Frisk jolted as he woke up mere moments after the RESET. Chara was still there, her body preserved, and her SOUL as bright as the red eyes the boy fell in love with. Thankfully, she seemed to be breathing, as her chest slowly moved up and down. Her sleeping face was peaceful, and all her scars seemed to have disappeared. Frisk had checked on that matter out of curiosity and was genuinely happy she suddenly recovered from her past wounds. He smiled but did not blush a bit at the sight of her naked body, something he found odd, but shrugged it off.

Frisk was glad his "sacrifice" did not go to waste, if anything, he somehow successfully erased Chara's past. He did not seem to have sustained any damage either. He would have assumed it would hurt to forcefully take on a SOUL or initiate a timeline RESET. but he somehow had ...

Profusely scarred arms.

The same wounds Chara did to herself. Strangely enough, none of those hurt a bit. Frisk went on and counted the scars on each arm, then those on the body. The more he counted, the more marks popped up, as if the timeline itself remembered who he was. Wounds Frisk had when being bullied by kids at school crossed paths with large slashes Chara had on her right arm. He caressed those intersections, bringing back memories that were not his.

Those were Chara's memories of the Surface.

He saw Chara in a schoolyard, it looked like the one he used to go to, but it did not look as worn out as he recalls. Flower pots were still in shape, all of which bore a single buttercup. Chara seemed to like those a lot, she always went there to water them, and the other kids did not particularly mind that a lot. Except for a little group of troublemakers who watched her every move, the kind of brats who just did not like anyone who is not doing what they think kids should do.

Chara never played with girls her age, and boys tried their best to get her attention. Who would not try to have a fairly small girl, with exquisite dark brown hair and eyes, see in their direction

or play along with them? Chara did not exactly care about other kids, however, shunning girls' invitations and turning down boys who shyly confessed their admiration. All she cared about were the schoolyard flowers and her grades, seemingly looking down on her peers as if they were trash. Of course, that made her excluded from any popular kids' groups there was in her school, eventually labeling her a weirdo.

Frisk was brought back to reality, and he was not feeling well. The sight of his beloved being an outcast brought everything but a joy to his SOUL, in which a sizeable dent formed. It almost felt like his own childhood, yet she made that choice herself. That was what truly hurt Frisk the most, Chara chose to isolate herself, remaining alone the whole time. It never felt right to him, she was the best person he ever met and will ever meet. She did deserve all the best but was instead met with the worst possible scenario for a kind. Something bothered him though, he never recalled Chara having brown eyes, they were already red when they first met. It made him a little bit happy to meet another Chara, one he hoped to know once he finished his bloody labor.

Frisk moved out into the familiar paths leading into the Ruins. He knew he would encounter Flowey around in a minute, but the sadistic plant had yet to pop in any of the flower patches. All he heard was Chara weeping in a corner, perhaps because Frisk rubbed his elbow, triggering another memory. He thought he would see her memories of the underground, but the place seemed rather ... familiar. Chara was being beaten up while protecting her favorite schoolyard flowers, taking kicks and stick blows before some adults intervened. Her relatively frail body at the time was now covered in bruises, some blue and others rather dark. She had been transported to the nursery and treated later at home.

Flowey decided to plop in the farthest flower patch, carefully approaching the human who'd beaten him earlier. The faux Asriel thought he should exact his revenge by killing the boy and absorbing his SOUL, but he did not sense anything emanating from the human. No, it was rather charred, dark roots have covered most of the SOUL container, keeping fragments together. Pieces of an existence he never hoped to see again.

"Why I thought that you were dead ... have you finally taken over the boy you protected?"

Frisk did not answer or was rather unable to answer since he could not mind talk anymore. He despised Flowey, wondering where Asriel fitted in there. Still Frisk unconsciously ...

smirked at the surprised flower, who brought an equally evil mug. The brat was no longer in control, and that stood was just Chara, the one human they wanted back for so long. The Dreemurr had taken a liking to murder and shared their merciless philosophy.

"If it's you, then let's destroy everything in this wretched world. Everyone, everything in these worthless memories... Let's turn 'em all to dust."

Sans walked over the familiar path toward the Ruins, where a giant purple door stood. Bonehead may be a sentry, but besides being lazy, he was getting also bored. Nothing alarming was reported, besides strange changes in the timeline graphs, which he checked with Alphys. There was too many a disruption, one only caused when anomalies get into the timeline. He was going to address the question after he practiced his knock-knock jokes.

After reaching a giant marble, he sat on a large snow puff and began testing his pun book and knock jokes until he heard an unexpected reply.

"Who's there?" A lady's voice, sans was a little startled he never sensed her around his favorite joke retreat, but he took the opportunity to try to make the lady laugh.

"dishes"

"Dishes who"

"dishes a very bad joke"

Toriel, on the other side of the door, laughed so hard it made sans' grin widen. He kept throwing his best knock puns at the lady, who died of laughter behind the stone barrier separating. Toriel got the gist of the comedian on the other side and tried to make a knock-knock joke of her own

"Knock, knock"

"uh ... who's there?"

"Old lady."

"old lady who?"

"I did not know you could yodel."

Sans never thought he would laugh that hard again. It was worse than his signature pun book and it felt really good, he bid her goodbye after they both exhausted most of their repertoire, and she welcomed him to come again behind the door anytime he needed to.

Eventually, they settled to call each other "friend" and "old lady". While sans had a pretty idea of who she was, he did bother to mention, the perks of being a lazy bones. The old lady he liked chatting with was kind of down the day the timeline was RESET and made her friend promise her something he would regret later on.

"Old friend?"

"yes lady, 'sup?"

"Can you promise me something?"

"Sure, anything for a fellow knocker" Toriel giggled, then resumed.

"If a human ever comes through this door, promise me to watch over them and protect them." Sans pondered the query for a bit before agreeing. Toriel felt a little relieved, then she told her friend she was going to scour the Ruins, and both parted smiling.

But that was the last time they'll ever joke together.