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This chapter is one of my personal favorites.

I hope you all like it as much as I do~ :)

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Fragile Bones

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Arm hanging uselessly at his side, the injured skeleton tried to ignore the pain as he closely followed the smaller human through the next area. This room looked to have once held some kind of spike trap, but it was obviously broken now. The metal protrusions appeared to have been forcefully crushed beneath something heavy. Bent and wedged into the ground, the spikes, thankfully, were unable to activate.

The next room, however, much to Sans' immediate frustration, had another pit waiting in the center of it. A much smaller pit than what they had just experienced, but still impassable all the same. Looking down, they only saw a sparce amount of blackened vines creeping around a pile of red leaves.

Noticing the growing light, Sans turned his attention to the human standing next to him. Hand placed against her chest, she had begun to channel her magic into the Sunstone without need of being asked. Holding out her hand, she gave him a sympathetic smile.

Returning the smile, Sans easily accepted her generous offer. Taking her hand in his, he looked over the small hole to the other side as they waited. Once the light was bright enough, he wasted no time in teleporting them to the exit of the room.

"thanks, hun." Sans grinned. "glad you decided to come with me. tibia honest, it'd be the pits without you here. heh."

Looking up to her chuckling friend, a subtle smirk played on Frisk's lips before she rolled her eyes at his dumb pun. At least he was feeling well enough to joke around. That was a good sign. Still, she fully intended to fix that arm of his once they found a safe area.

Stepping into a long hallway littered with piles of red leaves, the atmosphere almost felt calm as the two looked around. If it wasn't for the sporadic vines creeping up the walls here and there, this place would seem fairly harmless. They knew better, of course. Not falling for the illusion of placid repose, the two stayed close to the center of the path as they carefully made their way through the quiet hallway.

Walking in companiable silence, the monster and the human finally arrived at the exit to the room. Leading off to the left through a separate hallway, the path they were on continued into the darkness. Directly ahead, however, was another exit a little ways off the trail.

There, Frisk thought to herself as she directed them forward. If that room was still intact, it would be the perfect place to take a small break.

Pausing for a moment, Sans arched an eyebrow bone as he glanced over at the real exit. He hadn't quite had enough time to memorize the map yet, but he was pretty sure he knew where they were right now. They needed to go to the left. The other hallway only led to a dead end, so then why was she going there? Keeping his questions to himself for the time being, the skeleton held his metaphorical tongue and followed after the mute girl.

Entering into the small room, Frisk brightened her Sunstone, effectively banishing the shadows and any blackened vines along with them. Bordered by two shallow canals, a wide cobbled path led straight to a moss covered wall. Just as she had hoped, this room was ideal. It was large enough for them to spread out but also small enough to keep the entire space well lit and protected. Turning, she ushered her friend over to the center of the path.

"uh... don't mean to point out the obvious, sweetheart, but this is a dead end." Sans said as he looked around the small space. "did you want to take a break or something?"

Nodding, Frisk gestured over to a cleared area bordered by red leaves. Something appeared to have once been placed there, but whatever it was, was long gone now. Perhaps it had fallen into the water.

"alright..." Sans agreed tiredly as he rolled his stiff shoulder. A break didn't sound like such a bad idea and he could definitely use one. Joining the human inside the conveniently cleared space, he found it kind of strange that it was shaped perfectly like a square. Weird... Eh, whatever.

Lowering his weary bones, the exhausted skeleton sat down on the cobbled floor. "i'm gonna check the map again, i think we're getting pretty close to the end now. it'll probably take us around 15 minutes to get there, maybe less..."

Sitting down in front of her friend, Frisk watched sadly as he struggled to retrieve the map from his left pocket. From the look on his skull, it was obvious that he was trying to hide his frustrations. Finally succeeding, he pulled out the folded piece of graph paper and dropped it onto the damp floor.

Mentally cursing, Sans felt his annoyance grow a little more as he now tried to unfold the damn map with one hand. This was surprisingly more difficult than he would have thought. He needed to drop by Alphys' lab as soon as this was all over, because he couldn't even feel his arm anymore.

heh, Sans thought sarcastically as his lackluster smile turned passive-aggressive. Undyne would be laughing her ass off right now if she could see him like this - just deserts and all that jazz. This was just freakin' great...

Accidentally pulling a bit too roughly on a fold in the thin paper, he heard a rip. Turning his attention back to the damaged map, Sans cursed aloud before a set of smaller hands reached over to help. Unfolding the delicate paper with ease, the girl placed it back down in front of him.

Staring dumbly down at the map, the skeleton felt his temper fizzle out almost immediately. Damn, he must look pretty pathetic right now. Grinning in spite of himself, Sans looked up to the quiet human. "jeez, at the rate i'm going, darlin', you might have to start taking care of me full time."

Flushing slightly, Frisk lifted her hands in front of herself as if to dispel the job offer entirely. That sounded like way too much work. Smiling in good humor, she gestured to his injured limb. *How about I just fix your arm, instead?*

Grin lessening, Sans arched an eyebrow bone in confusion as he finished reading the mute girl's lips. "you can fix this?" He asked in slight disbelief as he unconsciously placed a hand to his numb humerus bone. "how...?" Despite his obvious cynicism, he still couldn't help but feel a tiny bit hopeful. Could she really fix this somehow?

Placing a hand to her chest, Frisk tried to explain the best she could. *With my magic.* she silently began. *Like how I helped Fearia.*

"human magic, huh?" Sans said feeling slightly more pessimistic now. "eh, i don't know if that'll work, hun. monsters and humans are fundamentally different on a structural level. whatever's wrong with my arm is more than likely magic based. i doubt you can fix that."

A subtle frown fell in place as Frisk felt the twinges of annoyance creep up on her. *I can.* she argued. *Just let me try.*

"why don't you save your magic." Sans objected logically. "y'know, just in case it doesn't work. you must be getting pretty low already, so let's not chance it. besides, we're almost at the bottom."

*Exactly...* Frisk replied, defeating his logic with a single unspoken word. *It's dangerous down there and you're injured.*

A heavy silence hung in the air as the mute girl's silent words rattled around inside the stubborn skeleton's skull. He simply had no argument to that, she was absolutely right. Sooner or later, they were going to encounter the source of these vines and he now had quite a severe handicap. Even if her magic couldn't really help him, he should at least let her try. It would be irresponsible not to.

"alright." Sans conceded reluctantly. With a tired sigh, he shrugged his good arm out of its jacket sleeve before reaching over and pulling the garment off completely. He grimaced slightly as he watched his left arm slide out of its sleeve like a dead limb. He already knew he couldn't move or feel it, but actually seeing how useless it really was... It was surprisingly upsetting.

Scooching closer to her friend, Frisk cautiously reached down to take his left hand. Slowing to a stop, her fingers hovered inches from his as she looked up, silently asking for permission.

"it's fine." Sans reassured her. "give it your best shot. i mean, it's not like you can make it any worse."

With that lovely vote of confidence, Frisk gave a quiet huff as she took his limp hand.

Watching the mute girl as she carefully tested his carpel bones, Sans was reminded of how she had done this same thing a couple hours ago. It had felt so weird at the time. Now, strangely enough, he just felt a little disappointed that he could no longer feel her touch. As her fingers traveled up his radius, he caught himself secretly wondering what that might feel like.

Gently bending his arm, Frisk tried to assess the extent of the damage. So far, she hadn't found anything substantial in the lower portion of his arm. Just a few tiny nicks in the bone. Thankfully, those could be easily fixed. The real problem, she concluded, most likely originated in his shoulder which was the reason why he couldn't move his arm right now. Creasing her brow, Frisk stared hard at the skeleton's baggy white shirt for a moment before turning to silently ask for its removal.

"what...?" Completely caught off guard by the simple request, Sans just stared at her dumbly.

*I need to see your shoulder.* Frisk explained.

"uh.. is that really necessary?" Sans asked, hesitance clear in his voice. "can't you just work your magic through the fabric or something?"

Not bothering to argue about this, Frisk just gave the skeleton a look of subtle exasperation as she waited.

A few seconds ticked by before the stubborn monster finally relented with an improbable sigh of defeat. "ugh, you're not gonna take no for an answer are you?"

Shaking her head ever so slightly, a small, nearly unnoticeable smile played at the human's lips.

Rolling his eye lights at her obnoxiously ambiguous expression, Sans threw in the metaphorical towel. He wasn't going to win this. "alright, fine.."

Honestly, this was something he'd really rather not do. Being bare-boned in front of someone made him feel oddly vulnerable for some reason. He rarely even took his shirt off in front of Papyrus, though, neither of them changed their clothes very often anyways so maybe that wasn't really that unusual. Still... he never thought he'd be in the position where he'd have to remove his shirt for a human. It almost felt like these bizarre situations were being set up purely to mess with him.

eh, might as well get it over with...

Pushing his insecurities as far away as he could, Sans reached down and attempted to remove his baggy shirt. Pulling it halfway up, he quickly discovered that this simple task had somehow become an actual challenge. With only one arm working, he had to really struggle to get it free from the article of clothing. Once it was finally out, he reached over his shoulder and tugged the worn fabric up over his skull. Snagging on a spinous process from a segment of his thoracic vertebrae, the damn shirt became stuck. Holding back a groan of frustration, Sans was starting to feel like a real freakin' idiot as he worked to free himself.

Temporarily blinded by his own shirt, the skeleton was a little startled when he felt a warm hand press lightly against his. Right away he seemed to understand the human's unspoken message as his phalanges released their hold on the fabric. Feeling another hand being placed on his good shoulder, the skeleton leaned forward obediently to give the mute girl better access.

Leaning lightly against her friend, Frisk reached under and over his shoulder as she attempted to free his shirt from the snag. Doing so in a timely manner, she then took hold of the loose fabric and carefully pulled it free from the skeleton's skull.

Finally able to see again, a moment of awkward silence ensued as the monster's eye lights quickly found her face. Even though he looked decidedly grumpy about the whole thing, there was something else there, too. Something she couldn't quite identify. Feeling an involuntary flutter rise up in her stomach, Frisk was the first to pull away.

Slouching back into a more relaxed position, Sans placed a boney hand to his skull as his eye lights drifted away from the human. holy crap, that was awkward... "do me a favor and, uh... pretend none of that just happened."

In reply, Frisk simply gave her friend a subtle look of amusement before nodding.

Once the shirt was completely removed, the mute girl knelt a little closer to the skeleton as her fingers slowly traveled up his humerus. Here, she found a few hairline fracturs in the upper portion of the bone. They looked painful but they obviously weren't the cause of the problem. There had to be something else...

Pausing her search of his injured arm, Frisk's fingers stilled as her eyes finally caught a glimpse of the skeleton's broken clavicle. That looked bad! Stomach dropping at the sight of the nasty break, she refocused her attention on the delicate bone. This needed to be fixed first before anything else.

Before Frisk could even start the process, however, she began to notice more and more damage the further down she looked. His sternum had a small fracture on one side and several of his rib bones were cracked. Frown clearly visible on her face, Frisk turned to look up at her friend. Why hadn't he told her how badly he was hurt?

Evading her gaze, Sans gave a small shrug as he grinned in spite of himself. "heh, guess you found out my dirty little secret." he said as his smile lessened slightly. "i'm actually kind of fragile..."

Of course you are, Frisk thought privately as she stared at the vulnerable monster. That wasn't a bit surprising. Being a skeleton, he really had nothing to protect himself from bodily harm. Nothing that is, expect for his magic. To think that he would willingly enter into a situation where he had to limit himself magically... That really said a lot about his character in her opinion.

Seeing her friend in a brand new light, Frisk gave him a look of subtle admiration as she turned her attention back to his various injuries. Placing the hand that was currently holding the Sunstone to her chest, she closed her eyes as she began to channel her magic into her other hand this time. The runestone dimmed ever so slightly as some of its energy was repurposed.

Eye lights returning to the human's face, Sans quietly watched as she concentrated. He still had his doubts that her magic could actually heal him, but there was no backing out now. What worried him most, though, was how much energy she would waste trying to do this. If what he witnessed in his bedroom was any indicator, this type of magic, whatever it was, was highly taxing. What would they do if she accidentally used too much and couldn't operate her runestone afterwards? They might have to start all over again...

On the other hand, Sans couldn't quite bring himself to tell her no either. She was generous enough to offer her assistance, after all. Rejecting that generosity just seemed wrong. Plus, her argument was just as viable as his. Being injured like this, he could potentially put them both in danger if they proceeded without at least trying to treat his arm. It was really a catch 22. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't... either way they were probably screwed.

Bringing him out of his cynical brooding, Sans watched as Frisk slowly opened her eyes. The hazel hues he was so used to seeing had now turned slightly golden in color. This was probably just a side effect of her magic, even so, he still found it a little surprising. He must have just missed it the first time, back when she had used her magic to heal her little sister. If he was being honest, it just made her eyes look prettier.

Looking up to her friend, Frisk smiled warmly at him before issuing some silent instructions. *Please hold still, okay?*

"you got it, doc." Sans grinned as he held still as was requested of him.

Rolling her eyes, Frisk smirk lightly at his words as she reached out with her glowing hand.

Unconsciously holding his nonexistent breath, Sans nervously watched as the mute girl placed her hand gently to his broken clavicle. The area instantly began to heat up and go numb at the same time. Hearing a soft click, the skeleton was awestruck when the delicate bone snapped back into place without even the tiniest amount of pain. When she removed her hand a few seconds later, he was amazed to find that there wasn't even a trace of a scar left behind. In fact, it appeared as if it had never been broken in the first place.

"wow, that's some serious healing magic you've got there, darlin'." Sans said as he watched her move on to his sternum.

Lifting her gaze as she pressed her hand to the large fractured bone, Frisk smiled a little in humor. *It's not healing magic, it's time magic.* She corrected good-naturedly.

Time magic?

Well duh, Sans thought, feeling slightly dumb now. Of course, he should have already known this. Everything she's done so far has been related to time in some way. This was no different. She was probably just rewinding his injuries back to before they occurred.

Truthfully, he'd never heard of anyone possessing the ability to manipulate time before. Not ever. Sure, he'd always joked about wanting to meet a time traveler, but now... after experiencing all of the resets... It honestly made him a little nervous. This type of power, if used by the wrong person, could really become a lot of trouble - for everyone.

Good thing Frisk seemed responsible. So far she'd only used her magic to help others or out of pure necessity. If she were anyone else, then that might not have been the case. Things could have been a whole lot worse.

heh, looks like we all really lucked out, Sans thought privately to himself as he watched as the mute girl finished repairing his sternum. Frisk truly seemed like a kind person. If anyone was going to possess this type of power, then he was just glad it was someone like her.

Once the last rib bone was fixed, Frisk brought her hand over to the skeleton's damaged humerus. The hairline fractures easily fused back together leaving the smooth bone once again unmarred. This was all she could see from here, but she knew his shoulder was still injured somewhere. She needed to check his back.

Rising up off of her sore knees, Frisk indicated her intentions before making her way behind him. From here, she could easily see what was causing the problem. His shoulder blade had somehow been displaced and was now jutting slightly upwards at an odd angle. If he could feel this, then it must be causing him immense pain. With a subtle sympathetic frown, Frisk carefully reached her hand out.

Feeling the human's fingers gently alight on his sore scapula, Sans forced himself to remain still as he felt the area begin to heat up. Out of all of his injuries, that one was definitely giving him the most grief. Fortunately, her magic acted like an instant painkiller, numbing the area with her soft touch.

After a few seconds, just like with his broken clavicle, Sans heard a distinctive popping noise before a flood of sensation surged back down into his numb arm. Staring down at the revived limb, the skeleton was momentarily lost for words as he flexed his tingling phalanges. This was like some kind of freakin' miracle and he was honestly having a hard time believing in had just happened.

She'd really done it - she'd fixed his damn arm.

As the mute girl quietly knelt beside him in order to check that everything was working as it should, Sans found himself feeling slightly bad for what he'd said a little while ago. "guess i owe you an apology now, don't i?" he chuckled guiltily.

Lifting her gaze, Frisk arched an eyebrow ever so slightly as a small smirk appeared on her lips. *I told you I could help.*

"yeah, you did." Sans agreed easily. "sorry i doubted ya, darlin'. you're a real miracle worker."

A small humored noise escaped from Frisk's nose before her smile grew a little. He may be laying it on a bit thick but it still felt good to be appreciated. It had been so long since she'd last heard the term 'miracle worker'. Nobody said that anymore, not on the Surface anyway. Maybe in the Underground, people still believed in that sort of thing. It was a refreshing thought.

Releasing her magic, Frisk felt a wave of fatigue hit her as she sat back down on the cobbled floor next to the skeleton. She hadn't used anywhere near as much magic as she had when she was healing her sister, even so, her magic had been pretty low to begin with. Regardless, it had still been worth it in her opinion. Even more so now that she knew the extent of her friend's injuries. Hopefully, if she just kept the Sunstone at a reasonable level, she might be able to recover as they continued.

Pulling his jacket on over his baggy shirt, Sans eyed the suspiciously tired looking human. He had a feeling that this would happen, but at least she hadn't passed out. Yet. It would probably be wise to take an actual break now. Another ten minutes couldn't hurt.

"why don't you take a rest?" Sans suggested. "don't worry, i'll keep an eye socket out for any sign of trouble."

Giving the skeleton an appreciative nod, Frisk tried to hide a yawn behind her hand as she stretched. That sounded like a good idea.

"while you're doing that," Sans continued "i'm just going to be studying the map. we're pretty close to the bottom now, but i just wanna make sure that there isn't another room like that last one waiting for us."

Looking over at the map, Sans felt his smile lessen considerably. aw crap, he thought as he stared down at the soggy mess. The thin graph paper had literally melted onto the damp floor while they weren't paying attention. This was just freakin' great... He'd better memorize the map now, because there was no way in hell he'd ever be able to pick it back up again in one piece.

Frisk had worked so hard making this map too... Sans couldn't help but feel slightly guilty for not taking better care of it.

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We're getting super close to the end of this arc now!

Is everyone ready for a real battle?

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(Author's note - Frisk did not heal the crack in Sans' skull since she doesn't entirely know when it happened nor how much magic would be needed to fix it.)

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In the next chapter, Sans and Frisk finally encounter the horror at the center of this nightmare.

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