Sans woke up in the next RESET desperate for breath. His left eye light was lit up with blue and yellow flashes. His right was dark. He looked around the room wildly, but no treacherous flower was in sight. His breathing slowly eased, but it was a long time before his magic died back down to normal.

"SANS!"

He jumped up and raced for the door, still shaken. His movements were stiff and uncoordinated, like his whole body wasn't on the same page about this whole living thing. He made it to the door and grabbed the handle. It turned from the other side. The door opened to reveal Papyrus staring at him, worry in every molecule of his expression.

"SANS...I'M GOING TO PICK UP SOME OF YOUR SOME OF YOUR SMOOTHIES. WHAT FLAVORS DO YOU WANT?"

Sans didn't even hesitate, he was that upset still. "can i have some strawberry?"

Papyrus stared at him like he was falling to dust right before his eyes. He gulped and shakily said, "OF COURSE, B-B-BROTHER! ALTHOUGH...YOU DO NOT USUALLY WANT THAT F-F-FLAVOR. IS SOMETHING WRONG?"

Sans shook his right hand vehemently. He tried to shake his left hand, too, but it was jerky and painful. Papyrus grasped it between the two of his and sent a pulse of healing magic through him. It felt good. "thanks, bro. don't know what's up with me this morning," yes i do, Sans thought to himself, "my body just doesn't want to cooperate."

Papyrus looked really worried now. "ARE YOU SURE IT'S NOT SOMETHING MORE? WE CAN CALL THE DOCTOR AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT EASILY. IT'S STILL EARLY ENOUGH THAT WE COULD GET IN."

Sans hastily waved this away. "nah, i don't think it's that serious. if i'm still like this tomorrow, maybe," if there even is a tomorrow, "but for now i'll just go slow and take my time."

Papyrus stared at him for another couple of seconds, weighing something. Then he said, "I WANT YOU TO COME WITH ME TO THE GROCERY STORE TODAY. YOU'RE SO ISOLATED AT YOUR SENTRY STATION. WHAT IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN? AT LEAST IF YOU'RE WITH ME I CAN CALL FOR HELP. WE CAN TELL UNDYNE THAT YOUR HEALTH TOOK A TURN, WHICH IS TRUE!"

Sans smiled happily at his brother. He was so cool. "alright, bro. lemme just get dressed and we can go."

A few minutes later both brothers walked out of the house, an easy conversation bouncing between them. But someone wasn't happy. Flowey glared at them from in the tree line. Another difference he didn't cause, and once again it was centered around the smiley trashbag.

That weirdo had to be remembering somehow. Was it the machine in the basement? Flowey still hadn't got a satisfactory explanation of that. Sans always seemed to be tinkering with it. That had to be it.

Now, how should he destroy it? Fire? Metal just got hot; it didn't melt easily. Acid? Where could he get some? There was Napstablook's tears, but those took forever to harvest. An explosion, maybe? That could work, and it was easy enough to get the ingredients he'd need for the bomb. Yes, that would do nicely. Flowey popped back below the soil and set his plan into action.

Chara groaned as their aching knees protested sitting on the ground. It seemed like every day they hurt a little more. They'd tried asking Mom to heal it, but that only seemed to hold it off for an hour or two. The pain always came back. It was probably that arthritis they'd heard other humans talking about. 60 was a reasonable age to develop it, right? None of the books they had found had mentioned it, so for that they were on their own.

A small skeletal hand intruded on their thoughts. Chara looked down to see Sans, in all his toddler glory, looking at them with a worried expression.

"char, what wrong?"

Chara smiled down at their littlest brother and said affectionately, "Nothing's wrong, smiley trashbag. I'm just a little stiff today. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Sans' eye lights sparkled. It was always so cute when they did that. Chara loved getting to see it. "tell me bout the surface! dad and mom won't tell me nothing, but if we all wanna see it so bad it hasta be cool!"

Chara's expression sobered. Their memories of the surface seemed so far away now, but it still gave them nightmares.

"The surface is a horrible place where humans kill each other, betray the planet, destroy anything and everything, and generally make life miserable for everyone else. There's only one thing up there that I would ever want to see again: the golden flowers that grew in the center of my village. Well...those and the stars. The stars were pretty cool."

Only when they had finished their speech did Chara look up. Sans looked absolutely devastated. Tears were pricking at the corner of his eye sockets and his hands were shaking. They could hear him hiccuping, too, and that always meant he was about to cry.

Chara pulled him into their lap and rocked him gently, humming soothing sounds until the tears were gone. Then they held him up to their face and said, solemnly, "I don't want to return to the surface. Why would I? All the best things I've ever known are down here. Mom's down here and so is Dad. Asriel is here, too. Then there's you and Papyrus, my two favorite skeletons. There's Gaster and Gerson, too. I'd have never eaten Mom's snail pie if I hadn't fallen down here. The chocolate's better, too. Magic is awesome. There's so many wonderful things down here. I'd so much rather be down here than up there. Wouldn't you?"

Sans sniffed and nodded, but, "i wanna see stars. they sound cool. could...could you draw me picture? i keep safe, no juice stains."

Chara smiled and nodded. "I can draw you a picture of the stars. I'll draw one of those flowers, too. Then anything I could ever want will be down here with me."

Sans laughed happily and got up out of their lap. Then he toddled over to the art supplies and started getting things out.