Core Issues: Season Five

by Nicolle

Cross and Shooting Star are plagued with nightmares of other Frisks in serious danger while Dragoon Sans attempts to rebuild his timeline by stealing people and things that rightly belong to others.

11. Episode 9: A Giant Bee Descending

Core Issues: Season Five

By Nicolle

Episode 9: A Giant Bee Descending into the Cavern
(White's Chara is our narrator!)

STOP!

I am putting my Author's Note here so you don't skip reading it:
If stories dealing with DEPRESSION AND/OR SUICIDE are not something you can handle for any reason, skip this episode. It will NOT destroy your enjoyment of the rest of the season. Any reference to White's Chara after this episode will not involve anything that happens in this episode. It is a story meant to tie up a loose end and YOU CAN SKIP IT. It's okay to skip it.

You have been warned. Let's pick up with Chara:

I pressed my back to the wall, listening carefully for King Asgore's steps around the throne room turned garden. The golden flowers that had once cradled my fall into the underground now filled a room that had once been lined with monster dignitaries. Now only Asgore kept it. Despite the barrier having been open for so long, he'd chosen to keep this place as his home, still living in the dark; stray sunlight from a few holes in the cavern wall lighting the flower bed here and there. I snuck a glance and found his back turned, his long cape stuck with so many flowers.

Taking that as my cue, I snuck across the opening to the stairwell beyond. Lifting one hand, I summoned a small flame, giving myself a little light as I descended into the dark. I'd been here once before with Frisk. I hadn't known what was down the stairs and, curious, he'd gone down them to see. We found seven coffins. One had my name on it. I'd recoiled and Frisk left, not wanting to disturb my remains. Then, a light had remained on, casting strange shadows on the walls. Here, my own light was needed to navigate.

The stairs were steep, having been made by monsters, for monsters. It would be all to easy to slip and fall.

So easy.

That whirling cachopany rose up in my mind and I sat down on the steps holding my head, my little flame going out. Everything was loud and everything hurt and everything pitched and everything tossed.

I could make it stop, make it all stop...

If I just pushed forward...

I hunched in on myself, shaking against the rising sound of a hundred voices I knew on some level were only in my head. It filled my ears, filled my head, filled my chest. I wrenched one hand from my head, slamming my fist against my leg until it felt like something broke and the voices retreated.

Trembling, I took a deep breath: in through the nose and out through the mouth; and again and again, listening to the sound. In my mind's eye, I could see Frisk smiling. I held onto that image for a few moments, minutes, hours; listening to my breath.

I opened my eyes, unsure of how much time had passed, but sure that it was too long. If Papyrus didn't notice I was gone, White definitely would. At least, he would after that.

I need to move.

I continued down the stairs, summoning my light again; the only illumination dancing on the gray walls with gray cement. Gray on gray on gray. I never noticed how gray it had been in life. But then, I had been filled with happy purpose. I could open the barrier and set my friends, the people who'd cared for me after I'd been pitched down a hole, free. Instead, I was murdered and my memory sabotaged; my name cursed.

What a terrible joke fate played on me.

But then, it's par for the course as far as Charas are concerned, right? There never was a real chance for happiness.

Still trembling from my moment above, I came to the end of the stairs and entered the single room found at the bottom. Seven, gray, stone coffins lined the room, the names of seven innocent people engraved on each one. Toriel murdered every single one of them and Asgore had hidden his wife's crimes here. She hadn't fled the castle when the declaration of war against humans rose. He banished her and so left her to her own devices, which meant the deaths of others. Even now, with the barrier open and the souls of the fallen long gone, she remained in the Ruins of Old Home, locked inside.

Walking up to my coffin, I frowned. The stone lid looked very heavy. Letting the magical flame in my hand float above me, I shoved on the coffin lid, pushing the heavy stone, straining against the awful weight. The scraping of stone on stone let up an awful screech. I kept pushing until it was open enough for me to get a good look inside. I rested against the stone, gulping air before standing up. I motioned the flame down to light the interior.

It was empty.

The pounding of feet on the stairs didn't give me enough time to find a place to hide as Asgore swept into the room, a magic flame brightly lighting his way. "What was-"

The Goat King froze in place, staring wide eyed at me, mouth opening and closing. I reached for the knife in the hidden pocket on the skirt of my dress. Today would not be a repeat of so many years ago.

Not yet.

My fingers found nothing. The knife was gone. That… wasn't all that surprising. Frisk likely lifted it off of me this morning. But now I was defenseless. Almost. I still had magic. My hands began to rise.

The sound of fingers snapping filled the room and I was swallowed by darkness. I hugged myself, shivering as the world came back together. I saw a stone pillar and leaned against it, hugging it as I gasped for air.

"You bastard! You know I hate teleporting!"

White sighed. "Keep it down, Snow. We're in Toriel's realm. We need to keep quiet."

"Why the hell did you bring me here?!" I hissed, seething.

He pointed to the mass of golden flowers that grew in one of the few places sunlight streamed into the Underground. Well, it had until Asgore had sealed it up on the barrier's opening. "You weren't buried in the palace." He pointed to the flowers. "You're there. It's why you were able to possess Frisk. He landed on top of you."

I moved toward the flowers and White grabbed my arm. "Don't look."

I leaned away from him. "Why not?"

"Because Toriel didn't bury you."

I pulled out of his grasp, slowly. Turning, I walked toward the flowers. I heard White sigh, but he didn't try to stop me a second time. I waded into the mass of yellow flowers, the cloying stickiness causing stems, leaves, and petals to stick to my dress. I looked around, expecting to find… a skeleton? Bones did decompose, they only took a long time to do so. Kneeling down, I pushed the flowers aside…

And saw my face.

It looked like I was sleeping. My body lay like someone had tossed it here, only to be cradled by the soil, rather than bury me. Or maybe my corpse had refused the earth in order to be a soil of its own. The golden flowers were not growing around my body, but rather out of it. A sweet scent, distinct from the flowers, rose up, an enticing smell, delicious and inviting.

White came up alongside me, but a good ways away from the flowers, trying to keep an eye on me while not looking at my body. I knew that, after he and Frisk had brought me back, he'd been investigating things, but he'd also not been keen on keeping what he'd found under wraps. He didn't want to say anything, but he didn't want to prevent me from knowing either. He was still shocked that Frisk had hidden so much from him for so long.

"Why didn't you want me to look? Is it because my corpse is naked?"

Why am I naked?

White kept his eyes carefully trained on the cavern walls. "It's because your body is still breathing."

I blinked and looked down at myself, watching my chest move up and down, steadily. I placed a hand over my mouth, eyes squeezed shut, trembling.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself back together. "Why are you standing so far away?"

White stared up at the hole, now eternally blocked, above our heads. "The smell."

"The smell? But it's sweet and warm, not rotten."

He frowned, shifting uncomfortably, and pulled up his hood to hide the pale blush on his face. "It's a bit more than that for me."

Oh.

Really?

I thought about that for a moment. Because he could act like one of monster kind at a moment's notice and without fail, it was easy to forget that he was stuck in a human body that was eternally in its mid-twenties with all that entailed. It spoke a lot to his personal self control and it was something he'd worked to pass on to Frisk, though Frisk had his own motivation for keeping his urges under wraps. Kind of hard to give in to those sorts of things when you had the soul of another living in your body, always aware of your thoughts.

I lifted my hands, seeing, in my mind's eye, a ring of gold. Etching glowing symbols into it, the ring manifested in the air in between my hands, building a spell. Using the ring as a lens, I looked through it, gazing at my body. It was in some sort of suspended state, unaging. The brain was completely vegetative, only running the necessary, involuntary functions for the rest of the body to function.

I paused over my breasts. They were bigger than they should have been and appeared wet. Letting go of the spell, it broke down in a cloud of golden dust, falling like lines toward the ground. I reached out and touched one nipple. My fingers came away with milk.

Why was my body producing milk? I hadn't been pregnant when I died. I hadn't actually known a man at all. Was this some sort of side effect from whatever state my body was in? The stomach wasn't protruding. It appeared to be as softly round as my own.

I frowned and stood, unsure what to make of it.

"I brought Alphys here and she took some samples to analyze them back in the Lab, to see what was happening on a scientific level."

I nodded and stood, staring down at myself, unsure what to do. What do you do when you're looking at your own, not quite dead body? What kind of cosmic joke is this? I want so badly to die and there I lie, completely unable too.

White rubbed his arm with a grimace before he took my hand. "Let's go home."

He drew me away from the flowers before sliding an arm around my waist. He waited for me to press my face into his side before teleporting. I shivered, eyes shut against the dark. I only opened them again when I felt the cold crunch of snow under my feet. I stepped away from White and into the cabin, the human, secret service agent assigned to the front of the house nodding to us as he opened the door.

The interior had been rearranged; walls moved and a fourth room made on the second floor for me, a place that was specifically my own. Asriel was currently living in Frisk's old room, relearning how to do things with a goat monster's body, while trying to figure out what he was going to do about his parents. From the little I've seen of Asgore, he had begun aging again as his son grew. I'm not sure if he had noticed.

The living room, which had long been the dull plain of a bachelor pad, now matched the cabin aesthetic: hardwood floors, warm green rug, caramel colored couch and loveseat, dark stained coffee table, and a chandelier that was a ring of thick, electric candles. A fire place now graced the middle of the exterior wall and the tv had been mounted over it. Where the tv had once sat, a bucolic, landscape painting graced the wall surrounded by family photos in rustic frames.

Papyrus was quite the interior decorator. And he'd been adamant about the change with me there. That this was my home, my sanctuary as much as any of the brothers. Even now, and knowing that I liked to cook, he was in the process of remodeling the kitchen. I only tried once to argue the changes, to say that they weren't necessary. That it wasn't my intention to stay. But Papyrus saw through that as quickly as Frisk and White had seen through my attempts to quietly leave, to finish the work Asgore and Toriel had started so long ago.

After taking off my shoes and placing them on the shoe rack by the door, I went up the stairs and knocked on the door to Frisk's room.

"Come in!"

I opened the door to find Frisk sitting backwards in his desk chair, arms resting on the back, and Asriel sitting on the bed, both smiling about whatever conversation I'd interrupted.

Well done, Chara. Well done.

"Nevermind. I can come back later."

Frisk was out of the chair in a flash, grabbing my hand. "Come in."

I pulled back. "It can wait."

Frisk snorted, pulling me into the room. "No, it can't. You've been gone for a while. Sans went to find you in a hurry. Are you all right?

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"Where did you go?"

I frowned as he shut the door behind me. "I was at the castle. I wanted to see my tomb."

"It's empty," Asriel said. "You're in-"

"The Ruins. I know. White showed me."

Asriel patted the open space next to him on the bed and I sat down. His arm hugged me close, strong and filled with his warmth. "Why did you want to see?"

I looked at my feet. "I don't know." I looked up at Asriel. "How often did you come by to see me in the Ruins?"

Asriel frowned. "A lot. Why?"

"Do you remember when you found Frisk?"

"Yeah. He was laying on your chest, doing that thing that human babies do… uh, nursing?" He shrugged. "Why? Is that weird?"

Frisk blinked. "Well, that was something I wasn't aware of. Sorry..."

I shook my head. "My body is producing milk and you were an infant. It's not an unnatural response for a baby." I sighed. "Maybe that's why. Maybe I was responding in some way to an infant being on me. It's rare, but not completely unheard of for an unrelated woman to produce milk for a baby. It is kind of unheard of for a woman who's never had a child to do that though."

I moved to stand and ended up going nowhere, Asriel refusing to let me go.

"Unless you need to use the bathroom, I'm not letting you up." Asriel gave me a toothy smile, his fangs glinting. Asriel the adult held all the mischievousness of Asriel the child tempered by hundreds of years of wisdom gained by his partial resurrection as a flower and that often translated into a wolfish attitude. "Stay a while. You scare us when you disappear. If you keep doing it, someone's going to plant a tracker on you."

I gave the goat prince a sour frown. "He doesn't need to put a tracker on me. The brand is on him, remember?"

Frisk leaned over in the chair, resting his head on his arms. "I'm taking you out to dinner tonight, remember? You haven't said where you want to go."

Because I was kind of hoping you'd forget. "Anywhere's fine," I muttered.

Frisk gave me a smirk. "So you're fine with Grillbzy's?" He laughed when I cringed. "Come on. Give me a real opinion."

You know what? I'm tired of being in this cavern. "Fine. Panera."

"Ooh. Cheap date." Frisk whipped out his phone. "The one on Apple Street has patio seating looking out at the lake in Reed Park. Autumn has really settled in surface side, so you'll want a sweater."

Shows you how much he knows me. There's a Panera in New Home now, along with myriad fast and casual food chain options, but Frisk automatically chose one on the surface.

His phone rang, buzzing in his hand at the same time, and his smile was instantly huge, eyes shining with an excitement that meant another Frisk had called him. He tapped to answer. "Hello, Sunshine!" He listened for a minute before nodding. "Yeah. She's right here."

Frisk held the phone out to me. "Red's little sister. She wants to talk to you."

I reached out, hesitant. Why would someone of such singular genius and achievement want to talk to me? I've never spoken to her and, as far as I knew, everyone still thought I was a murderous child. I took the phone and put it to my ear, looking down at my lap. "Greetings."

"Greetings, Snow! How are you feeling?"

"I…" I looked up and realized I was alone in the room, the door clicking shut as Frisk and Asriel left.

"I understand. I was there too. Though it's different for you and Frisk. You don't look at him and see a brother. And he's never called you his partner."

I blinked. "Is that really what you're calling about?"

"That and if you heard the voice in your head too. The one telling all the Charas to go to Star."

I gripped the phone tightly. "Yes. I heard it. White… White was with me at the time. I used his phone to try and call her. Frisk said she was awake now, but that…" I shook my head. "How's your Chara?"

Sunshine sighed. "Better now that Star's awake."

I frowned. "Any idea who was behind the voice? The one telling us to go to her?"

She snorted. "Oh please! That's easy! It was the Prime Chara."

I shook my head. "Impossible. They're dead."

"And since when has that ever stopped a Chara before?"

I'm pretty sure that if I could see her expression, it'd be one of disappointment. Point taken.

"Listen, I know there's a part of you that wants to disappear. To just be gone. Don't give into it. Don't let it hold you."

I hunched in on myself, shaking. "I'm not-"

"You are. Frisk's noticed. Asriel's noticed. Papyrus has noticed and it's one of the reasons White took the brand. We've been talking about it for a while. It's why everyone is so keen on keeping you close. Being physically separated from Frisk means being alone. And you haven't been alone for twenty six years."

I smiled wryly. "What? No guilt trip about Frisk needing me? No pep talk on how life is worth living?"

"I don't have to tell you that Frisk needs you. That's something you've long known. And how worth it life is depends on you. If you want a pep talk, I'll give a patented Fell one: You had everything stolen from you. Take it back. Take it all back."

She sighed. "I'll call again. Your Alphys sent the data from the samples she took from your body to my father and brother. They're looking them over."

I nodded. "Okay."

"Not sure how you feel about that, huh?"

I thought about it. "No. But... I'm kind of happy to know that, besides being Frisk's soft landing, I was also able to nourish him too." I groaned. "Wow, that sounded weird. Why doesn't it feel weird?"

"Maybe if you think about it, you'll figure it out. 'Baby Bones' and all that."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. Blue should have come up with a better name for the phenomenon."

Sunshine chuckled. "I'm sure we can come up with a better, all encompassing one if we try. I'll call again later, Snow. Bye."

"Bye." I hung up and stared at the phone. "That was fast."

Frisk put his head in the door. "What was?"

I stood and handed him the phone. "She called me Snow."

The door opened all the way and I saw White standing behind him.

Frisk's head cocked to one side. "Don't like it?"

I looked behind him to White. "Your nickname is White. It makes it sound like I'm an attachment to you."

He put a hand on his chest, bowing his head a little. It'd been a long time since anyone had performed that motion for me. It was the kind of head bow you gave to one of the great wizards on the surface. "I apologize."

I drew back a little. For him, that was suspiciously subdued. Then again, everything with White lately had been low key. "Why?"

He lifted his head, eyes a little sad. "Because it makes you uncomfortable and you should never feel uncomfortable in your home or with your family."

I frowned. I couldn't deny that the name was apropos. I certainly did look like the 'Snow White' of legend with my long black hair and milky pale skin. I couldn't make claims to her legendary sweetness though. Any part of that gentleness that had once lived in me had been long burned away.

In life, I hadn't been willing to harm another living thing. If I had, I wouldn't have been tossed into a hole in the ground. I would have been feared enough that people would have stayed back. I would have risen through the ranks to take my place as one of wizarding's royalty. I had the pedigree. I just didn't have the drive.

Not even to protect myself.

Now there was Frisk, and I was willing to burn the world for him. To protect him at all cost. It's such a strange conviction to have. I thought that it might fade now that we were separated. Instead, it was like my heart was walking around outside of my body.

It wasn't a romantic love. I knew that feeling and the pitch of the loins that accompanies it. I didn't have a name for this. It was a long and nameless thing; a low grade terror; a bursting, overwhelming joy; a sudden, gripping fear; a long, slow pride.

Asriel poked me in the side. "I like it. It's a reminder that we need to warm you up on occasion. Unless you prefer 'Ice Queen.'"

I tried not too and ended up laughing anyway as Asriel went back into the bedroom, the door closing behind him. To be perfectly honest, I liked it. I like being 'Snow.' I was just looking for a reason to be a bitch to White. I really need to stop that. He's really gone out of his way to make things easier for me. And it's not like things have been easy for him lately.

Frisk offered me his arm and I took it.

A knock at the front door gave us all pause. Every hair on the back of neck stood up and I opened my mouth to tell Papyrus not to open the door. But it was too late.

Asgore stepped inside, large eyes worried. "Pardon my intrusion. I just wanted to talk to Sans about a strange occurrence in the castle."

He attempted a smile as he looked up at the second floor. And then his eyes found me. I froze stock still, hoping against hope that Asriel stayed put and didn't open the door.

"Chara?" He stepped forward. "This is impossible…"

Frisk stepped in front of me and my stomach lurched. Didn't he know it was my job to protect him? Logically, I knew he could take any monster to task, but that wasn't the point.

The action, however, was enough to hit Asgore in the gut. He looked physically ill. His head bowed, eyes on the floor as his less than golden mane fell around him. "I won't question this turn of events. When you want an explanation of what happened all those years ago, come to my home. And that is all it is: an explanation. Not a defense." He turned slowly, trudging out the door.

The door shut, and Asriel was suddenly standing next to me. "So do you think he'd have had a heart attack had he seen me?"

I looked up at him, blinking a little. "That is your father."

Asriel shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yeah, and I wouldn't have been a flower had he not poisoned you."

Frisk shook his head. "You've been spending way too much time with Fell Asriel."

He smiled wolfishly. "Oh come on. You know that in that relationship," he patted his chest proudly, 'I'm the bad influence."

Frisk sighed, taking my arm. "Do you want to see him now, or go to dinner and decide later?"

I looked down at the floor, thinking about it. I wasn't sure I could handle the offered conversation on a full stomach, but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it either. At the same time, I was desperate to know why I had to die.

I nodded, mostly to myself. "We'll see Asgore first."

The ride to Hotland on the Riverperson's boat seemed too swift. The ride up the elevator to the New Home seemed too slow. I gripped Frisk's hand as tightly as I could, though if it hurt him, he didn't say. The human secret service agents on either side of us, waited patiently and silently, neither feeling the need to engage. Some were more talkative than others. Since the layered assassination attempt a few months ago, there were always two agents with Frisk at all times, one who looked the part and one in plain clothes, blending in.

The protection was part and parcel of his diplomat status. Frisk existed in this strange, political state. There were no records on the surface of his birth or his parentage, so he was listed as a Gaster, one of the wizard families who chose to be locked underground with monsters during the war. Genetic mapping listed him as a relation of the Ravenbrookes, the wizarding family who controlled the country; my family. As such, the Ravenbrookes counted him as one of them, his use of blue magic considered a lost art they hoped to revive.

And it was the reason for the assassination attempts. Having one wizard family controlling a singular type of magic was a terrifying prospect to the rest. They'd rather kill the wizard with the power and extinguish it forever rather than have an enemy propagate it. That White, Papyrus, and I also knew how to use it was kept tightly under wraps, leaving only one target.

While Frisk was Asgore's ambassador for monsterkind, he was also Ravenbrooke's prized son. He would never rise to the power of the named family heir, Aaron Ravenbrooke, or to the power of the second in line, Adiron, but the three had become fast and fierce friends on meeting; three peas in a pod. Aaron and Adiron relied on Frisk's counsel as well as his ability to reverse time.

I'd hoped that my sudden appearance would have been deemed a security risk, freeing Frisk from my presence and influence once and for all. Instead, I'd found that this situation had been a preconceived and planned for contingency after it having happened to the Fell siblings. The ways of the past were long dead and the gentle nature that had found me literally tossed aside was now considered a boon. I was a Ravenbrooke, and the blood tie was more important than my willingness to use my gifts and wealth of knowledge for power. As it stood, I was the only descendant of a previously lost line of the family. After throwing me to my death, they'd burnt themselves out.

With that in mind, I'd wondered why I hadn't been assigned the protection that Frisk had, only to find out that I had. All Ravenbrooke secret service agents were branded on the inside of the left forearm with a magical seal that allowed them to always find their assigned family member, to assess their condition, and prevented the agent from betraying that person. White's hoodie, and his general attitude, hid the brand he'd taken for me pretty well. Even though he wasn't in the elevator with us, I knew he'd be at the Dreemurr house when we got there.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. One gray on gray walk later and we stood in front of the Dreemurr house. Frisk knocked on the door and White opened it from the inside, motioning us in. Taking us into the open living room, we found Asgore sitting at the table, bent over a cup of tea. Up close, you could see just how much he'd aged, gray hair liberally streaking the dull gold of his mane. He'd lost weight as well, nothing like the imposing king I'd met so long ago or the pot bellied, couch potato Frisk had removed his skull mask for.

Asgore motioned for us to sit down without looking up. "Please be seated. I'd offer you something to drink, but I know that would be in less than poor taste. Sans told me how this has come to pass, so I won't ask you for an explanation of it."

The goat king looked up at me. "When I offered you the drugged tea, it was not to destroy you, but to delay you while I thought of a way to explain why the barrier must remain shut."

He sighed deeply. "When monsters were shut underground, many humans chose to stay with us, and we cherished them as family. But, overtime, the humans began to die off in a mysterious fashion. At first, we thought it was a lack of sunlight or maybe they had brought with them a slow and silent disease. After a while, only the Gasters were left: Wing Dings, Sans, and Papyrus. Even Lucida Gaster had been taken."

I looked at White and he frowned. He didn't like to talk about his mother, a woman he held in such high and glowing regard that being around other versions of her could rend his heart in unexpected ways.

Asgore gripped his mug tightly, looking at the liquid. "Toriel suggested the building of the Core, a project she knew Dr. Gaster would not be able to resist, and on its completion arranged the accident that killed him, and left Sans and Papyrus in their current states. It was then that all of my long suspicions had been confirmed. Toriel had been arranging the long, slow extermination of humans in the Underground, the Gasters being the last of her victims. I made it appear as if Sans and Papyrus had died with their father and afterward, it seemed that Toriel had settled. We had Asriel and with that, a peace came to descend over her."

I swallowed. "And then I fell."

He nodded. "A sort of mania came over her. I hoped that, by keeping you in our home and allowing Asriel to become attached to you, that it would give you some safety. And while you were always with my son or myself, you were safe. When you told me that you'd figured out how to open the barrier-"

I held up a hand. "You were trying to keep Toriel locked inside. You drugged me to delay me and that only left me open to her attack."

"Yes." Asgore shuddered. "It was foolish. I should have simply explained then, but you appeared to enjoy Toriel's company, to be unaware of her murderous intentions. Instead, it only led to your death, and then to Asriel's, and then to deaths of six more."

Frisk jumped in. "Why? Why is she like this?"

Asgore shook his head. "There is no reason, no catalyst. She had a normal and loving childhood and had never been harmed or betrayed by a human. She was never angry at humans, and not seeking attention. She isn't mentally ill. It is something intrinsic to her nature and she kept it well hidden from everyone. Sometimes, I wonder if, when my great grandfather bonded with the human soul that ended in our being trapped underground, that that human had been among Tori's earliest victims. That the bonding had been about offering the victim revenge."

The goat king shook his head. "It's neither here nor there." His eyes returned to me. "I don't ask you for forgiveness or even understanding. If you go on the rest of your new found life hating me, so be it. I offer no defense. I can't bring myself to end Tori's life. She is my greatest love and I deeply miss her partnership. Locking her away in the Ruins has never brought me solace. I will pine for her despite knowing who she is and what she has done. And I offer no apology for that."

I sat for a moment, empty, staring at my hands. The silence dragged on and I stood. Frisk followed me as I went for the hall.

"Tell Asriel that I wish to see him."

I stopped and turned to the goat king.

He ran two clawed fingers through his hair, drawing a few strands of his graying mane forward, gazing at the white. "This… This is a sign that he now has life too. And I have no doubt that you are the one who gave it to him. Indeed, I think you are the only one who could perform such a miracle."

Frisk nodded and guided me away. The path open to us, Frisk took me to the throne room and the entrance to the surface, skipping the teleport he knew I hated, even I'd been willing just to go to see the surface for a little bit.

The entrance to the underground was a tourist attraction and a way directly to New Home had been constructed to give the King of All Monsters privacy in his home. Humans now littered the underground, many having moved there after the opening. Something that made Toriel's imprisonment even more imperative.

The face of the mountain had changed as well. Once just a forgotten cave entrance in a oft neglected forest, it was now the bustling 'Garden District' of the Ravenbrookes' capital city, St. Canard. From the walkway down from the cave entrance, you could see beautiful buildings designed to compliment the forest the district grew up in. The home Aaron Ravenbrooke had constructed several years ago to give him a reprieve from the politics of living at work in the city center rested just off to the left.

It was strange to think that I had a room in that house: an always welcome member of the family.

A short car ride had us at the Panera and sitting at the patio overlooking the lake. There was a restaurant just a little ways over with what was arguably the better view, but it was also very high class; the kind of place you expected wizards to be. Here, we were unmolested, locals who knew Frisk well taking up the tables around us; paparazzi nowhere to be seen.

While Frisk retrieved our dinner, the agent in plain clothes, Evan Spencer, sat next to me. "I'm not going to ask if you're all right. I'm not honestly sure how anyone is supposed feel about the details of their own murder a couple hundred years on. But I'm pretty sure 'all right' doesn't cover it. So how do you feel?"

"Empty. I was worried I'd feel sick, but... I just feel empty."

He reached over, taking my hand in his, patting it gently. I looked at him then, and had a sinking feeling.

"Your family is among Toriel's victims."

Evan nodded. "My family was camping on the mountain, a normal family trip. My older brother Jared went for a walk in the evening, collecting firewood, and didn't come back. Frisk confirmed it for us a while back."

I looked down at our joined hands. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

I looked up into Evan's blue eyes. "I came back and he didn't."

He snorted, laughing. "A trick of fate brought you back and even that hasn't been the kindest. It's been over two decades. I've had some time, but it was the reason I volunteered to serve Frisk. I was hoping for closure. I got that and something more. That easy smile Frisk has, that occasionally snotty look when he's playing at being a jerk? My brother had those expressions. So, in a way, I don't feel that Jared is that far away from me."

Frisk came back with a tray filled with food and Evan moved away to let us eat. On the way back home, Frisk stopped outside the Lab. "Want to see if Alphys found something?"

I wasn't sure if I wanted answers just this moment, but I wasn't sure I'd be willing to come by once answers could be had. I nodded, letting Frisk draw me inside.

The Lab, while box shaped on the outside, was a buzz of scientific activity on the inside. Long having been converted from a simple domicile for Alphys, it now looked like a proper, modern laboratory of steel and tile. White sat at one of the terminals, working on the machine Frisk Provost had provided him the blueprints for, his laptop screen covered in lines of code. He'd been working in conjunction with so many people to get the machine working in a way that would bypass the closing off of the void.

Monsters went this way and that at their tasks, giving us waves as we went by, heading for Alphys office. Frisk knocked at the door and, not getting a response, opened it.

Alphys was staring at her laptop screen, slack jawed, back to us. "Are you… Are you sure? You aren't just having one over on me, are you? This is… oh… oh God!"

Red shook his skull, his gold tooth glinting with the action. Behind him, on the screen, his father and Sunshine, hair white with green streaks, were both looking at a clipboard covered in papers. "*i ain't messing with you, alph. we needed a human from your timeline to compare chara's samples too, and frisk is already in seraph's system. it's a match on a genetic level."

I looked up at Frisk and he gave me a shrug.

Alphys' clawed, yellow hands went up to her head. "But… How? How is it possible?"

Dr. Gaster answered. "The golden flowers on your timeline have unique, life giving properties. If someone were to attempt to make food with them, instead of being poisonous, they would heal the human or monster eating them. It is why your Asriel wasn't the terror that some of them can be once becoming Flowey. The flowers preserved the essential warmth provided by his soul. Here the flowers preserved the very essence of Chara's life, even if they couldn't restore the higher functions of her brain."

I stepped into the office. "What are you talking about?"

Alphys squeaked. "Snow!"

Red's image on the screen frowned deeply. "*have a seat, sweetheart."

Sweetheart? That's a pretty hardcore sign that Red liked me. He only used it with women he saw in a familial way. I grabbed the chair next to Alphys and sat down. I had the sudden and distinct feeling that the room was crowded; the after effect of a teleport. Which meant that White was behind me somewhere.

"*you've seen your body, right?"

I nodded.

"*and you noticed that you were producing milk?"

"Yes."

"*the samples alphys took show that you gave birth twenty six years ago."

I groaned. "Seriously? You expect me to believe that? I'm a virgin in a cavern full of monsters who breed by combining their souls. Who would have been the father? It certainly isn't White. He didn't know the specifics of my life until a few months ago and only recently found my body. And how would you be able to pinpoint it to twenty six years ago? That's incredibly accurate. And considering my soul was there, wouldn't I have noticed this going on? Wouldn't that have been enough to wake me up? My first real memory after Asriel's soul shattered was waking up in Frisk." I crossed my arms over my chest and sat back.

"*you aren't going to ask where your child is?"

"Of course not. I know where my son is."

I stopped dead, mouth agape. What had I just said?

A hand came to rest on my shoulder. My hands flew up to hold it as I turned my head, craning my neck a little to look up at Frisk. He leaned over, putting his other arm around me, hugging me tightly. That feeling… my heart walking around outside of my body...

Sunshine gently pushed her brother aside."Twenty six years ago, Snow, you gave birth to Frisk and your soul went with him. It's why we've never found records of his birth or parents on the surface. He was born in the underground."

Alphys frowned. "Then who would be the father?"

Red shrugged. "*one of the fallen, obviously. the albino douche-nugget said himself that he couldn't be near the body, that the smell coming off of it was enough for him to ask you to take the samples. with only six of them, it shouldn't be too hard to narrow down. taking out the women and children only leaves one adult male."

Alphys hemmed and hawed, "Chara's body did smell good, but…"

"I'm not sure how I feel about that," Evan supplied.

The second agent raised his hand. "I knew Jared Spencer and… no."

Frisk looked at Evan for a moment and back to the screen. "Yeah. Everything I've ever heard from Evan and his family, that isn't something his brother would have done."

White shook his head. "You haven't seen her body. Or rather, none of you have smelled her body. It's overwhelming. Depending on your brother's condition after the fall, he might not have been aware of what he was doing. Like the gold toothed, titflake said, I asked Alphys to take the samples. Even being there with Chara earlier was a lot."

"I need a drink," Evan muttered.

I sighed. "I do too."

The other agent snorted. "You're on duty."

Evan groaned. "Dude. I just found out that the most important person in the world, someone I have sworn to die for, is my nephew; the son of my long lost brother, who, by all evidence, violated a Raven-"

I jumped to my feet. "Stop!"

Evan's mouth shut.

I sighed. "I'm the one who gets to decide what that moment means. And I decide that whatever happened, happened. If you say that Frisk's father was a good man, than that's enough for me. The only part of all of this that matters is Frisk." I took a breath. "I still want that drink. And I say that you're now officially off duty so we can share it." I looked back at White. "You're filling in until the change over."

White shrugged. "As you wish."

Frisk put his arm around me. "Come on, Mom. The drinks are on me." He looked back to the screen. "Got anything else for us?"

Sunshine shook her head. "Not right now. Alphys can get a sample from Mr. Spencer at a later time to confirm familial relation."

Frisk nodded and pulled me along as White reached out and patted Alphys shoulder, whispering some encouragement or other to her. I expected to be taken to Grillbzy's, but instead, Frisk chose the new bar at MTT Resort. Evan sat next to me on the balcony that overlooked the magma flow hundreds of feet below, nursing a glass of scotch while I sipped my wine. Despite being far below us, the magma spread out hundreds of feet before us, reaching into the darkness of the cavern.

After a long silence, Evan let out a sharp breath and stood. "I can't get the facts to mesh. It just won't work." He turned to Frisk. "Take me to Chara's grave."

Frisk put a hand on my shoulder. "Would that be all right?"

I nodded. Frisk looked back at the other agent and got a nod from him. The three disappeared.

White took the seat next to me, propping one foot up on the balustrade to watch the shifting glow of the magma.

I set my glass down. "I'm sorry."

He gave me a suspicious look. "For what?"

"I haven't been civil while you've been more than accommodating."

White shrugged and sat back. "I accept the apology."

I stared down at my hands in my lap. "You haven't been yourself lately. The Sans I know isn't this quiet. Is it the void being shut off? Problems with the machine?"

He shook his head and leaned back. Putting his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes, relaxing. "The machine is fine. It just needs the right programming and the code for that is starting to come together. Bones figured out how to get the coordinates into it. I'm working on getting them synced up."

My shoulders dropped. "Then it's me."

He opened his left eye to look at me. "Of course."

I frowned. "I told you that you didn't have to keep me. And now that we all know what happened, it makes even more sense for me to disappear."

White grabbed my wrist, his left eye glowing brightly, though it felt unintentional on his part. "I know what it's like to go through life without my mother. Don't you dare do that to Frisk."

"Sans…"

He let go of me and sat back. "When it was clear that you weren't just feeling blue because of the circumstances, that it wasn't passing, I asked for the brand. Whatever you're feeling, hot or cold, sick or healthy, I'm aware of it. And all this thing does is itch. It itches terribly. All the time. And then, every once in a while, it burns white hot and…" He sighed. "It's a sign that the depression is a constant ache in your mind and heart, always keeping you on an edge that tumbling over means I have to tell two of the three people I love the most that you aren't coming home."

"When you're just a soul, it's all academic. There aren't any hormones making you feel this way or that. But now? Now I can really feel again and it hurts so god damn much, I can't stand it." I scooted my chair over, putting it next to his, and rested my head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

White adjusted and put his arm around me. "Don't be. It's not your fault. None of this is your fault. It just is. We just have to learn to live with it. Take it a day at a time knowing that some days are easier than others." He bent his head down, resting his nose in my hair.

I moved closer and hissed when I banged my leg against the chair the wrong way. White reached down and lifted my skirt, looking over the dark bruise I'd given myself earlier on the stairs. He touched it gently, a blue glow around his hands. The ugly purple faded to a red, then to a sickly yellow, and then disappeared all together.

A sudden, overwhelming ache flooded me. I looked up at him, shaking, my hands fists. "Why weren't you there? When I was on the stairs. I know you felt it."

White took my hand in his, his particular twist on blue magic running over me, soothing away my anger, my terror, my anxiety. "I was." He sighed. "There's only so much magic can do. I can't fight the war in your mind for you, but I can keep you from falling while you fight."

I blinked and looked down at me feet. "How bad was I thrashing?"

"Pretty bad."

I sighed. "I know you avoid it because you don't want me to be uncomfortable but… you can hold me when I'm like that."

"Will it help?"

I turned, pushing him so that he sat back again and I rested in the crook of his arm. "Probably."

Frisk reappeared with the agents, both of them looking more than a bit disturbed.

Evan picked up his drink and downed it in one go. "Okay. Yeah." He sat down on the other side of me. "It's just…" He looked at me. "What is that smell?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe its something about the flowers?"

"And it didn't affect Frisk at all."

White shrugged. "Probably because of blood relation." He suddenly sat up. "Actually, it being the flowers makes sense. They are growing out of you and scent is a way to attract pollinators."

I snorted and bent over, laughing.

"What?"

I held out my hands, pantomiming. "Can you see it? A large, cartoon-ish bee flying down into the cavern?" I held out both arms as if to receive and started laughing again.

White huffed. "That was not a proper sex joke."

Evan sputtered and started laughing. "That's horrible!"

Frisk leaned over and hugged me. "I told you she had a weird sense of humor."

I finished the last sip of my wine, smiling a little.