Author's note:

This is the part where I say that this is work of fiction and any similarities with real world people, locations, or groups are entirely incidental.

Chapter 16: Choice

Susie reclined across the sofa at home. Her head rested atop of Kris's as he nestled between her arms and legs. His scent filled her nose; sweet from the apple shampoo he uses, underlaid with the saltiness of his human odour. Susie soaked up the warmth that Kris exuded. If the current circumstances had been better, this would have been a perfect moment between them.

Kris only had eyes on his phone. "Calling Chara" displayed on its screen. The phone rang for fifteen seconds before cutting out on its own. Kris lowered it and gave a dejected sigh.

"Still no luck," Susie remarked softly. She tightened her embrace. "Hey… It'll be okay."

"Why won't she answer?" Kris asked. "It's been nearly a week. I don't understand why this is happening."

"Chara will come around," Susie reassured. "She can't just ignore you forever, not after what it took for you guys to find each other again."

"But why won't she talk to me? I get why Chara doesn't want to talk to Frisk, but why me, too? Did I do something?"

"That's bull crap, Kris. Nothing bad ever happened between you before all this. Hell, the two of you bonded more than either of you did with Frisk. There's no way that she doesn't want to talk to you."

"Then why, though?!"

Susie sighed. "Because maybe she can't right now. I'm no shrink, but with what went down between her and Frisk, it might be that Chara wants to be left alone. That's how I felt when life turned to shit for me."

"Then why can't she just say that?" Kris hissed. His back was to her, but Susie could feel him choke back tears. "All she has to do is send a stupid message. At least then I'd know what she was thinking."

Susie kissed his head. She stroked his hair, feeling his fine strands glide between her fingers. It was the best she could do in that moment. Susie hated feeling unable to help him. They went through thick and thin for each other down in the Dark World. But here, she was useless.

It wasn't just Kris, either. Frisk had been a mess since the fight. Her eyes were always red and distant whenever they saw each other. Merely mentioning Chara became almost enough for her to start crying again. Susie looked to Asriel one time and saw her own feelings reflected in him. He was just as lost. Asgore called home every night since he went to Ebott. He was never able to provide news about Chara other than that first morning.

She comforted Kris for another ten minutes until he pulled out from her hold. "You okay?" Susie asked.

"Just gotta use the bathroom."

"Take your time. That toilet probably loves you for it." Susie never saw the sense in installing one in a monster house before Kris became a frequent visitor. Building regulations put more thought into these kinds of things than she ever did.

After Kris exited the room, Susie discovered that he had left his phone behind. Acting quickly, she picked it up and entered the PIN code she remembered from watching over Kris's shoulder. Susie opened the call log and took the most recent number. Normally, she didn't do this sort of thing, but Susie felt like she had a damned good reason.

By the time Kris returned, his phone was back in its original place and Susie's shoved into her pocket. Kris crawled into her arms again. This time, he rested on his side against her. His arms held her waist as Susie stretched out so they could lay comfortably together. She brushed the bangs from his face and kissed Kris's brow.

Although she couldn't take his pain away from him, Susie was tired of being useless. Asgore had the right idea. If Chara didn't want to talk to her siblings, then someone else needed to step up. She didn't know exactly what she would do yet, but, one way or another, Susie was going to try her damned best to fix this mess.

Ebott City College was quiet during the summer months. Still, there were enough students taking vocational courses, trying to get ahead, or catch up on their degrees to keep the institute open. Chara was not there for any of those reasons. Her task was to check in on a guy who worked in ECC's tech department. He was falling behind on his gambling debt and needed a reminder that he still owed the Spectres a lot of money.

The weaselly human was a good sport about the whole encounter. He generously gave Chara all the cash he had in his wallet without any trouble, shaking in a cold sweat as he promised he'd deliver more in a couple of days. All that Chara did was flash him the gang's crest tattooed under her sleeve. She never needed to take out the knife concealed in her back pocket.

On her way to the train station, Chara cut through the campus. The path ahead was empty as far as she could see. Her eye caught the sight of a single café. It was the one at which Chara finally reunited with Kris… as well as Frisk before then…

Chara walked into the café, having wrapped up another job on behalf of the gang. The place was packed with humans and monsters her age. No one would pick her out from the crowd. Voices from a dozen conversations mingled together into an indecipherable babble.

She stared at the queue broodingly. Six people stood in front and it took ten minutes just to reach the register. The wait for her order was twice as long. As soon as Chara received her coffee, she headed straight for the door. Another girl nearly slammed into her.

"Hey! Watch it!" Chara snapped.

"Oh! Sorry! I…" The girl stopped, suddenly staring at Chara weirdly. "Charlotte…?"

Chara realised that the girl's golden face and earthen hair were familiar. If she knew her birthname, that had to mean…

"Franny…?" Chara's voice shook in a whisper.

Tears welled in Francine's eyes. Her hands covered her hitching breath for a moment. Then, abruptly, she launched onto Chara. "Charlotte!" she cried.

Francine tackled Chara so hard that her coffee spilled through the lid, barely missing a bird monster who squawked shrilly. Baffled beyond believe, Chara's arm found its own way around Francine, holding her sister tightly. How long had it been since she had last seen her? Ten years? Somewhere like that.

"Hey!" the bird yelled, jumping to his feet. "Watch where you're…!"

Chara cut him off with a murderous glare over Francine's shoulder. The monster choked on his complaints and swallowed them before slowly returning to his seat, looking far away from them.

"I'm sorry!" Francine wailed. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry, Charlotte!"

Why was she apologising? Chara waded through foggy memories. It was back at the orphanage, long after Kris had been stolen from them. Then another couple arrived and took Chara home, leaving Francine behind. No… That wasn't right. They didn't leave Francine. Chara did. They had fought with each other and Chara stormed out with the next family that took an interest in her. She never tried to get those people to take her sister too. Francine begged her not to go. Chara didn't listen. That became the last they had seen one another until now.

Chara saw her vision swimming. What was it that they had fought about? It was so long ago. Tried as she might, Chara couldn't remember at all. It must have been something stupid if she had forgotten the whole, damned thing. What the hell was wrong with her?

"I'm sorry!" Francine continued to cry. Chara's jacket soaked through to her shoulder. Tears burned her eyes as she held her sister tighter.

"It's okay," Chara sobbed. "I'm here, Franny… I'm here…."

It seemed like an age passed before either of them calmed down. Chara sat down with Francine and they caught up for the last eleven years. They had both taken new names. Chara tried to reinvent herself after joining the Spectres. Meanwhile, Frisk had grown dissatisfied with her birthname, yet she struggled to let go of the only thing she had left given to her by their late parents. Only the friends she had made at the college knew Frisk by her new identity. The pair of them were fire and ice, Chara realised. However, this one thing they shared helped to span the divide that had broken between them.

They simply hoped that Kris hadn't followed that trend. When Frisk suggested they start looking for him, Chara didn't dare ask what their chances were. She had no idea where to start. That didn't stop Frisk, though. She became determined. And somehow, Chara began to believe that they might be able to find their baby brother.

Chara wiped her eyes dry as she continued to stare at the 'closed' sign over the café's door. Her thoughts cycled back to Frisk crying in her arms, apologising for an argument after Chara abandoned her; an argument that she could not even remember. Did she ever apologise to Frisk for that? No, she hadn't. Chara tore away from the building as a black mire welled within her chest.

Her phone started ringing. Chara checked the screen and did not recognise the number. She thought about declining the call. It might just be Frisk or Kris using a different phone, or perhaps someone who merely had the wrong number. On the other hand, it could also be someone from the gang trying to reach her. To hell with it, she decided.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, Chara. It's Susie."

That, she hadn't expected. "Did Kris ask you to call me?"

A dry laugh carried from the other end. "He doesn't even know I swiped your number from his phone."

"Then what do you want?"

"To tell you to get your ass back here!" Susie snapped. "Look, Kris and Frisk really want to talk to you. They're a real mess. Could you please just call them and let them know you're okay?"

"Sure," Chara muttered. "Will do."

"I can tell you're lying." Smart girl, but not smart enough to mind her own business. "I'm being serious, Chara. You really need to talk to them. I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's not helping."

"What am I supposed to say? That I'm sorry I'm a lowlife who runs with a street gang because I've got nothing else? That I'm sorry I break laws all the time because I don't have a choice? Is that what you want?"

"You can apologise for having your head shoved up your ass and ditching them without saying goodbye! I don't give a shit about that other stuff you just said," Susie exclaimed. "Look, I get that you think Kris and Frisk care about all the criminal stuff you've done, but they don't. They just want to be a family with you again. Just come back to Hometown and talk with them. Things will get better that way, believe me."

"Really," Chara scoffed. "You know that much for certain?"

"I do because I know Kris!" Susie fell silent. Chara heard her sigh. "I used to be in the same position you're in right now. I never broke the law or anything like that, but I was the mean girl at school who drove everyone away because I was embarrassed of myself. I bullied people from class, including Kris. Especially Kris."

Chara didn't answer, so Susie kept talking. "When I finally met someone who accepted me for who I was, I didn't want to be alone anymore. I wanted to have friends and be myself for once. Kris helped me do that. He forgave me for all the shit I put him through and gave me the chance to make things right. I spent months owning up for everything else I've done and now I'm friends with everyone at school."

Susie sighed again. "What I'm trying to say, Chara, is you don't have to worry about what Kris and Frisk think about you. They still love you. And if you give them a chance, I'm sure they can help you become a better version of yourself; someone you can be proud of."

A silence hung between them. "Anyway," Susie finished. "That's all I wanted to say. Just give Kris a call soon. It'll stop him from freaking out. And if you don't, I'll come down there and wrangle you back here if I have to. Got it?"

In spite of herself, Chara chuckled. "Yeah, got it. Okay, fine. I'll… text Kris later."

Susie hung up soon after. Chara sighed and asked what she had gotten herself into. What happened that night was between her and Frisk. She never meant to hurt Kris in any way. Now the guilt rose in greater waves. Chara continued to think about what Susie had said throughout her journey home.

Maybe she should at least apologise to Frisk about the fight, as well as for leaving her when they were kids. Chara had no idea what Frisk would say, and fear of that shook her to the core. She almost dismissed the idea entirely. The remorse tethered her to it, though. Start off with the phone call, Chara compromised. See where that took her. What did she stand to lose that she hadn't already thrown out the window?

When Chara reached their apartment, Mew Mew was frantic in the kitchen. "Oh, thank God! You're finally back," she told Chara. "I was about to call you."

"What's got you by the tail?"

"Neckrow's sending guys around. They stopped by and dropped these over."

Chara looked into the cheap duffel bag laid out on the counter. "Holy shit! Are those guns?!"

"Well, they're certainly not girl scout cookies," Mew huffed. "Jerzee gave me the details before he took off. We're hitting the Chupacabras tonight."

"Seriously?!" The Chupacabra motorcycle gang were the only other crew in Ebott City comprised primarily of monsters. They were three times the size of the Spectres and owned four times the territory. The two groups were rivals, but, aside from a few scuffles, the Spectres knew better than to pick any serious fights. "What the hell is Neckrow thinking starting a war with the Chupacabras?"

"Birdbrain's got it all planned out, apparently," Mew Mew replied. "He's found one of their main kitchens. If we hit the Chups hard and fast, we can then nab their equipment and make our own setup."

Chara made a double-take. "Wait, now we're talking drugs?" The Spectres didn't deal in that stuff, mainly so that they didn't piss the Chupacabras off. "What else is he trying at?"

"If we cut off the Chups' supply and get into the market ourselves, we could probably grab hold of the south bank," Mew explained.

Stealing the Chupacabras' turf as well? That damned buzzard they called their boss was getting overly ambitious. "Jeez, Mew. This is risky as hell." Chara ran her hands through her hair.

"Tell me about it. I thought Jerzee was pulling my leg at first when he told me. Don't touch those with your hands!" Mew Mew caught Chara before she reached into the bag. "Boss doesn't want fingerprints in case the cops get involved. Here…"

She handed Chara a set of gloves that matched the ones Mew Mew wore. Chara slipped them on and picked up a black pistol. It was unloaded… and heavier than it looked. She had never held a gun before. Already, she envisioned firing it at some indiscriminate target. If they were all going in packing heat, then it was likely because the Chupacabras were armed as well. They'd shoot any Spectre down to protect their business.

The gun rattled in Chara's hand. Her heart pounded inside her ribs and ears. If the Spectres went up against another gang with a weapon like this, they weren't going in to intimidate. Both sides would be out to kill. Chara had pushed people around plenty of times; and put a couple in hospital when they certainly deserved it; but she had never killed anyone in her life. That was a line she hadn't yet crossed. It was a line that she didn't want to cross. It was a line that Spectre boss Neckrow Moore was now telling her to cross.

"Chara?" Mew Mew asked, anxious. "You okay?"

What the hell was she supposed to do with this thing? Chara heard nothing but the sirens in her own skull. If she went through with this and got caught by the police… If she went through this and got herself killed… If she went through this at all… what would her family think then? Frisk had lost her mind over just the thefts and beatings. If Chara went into a gunfight, even if she never fired a shot, Frisk and Kris would never want anything to do with her ever again!

Yet, if Neckrow was calling in the whole gang for this venture and she bailed on them when they needed her most, Chara might as well be dead to the Spectres. If she didn't have them, then she wouldn't have… Chara stared into Mew Mew's eyes. Her trembling grew worse.

"Babe…?" Mew gulped, now deeply worried. "What's wrong?" Chara had her own question that was freaking her out.

What the fuck was she going to do?

End note:

I made an effort to restrict myself to one F-bomb throughout this story, and here it is.