk and I deserve to-!"

"The law doesn't matter!"

His shout echoed through the lab. For a moment everyone was silent and still, the only noises being the hum of computer fans and Silas' panting. Toriel stared at him with her mouth open. Alphys held her breath, her eyes going from him to her and back again, like she was watching two gunmen ready to quickdraw at high noon. Silas ran one hand through his hair and repeated with less volume but no less conviction, "The law doesn't matter. I do not, and never did, need the law to tell me you are a good parent. I…" He choked on the word a bit, not used to saying it. "I am sorry, for jumping to conclusions. And for the harm you dealt Frisk, I forgive you, as I'm sure they do. I asked them if they hurt you, once. That child looked me dead in the eye and lied to me without a shred of hesitation. I think for them it is true; they've never felt afraid of you, and whatever happened they do not think of it as abuse. I am sure of it. I understand you may feel differently, but all of us… we believe you have suffered enough."

Toriel did not respond right away. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths through her nose while tilting her head backward. "Silas," she said with a deep sigh. "I forgive you. I, too, am sorry. And… I have an idea, of what I can do to make it up to you and to Frisk. Do you still have their shirt? The one they were wearing on the day the barrier went down."

He nodded. "At one time I had thought I would need it as evidence. I can have it discreetly destroyed, if you wish."

"I do not want it repaired or hidden," Toriel insisted. As she spoke her shoulders raised and her spine stiffened, returning to the posture of a once-Queen. "I want to carry it with me for the rest of my days. I want it hung on the wall so it is the first thing I see each morning. As a reminder and proof of my pledge: 'Never again'. I will never again harm that child, or any other. Not for anything, or for any reason."

Silas extended his hand. "I regret that I still only have a place on the couch to offer but it is yours. Shall we go?"

"Perhaps later," Toriel said, getting out of her chair. "For now I must repay Alphys for her hospitality. And I believe I will start by taking care of this mess." She immediately started gathering stray wrappers, empty soda bottles, and old ramen cups, depositing them directly into the trash.

"W-w-w-wait!" Alphys cried. "I have a system, if you start throwing things out I won't know where anything goes!"

"Then you must help me so you remember where we put them!" Toriel countered. "It is not right for a young lady to live in such a… a state!"

At that instant Silas' phone rang. "Way to ruin the moment," Silas grumbled as he brought out his phone, turning away and letting the women bicker. He did not recognize the number but answered it anyway. "Pembrook."

Ms. Ashland's voice came out over the other end, her sentences ending on a downward tilt and her pronunciation slurred and lacking in effect. "We just got the results back from the doctor's office."

Silas frowned. "Already? And how, why are they even open on a Sunday? Why are you working on a Sunday?" The hypocrisy was not lost on him, but was not relevant at the moment.

"They came in late Friday and I've been trying to clear you to get them. There's very stringent limits on what can be told to who when it comes to medical records. Can you come down to my office tonight?"

Never a moment's rest. "Sure. I'll be down right away. See you then." He sighed and hung up. Toriel and Alphys looked at him expectantly. "That was Child Services," he explained. "The results of the maternity and paternity tests came in. I think… we should prepare for the worst."

Alphys blinked. "Wh-what… what makes you think it's bad?"

"Nothing I can point to directly. But Ms. Ashland was exhausted, discouraged, and called me on a Sunday," he said gravely. "And I have learned sometimes what is not said can be as illuminating as what is."


Earlier, Friday evening

José clasped his hands together with nervous energy. He was in an office, his wife beside him, waiting for the doctor to show up. He perused the bookshelf filled with books with titles he could not pronounce written by people he had never heard of, the doctorate framed on the wall alongside other accolades, photographs of people and places that were snapshots of a life he would never know about. After this discussion he would probably never see or hear from this doctor again. He wanted to feel bad about that, but the truth was it was hard to think of anything besides Frisk. He was sure Frisk was their child, absolutely sure. Getting the confirmation of that here would be the first step to getting them back.

When the doctor arrived it was with two orderlies, large muscular men who waited patiently while trying not to draw attention to themselves. The doctor had a pensive expression on her face and avoided looking José in the eye. "The Milans, yes?" she confirmed. "You're here for the DNA tests for… Frisk Holder. Before I give you the results, I ask that you stay calm and control yourself. Your families will need to make decisions that are right for you. We can recommend therapists, marriage counselors, or any other type of professional you might wish to speak with. But this clinic cannot and will not be a part of those discussions."

José snapped, "So what are the results? That's what we're here for, that's what we're interested in. Is Frisk our lost child or not?"

The doctor sighed, referring to her sheet. "Our tests have concluded there is a 99.9% chance that Elena Milan is Frisk's birth mother." In the space of time between her first and second sentence the difference between the Milan's reactions was palpable: José's mouth was open in pure elation, while Elena had her eyes closed and brow furrowed. "It also finds, with the same certainty, José Milan is not Frisk's birth father."

"You see?" José said. "This is why I said it would be good to test us both. The lab screwed up with one of us, but we both got tested so it's good. What if they had messed up with you instead of me, yeah?"

"With all due respect," the doctor replied. "This isn't like a pregnancy test. We look over Frisk's DNA with yours to find common elements. We were able to find a number of chromosomes in their sample that matched Elena's, so the remaining ones should have matched yours. They did not; the chance of an error is less than .01%. I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

José laughed; Elena did not. "Come off it," he protested. "There has to be some kind of mistake. You said it yourself, there's still a chance of failure, and that's gotta be what happened. I mean, we've been seeing each other more than ten years, who else could possibly-"

Elena interrupted him softly, quietly, her whisper ringing out like a gunshot: "Raoul."

The single word froze the entire room solid. The doctor swallowed. Elena kept her eyes closed, breathing through her nose. José was stopped in mid-rant, his arms still splayed out. He turned toward Elena with a terrible slowness, a beast beginning to rise from its slumber. José stared at a space just beyond his wife's head. "That's why you wanted to do IVF so bad," he breathed. "That's why you didn't want to hire the detective. That's why you wanted only yourself to get the DNA test. You knew. You knew! The whole time!"

"Mr. Milan," the doctor started. The orderlies uncrossed their arms and looked ready to move. "I have to ask you-"

"I'm calm," he said, holding out a hand. "I'm… calm. I… we need to leave."

Elena stood up. "José, I-"

"We, need to leave," José repeated, getting to his feet. "Elena, we need to talk. In private."

The doctor said, "I can leave you alone if-"

"No, we're leaving. Come on." He stormed out of the room, his fists clenched. He strode with purpose, tearing open the door and leaving it open as he stepped into the hall. Elena followed him dutifully, her head down, keeping up with his pace but walking a distance behind him. They walked out of the office, out the doors, and to their car. He got into the driver's seat and she in the passenger seat, but he did not start the car right away. He took several deep breaths in an attempt to control himself. "Elena," he said, nostrils flaring. "Tell me what happened. All of it."

"It was after a big fight we had," Elena squeezed through a tight throat. "I was feeling unloved, and angry, and desperate. Raoul didn't want to at first but I lied and told him we broke up. I was so…" She sniffled up tears but her voice remained level. "I didn't want to lose you, not over one mistake. So I… we didn't tell you. When I got pregnant I thought it might have been his, but I wasn't sure. I was fine not knowing. And after we gave them up, I thought there was no point in telling you. What could it matter? But I knew the moment we found out about your fertility issues that Raoul was Frisk's father. It was the only thing that made sense."

"So you tried to talk me out of looking for them. You knew I'd have to take a paternity test to prove Frisk was our child, and…" He growled and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," Elena said, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I was so scared of losing you, I didn't know what else to do…"

"It's alright, babe. It's okay. We've been together this long, I'm not going to throw it away over something that long ago. We can get through this." His face hardened. "But we're doing it without Frisk."

She looked up at him for the first time since they were in the doctor's office. "… What?"

"We could do the IVF," he said, looking out the window. "Or even adoption. If it's a child unrelated to us, I can see it. I can see us raising a kid together and being happy to the bottom of my soul. But not with Frisk. I can't live with a permanent reminder of when you betrayed my trust and everything you did to keep it hidden. I can't raise a child that's yours but not mine knowing you lied to me about that for eight years. I'm not saying you can't see them. I won't say you can't be part of their life. But I can't be there with you."

"Jo," she swallowed. "Jo, please, that's my child there. I understand your pain, I am sorry for that pain, but you can't harm her because of something I did. That's not fair!"

He shook his head. "I can't pull them away from their life to be with us when I can't promise I'll love them like they were my own. I can't do it. That's what's not fair, Lena." He sighed. "The one good thing, is that we never met them. They'll never know any of what we did to find them, so they'll never have gotten their hopes up."


Ozzy: frisk you there?

Frisk: In a manner of speaking.
Frisk: This weekend has not been going so well. There was a bit of a disagreement with our foster father, so we are staying with a friend right now.

Ozzy: you dont have to write like that it makes you sound weird. :/

Frisk: Is that so? I was always taught that if you are going to write something you should take the time to express your thoughts properly. Grammar and punctuation are important factors in how we are understood.

Ozzy: not that
Ozzy: I mean how you sometimes type out our and we and stuff

Frisk: I.
Frisk: I meant "I".
Frisk: Royal "we".
Frisk: Something like that.

Ozzy: royal?
Ozzy: what are you a
Ozzy: whats the enby word for royalty?

Frisk: "Monarch" perhaps? "Heir"? It's never come up now that I think of it, I know some people I can ask and I'll get back to you.

Ozzy: whatever
Ozzy: lame burn anyway
Ozzy: but I got good news for you

Ozzy: doctors say I can come to school again

Frisk: Really that's grape
Frisk: *great

Ozzy: not looking forward to school
Ozzy: but if it gets me out of here even for a little bit its okay

Frisk: If you need any thing I can help you catch up
Frisk: Though to be honest, I doubt you will need the help.

Ozzy: no kidding lol
Ozzy: crazy how much schoolwork you can get done when you have nothing better to do

Frisk: Hahaha
Frisk: So will I see you tomorrow

Ozzy: at least for a half day
Ozzy: and maybe not every day to start
Ozzy: but its something


Undyne surely meant well, but most of her things had burnt down during her last cooking disaster and so there was not much to do in her spartan apartment. There were no tables or chairs, no dishes or silverware except for some disposable plasticware and paper plates, not even a television. Frisk slept on an air mattress Undyne had gotten for herself, the warrior insisting on letting the child in her care taking the bed while she slept on the floor. Frisk had completed their homework yesterday with Chara's help, the ghost child only deigning to offer their assistance because neither of them trusted Undyne's schoolwork abilities, but with Sunday stretching out before them they had quickly become bored. They got some mileage out of reversing roles, with Frisk teaching Chara a little bit of sign language. But there was a limit to how much you could learn in one day, and Frisk decided Chara had hit their limit when they started getting cranky about how "thoughtless and lazy" the sign for the letter "J" was. So now Frisk and Chara were taking turns chatting with Oswald, Chara reading out what Oswald sent and borrowing Frisk's thumb to tap out their replies while Frisk used a voice-to-text feature. Even if Chara's careless typing was going to make Ozzy think they were weird, it was nice for there to be at least one other person Chara could talk to regularly. Frisk looked up from their phone when they heard keys jingle in the lock. "Talk to you later," they dictated, then shoved it in their pocket just as the door opened.

"Sorry about being gone so long, kid," Undyne greeted. "Had to get to the grocery store on foot. The lady at the counter looked at me weird when I went to pick up the fish. What the heck, fish eat other fish all the time, right? So why is she giving me dirty looks?" Frisk shrugged and Undyne nodded. "That's right! So today we're gonna whip up some seafood stir fry! And, uh, some chicken nuggets we can microwave if something goes wrong. Which won't happen! I-" Her phone rang just as she made that pronouncement. "Aw, really? Just as I'm getting fired up. Hello?" Her enthusiasm drained out of her. "Oh, you. Do you mind? I'm trying to- huh?" She looked at Frisk out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah, they're still here. Anything you can say to me you can say to them! I ain't cuttin' them out of… hold up, what? How does… uh, wait a sec." She covered the receiver with her hand and winced. "Really sorry about this, Frisk. I'm gonna need a minute to talk to your foster dad. D'ya mind?" Frisk shook their head and Undyne retreated to the bathroom, closing the door to give herself the illusion of privacy. And a flimsy illusion at that.

Frisk got one of the plastic cups and tiptoed to the bathroom door. They put the open end of the cup against the door and their ear against the other to eavesdrop on the conversation, having learned long ago that when grown-ups decided they should not overhear something it was usually about them. That this instinct got them into trouble only a few days ago had done nothing to blunt it. Not to be outdone, Chara floated through the door and into the room beyond.

"So explain this to me," Undyne said, sounding like she was speaking through clenched teeth. "How the hell do humans work if your wife can have a kid and you don't know it's not yours? Uh huh. Uh huh. Wait, you really… huh! Asked and answered, I guess. Okay okay, so what does this mean for Frisk? Wha- are you freakin' kidding me? He's gonna ditch them? Why should that matter? Even if they're not his kid, they're still his wife's, right? And what's she doing in all this, huh?! This is… rrrgh, what am I gonna tell Frisk?… Well you're not keeping this from them! They deserve to know we found their mom but she's not coming for them!"

Frisk's mouth became dry. Their stomach lurched. They took a step away from the door, feeling like their face was melting off. Their parents… they found them? The cup slipped from their fingers and made a hollow sound as it thunked against the floor.

"Frisk?" Chara said, phasing back through the wall. Their smile was thin as plastic and their eyes watered. "Listen… um, I know what you must have heard. A-and, I want to let you know, I, uh…"

They were interrupted by Undyne opening the bathroom door, summoned by the sound of the cup. Undyne looked from Frisk to the cup, then studied Frisk's face. Frisk could tell she knew what had happened and what they had done. "So," she said evenly. "You heard."

Frisk shook their head, smiling as broad as they could manage. "I'll be okay."

Undyne sighed. "Kid…"

"No, really. I'm almost nine years old now. I never had real parents before, and… and I turned out okay. I'll be fine without them now. And I still have all the monsters to take care of me, nothing's changed. S-so it's okay. I'll… I'll be strong, an-and brave, and I'll n-never… miss them… or…" Huh? Why was their throat getting so tight? They had to keep talking, they had to reassure her that they were okay, or-

Undyne crouched down one knee to put themself on their eye level. She put her arms around Frisk and pulled them in for a hug. "You know," she whispered. "Part of being strong is knowing when it's okay to be weak."

Her words were the swing of a tiny hammer, hitting them in just the right spot to cause their whole crystalline front to fracture and shatter. They returned Undyne's hug around their neck, only now noticing the tears that had already stained their cheeks. Their breath turned ragged and their throat burned. Words would not come out anymore, only pitiful wails they tried to stifle by burying their face in Undyne's shirt. They were so overcome they hardly felt a cold and ghostly pair of arms join Undyne's in wrapping them up.

now there wasn't even a scrap of hope left that was their mom and dad their real mom and dad and they were leaving them again leaving them forever never coming back they never even got to see them it wasn't fair it wasn't fair they'd waited so long and they tried their best to be good and they didn't even do anything wrong so why why why

Undyne and Chara held onto the child tightly as if their bodies could shield this child from the storm of a cruel world. They both became more sure than ever of their view: there were some good humans, but there were still a lot of bad ones too.


The next morning Silas received word that José and Elena Milan had withdrawn their application to adopt Frisk Holder.