When Reaper returned from the Save Screen it was to a familiar, if terrifying, sight. Life, the flowery Toriel of his world, was sitting calmly on the other side of her stone table. Her arms were crossed over the front of her long, flowing dress. But it was the expression on her face that was scaring him. She looked only mildly annoyed, but that was huge. Life never got annoyed at anything. She had a nearly infinite level of patience. She had even when she was alive, too. So for her to show this much annoyance meant someone was in serious trouble. Reaper had a feeling that it was him.

He floated out of the portal to the Save Screen and sat down at the stone table. It was stone so that neither him nor Life could affect it. It made for a great meeting place. At least, it did when she was in a good mood. Right now it was the last place that he wanted to be.

"Reaper," Life said, her voice filled with ire, "why didn't you tell me that Goth has a crush?"

O...kay, that was definitely not what he thought she'd say. "um, life, he's eight. there's no way he has a crush yet."

Life blinked at him as he blinked at her, both of them clearly surprised about the situation. Then she giggled. "Reaper, monsters can have crushes as young as five. They might not be romantic or sexual crushes, but they're still valid. Goth is definitely old enough to have his first crush. I don't know what kind it is yet, and clearly neither does he, but he has some kind of a crush on his friend, Palette. He talks about him almost constantly and emulates his interests. He has a crush."

Reaper was still at the blinking stage. Then he shook his head. "no. no way. he's been talking about palette like that for over a year! there's no way that's a crush."

"And exactly how long were you in love with Geno before you even confessed to him? I seem to recall it was something like five years. Yes, five years, seven months, and thirteen days. You kept count," Life was smiling and absolutely destroyed him.

Denial was a powerful thing, though, and Reaper had a lot of practice with it. "yeah, no, he doesn't have a crush, and we're leav… where is he, anyway? don't tell me you let ink watch him. i swear that that monster shouldn't be allowed around kids. he's a menace! did you know that he rap-"

"Reaper, I don't want to hear about it. Again. Goth is safe and sound," When that clearly didn't satisfy him, Life elaborated, "Grim came and picked him up for a playdate. Apparently Mercy found a new game for them to play together and he couldn't wait to try it out. There was something about parts of cheese? Or was it ships in an ocean… No, that was the last one. Oh, yes! How could I forget! He said it was named after me!"

Reaper chuckled. Mercy, the little Frisk of his world who flirted with absolutely everything, was always bringing something back from the Surface for his brother, their guardian, to play with. They loved dragging Goth into it, too. They were a little bit older than him, but that didn't stop them. It was good that he had friends to take his mind off of Geno…

Oh, yeah. "life… can you try to find geno again? i know you can't actually find him, but… he wasn't in the save screen. i'm running out of places to look."

Life eyed him pityingly. "Are you sure, Reaper? I don't want you to find out-"

"life, please. i… i need to know he's okay. i… i just need to, okay? i'm not sure how much longer i can keep this up," Reaper said. He wasn't sure what the emotion in his voice was. Generally it was sad, and from there… there was some despair, hope, frustration, exhaustion, and fear. All of that was mixed together in some kind of sadness.

She sighed, eyed him one last time, and looked down. Her hands fiddled with the empty air above the table, but Reaper knew she was looking through all the souls in her care to find the single one she was interested in. He did the same thing when he was working, checking through the different hourglasses (and other insanities of the glassblowers art. The weirder the shape was, the more fucked up the timeline could be and the less likely it was that Reaper and Grim would ever be needed in that world). He knew from Mercy that no one other than his brother and him could see the hourglasses, just like no one but Life could see whatever she thought of souls as.

Finally, Life seemed to locate Geno's soul. She stared at it. Reaper didn't like her expression. She seemed upset, and Life being upset couldn't be good.

"Reaper…" He stiffened. Now she sounded like him, that weird sadness mixture evident in her voice, "I can barely feel him. He's so distant… I don't think any of us gods are going to be able to go where he is. There's some kind of a barrier, and it's magic is much stronger than even mine. And…" she gulped, "That same magic has altered his soul. He's different. I've never seen a soul like his. Someone has affected him on a fundamental level. He's in a huge amount of pain, and… I'm not even sure if he will remember you or Goth. I… Reaper?"

He was sure that he hadn't heard her right. There was no way that Geno was somewhere he couldn't go. He was Death. He could go anywhere; it was proverbial. And there was no way that magic stronger than Life had touched him. That just wasn't possible. He… he… he couldn't be in pain. He just couldn't. And he had to remember them. He was Reaper's soulmate, and Goth's mother. How could he forget them? They were… they…

Reaper wasn't quite sure what opened the floodgates. Why didn't really matter. All that mattered was Geno, and Geno was not okay. Reaper might never see him again, and that… that was suddenly all too real. He tried desperately to cling to his memories. He could see… he couldn't. He couldn't remember what Geno looked like! He scrambled to pull out the photo of them all on that summer day. He stared at it. His hands caressed the curve of his soulmate's chin. Then the first blue tear fell. Another followed. Then another. Then another. Then there weren't individuals, but a flood of them. He… he might never see Geno again. Goth might never see his mother again. Geno might never know that Goth had a crush on Palette. Geno might never get to see his son grow up.

"Reaper. Listen to me." He looked across the table at the god he was sitting with. She fixed her eyes on his sockets and radiated hope. "We'll find him. We're not the only ones looking for him. You said it yourself. Fresh is looking, and this place stinks of the same unnatural magic that feeds him. Ink is looking, and he exists outside the universes themselves. He can't stay where he is forever, and when he does leave, we'll find him. Even if he doesn't remember us, we'll find him. We'll teach him who he is again. No matter what happens to him you will see him again. I promise you that."

Reaper gulped. "you promise?"

Life nodded. "I promise. Now, please go back to crying. You haven't let yourself cry nearly enough. Goth told me he hasn't seen you cry once. That's not good."

Reaper let out a soggy chuckle. "that doesn't mean i'm not crying, life. i'm just not crying in front of him. i don't want him to have to worry about me as well as worrying about geno. he's only eight. he doesn't need that kind of weight on his shoulders."

"If you think that not crying in front of him means he won't worry you're much stupider than I thought. Goth is worried sick about you. You tell him that crying is okay and important and natural, but then he never sees you do it. He asked me to heal your tear-makers, Reaper. He thought there was something wrong with you," Life said pointedly.

"ouch," Reaper winced, "i don't want that. i'll try to cry in front of him, and i'll explain that i didn't want to worry him and i'm all fine."

"See that you do," Life said primly. "Now, cry."

"yes ma'am," Reaper saluted. Then he let himself cry in front of another person for the first time since Geno had gone missing.


The white space saw both a new inhabitant and an old one. The figure was wearing a black trench coat. The hems were edged with yellow piping, and the cuffs of the sleeves were blue. The bottom of his jacket shaded from black to blue. Under that he wore a ribbed red sweater and a pair of uneven black pants. The hems of the pants had roughly sewn blue cuffs. One was shorter than the other by several inches, but neither was longer than mid shins on him. Black flip flops graced his feet. But that was just his clothes. His bones were the weirdest part. The base of them was solid black, but some of them, namely his leg bones and his proximal and intermediate phalanges, were red. His distal phalanges were yellow, as were his teeth. His skull was black, but it had blue streaks like tears running down from the eye sockets. The sockets themselves were two different sizes, and the eye lights inside them were likewise. Red sockets held yellow and grey eye lights. His nasal aperture was red, too. And scattered around him like flies on carrion were floating glitches and error messages.

Despite all that, it was still Geno sitting there. At least, he still thought of himself as Geno. At least, he would if he could get over the shaking, panicking state he had slipped into. He was huddled up in the center of empty white nothingness, his knees to his chest and his hands trembling in front of him. Voices were screaming at him, their messages a mixed bunch of helpful, kind, and… not. But Geno was too shaken to listen to them.

"They're not going to be able to recognize me," Geno said in a glitched out voice. When he heard it, he sobbed, "I even sound different. My voice is all glitchy, and it's so much lower than it was. What are they going to think when I get out? Are they even going to believe it's me? I've been gone for so long, I-"

IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO GO BACK. YOU HAVE A JOB TO DO. GO DO IT.

The voice was overwhelming. It felt like he was trapped in a giant bell that was ringing inside of a giant dome. It hurt his ears, but at the same time it couldn't hurt his ears because a) he had no ears, b) the sound was in his head and, c) it didn't actually hurt. It felt like it should, but it didn't.

"What job?" Geno said lowly. His voice sounded almost like a growl and he hated it.

KEEPING THE BALANCE. THERE IS CREATION, SO THERE MUST BE DESTRUCTION. YOU MUST DESTROY UNIVERSES.

Geno recoiled. "What? No! I'm not-"

YOU WILL. THE MULTIVERSE IS ONLY SO BIG. EITHER YOU WILL DESTROY THEM, OR THEY WILL CRASH INTO EACH OTHER AND DIE A SLOW, AGONIZING DEATH ON THEIR OWN. IT IS INEVITABLE. DO YOU WANT THAT FOR THEM?

Geno dug his heels in. He had out-stubborned Death. He could out-stubborn an Eldritch voice or two. "I'm not going to destroy universes. Can't they be evacuated? We can-"

IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO INVOLVE YOUR LITTLE ONE AND YOUR MATE.

Geno froze. "No. No, you can't do that! They're hurt enough as it is, you can't do this to them! Reaper already has a job, and Goth's only eight! He needs Reaper to take care of him, you can't… you can't do this to them. Don't hurt them, please!"

THEN YOU WILL DESTROY UNIVERSES FOR ME, ERROR.

"That's… that's not my name," Geno said lamely. He felt so overwhelmed and absolutely rock bottom horrible. Was he really going to kill people and destroy people's homes? But he couldn't bear it if little Goth had to go through this torture. He didn't deserve it. Neither did Reaper. He would do anything to keep them safe. Apparently that included this.

IT IS NOW. OR DO YOU WANT YOUR MATE TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE MAKING HIS JOB HARDER?

Geno winced. Reaper hated his job. It was hard enough as it is. He really didn't want to explain to him why he had to make it harder. Reaper would insist on taking on this unbearable pain himself, not because it would make his job easier, but because he wouldn't want Geno to have to bear this alone. Geno didn't want that. He also didn't want to see Goth's face when he found out about this. Goth was a sweetheart. It had hurt enough when they had explained what Reaper and Grim did. It would be even harder to explain this.

"Fine," Geno… no, Error said, "I'll do your job, and I'll take your name. But if you so much as touch my child you will regret it more than anything else you have ever done."

The voice laughed, and Error knew that laugh would haunt his soul forever. It was ruthless, callous, and absolutely insane. OH, ERROR, YOU ARE SO NAIVE. I AM FATE. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO HURT ME. I HAVE SENT PLAGUES. I HAVE STARTED WARS. I HAVE INSPIRED GENOCIDES, INCLUDING YOURS. I REGRET NOTHING.

Error shuddered. He knew Fate by the horrors she left behind, and the idea of her rummaging around in his soul was terrifying. He felt hopeless for the first time in a long time. Even his huge supply of determination couldn't fight against the being that had created the multiverse. Ink spoke about her all the time. Apparently he was her favorite. She whispered to him in the night, inspiring him to create an endless supply of universes. Was… was that why he had to destroy? Because Ink was constantly creating? Because Fate was too fond of him to put limits on what he could do? Why? It was so unfair! He'd been happy with his mate and his son. Now he had been torn away from them, isolated, tortured, and changed. It wasn't fair!

Fate, seemingly unaware of his inner monologue, said, NOW, I WILL ONLY SHOW YOU HOW TO OPEN A PORTAL ONCE. AFTER THIS YOU WILL DO IT ON YOUR OWN. IF YOU DO NOT I WILL PUNISH YOU, AND IF I AM NOT SATISFIED FOR TOO LONG I WILL INVOLVE YOUR FAMILY. NOW, PAY ATTENTION. TO OPEN A PORTAL YOU NEED TO...