Toby Fox owns Undertale and all associated characters.
Chara sat straight up in bed with a small cry. She blinked a couple times, letting her vision adjust to the darkness of the surrounding room. Then she let out a whimper and put her head in her hands.
Not again. Not… not that dream again. Ever since Christmas, she had been having vivid nightmares, and they were only getting worse. She gave a violent shudder as the details from her dream came unbidden to her mind.
As happened every time, she had been in the Underground, once again in Frisk's body. Once again she clutched a knife in her hands, and once more she carved her way through the Underground until dust coated her like a second skin. Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, and everyone in between. She had watched Undyne melt and turn to dust on the bridge.
Then, things changed. Instead of heading on to Hotland, she had gone back into Waterfall. After just a short walk, she found Kid desperately trying to pick himself up, obviously having tripped just before she arrived. At the sound of her approach, he had rolled over onto his back, terror gripping his features as he saw her. He desperately inched his way back until his back hit a wall.
"Wait, Chara!" he pleaded. "Don't kill me! I thought you… I thought we…"
He let out a cry and the knife plunged down.
That was where she woke up. That was where she always woke up, ever since the dream had started taking that darker turn. But not this time.
This time, she only let the tip of her blade pierce him, taking out a chunk of his life-force without killing him instantly, allowing her to stab again and again while he screamed and writhed beneath her. Until the screams stopped, and her hands and blade were once again coated in-
Her shoulders shook as she began crying into her hands. In the last timeline, he had gotten away! She'd never hit him before! Why…. why him?
It had been weeks since she had had a full battery. She was terrified of going to sleep, and what little she managed to get was anything but restful. She'd been forced to rely on her own magic to power her body most of the time, leaving her drained and dishevelled.
She had caused so much harm. What if something like that happened again? She had hurt her friends, her family, everyone who ever cared about her. If it wasn't for Sans and Frisk, there would have been no going back for her.
She couldn't go on like this. She needed to talk to someone, she needed to do… something. But her options were limited. Almost nobody knew about the other timelines and… she couldn't tell them. Not what she'd done. Not what she'd nearly become. That only left…
Hesitantly, she closed her eyes, then internally pulled up her contacts list. He would probably be asleep right now, but she would try him anyway. She wasn't sure if she was trying to put it off, or if she was just desperate.
-You awake?- she texted Sans.
She was surprised with the skeleton's nearly instantaneous response.
-Yep. A little surprising, I know. What about you? Can't sleep?-
Chara hesitated before sending her reply.
-Yeah.-
-Wanna get something off your chest?-
Damn skeleton, always knowing too much for his own good.
-... Yeah.-
-Why don't you come meet up with me then? It's a nice night out.-
-Where are you?- She asked, slowly getting out of bed, throwing the blankets to the side.
-I'm outside your house.-
The mechanical girl threw a look out the window, and saw Sans waving at her from the snow-covered street below, his permanent grin more cheeky than usual, and she gave him a half-hearted glare.
Doubt surged into her mind as she crept out of the room, tip-toeing down the carpeted hallway, past both Frisk's and her parent's rooms. She hadn't really expected him to reply. True, she had been on good terms with the skeleton for a while now, but…
No. She mentally quashed her hesitation. Out of anyone, he might have a way to make the nightmares stop. She would do anything not to have to see that again. Especially now…
Visions of her dream rose again in her mind's eye. She made it to the door, barely choking back a sob as she did so, tears threatening once more to spill from her eyes. Chara brushed them away with a hand, then paused at the door, taking stock of the long white tank-top and tattered slacks she wore to bed. Then she shrugged, not really caring, and stepped outside.
The soft yellow light of the streetlamps caused the snow piled up around the place to glow, almost appearing warm in the light. She could tell it was fairly cold, but it didn't adversely affect her, another perk of her robot body.
As she stood there, Sans turned around the corner of the house and stepped into view, his slipper-clad feet sinking into the snow with soft squelching noises. Both his hands were in his pockets and he spared Chara a quick glance before removing one hand and gesturing to her.
"C'mon, let's take a walk."
Chara shrugged and followed after him, and they walked together in silence for a while, the only sounds the crunching of snow underfoot. Finally, Sans spoke.
"Gotta admit, I'm impressed. I thought you'd have cracked way earlier than this. You must be pretty resilient… or you really don't like asking for help."
Chara stared at the short skeleton in shock.
"You… you knew?"
"Heh. I know what having nightmares looks like. You did a pretty good job of keeping it to yourself at first, but… they've been happening every night, haven't they? You don't need to say anything, your face says it all." Sans chuckled. "Glad you finally sent that text, I was getting tired of staying up waiting for it."
"What made you think I was going to come to you first?" Chara's brows knit.
Sans stopped abruptly, and turned completely to face her.
"That's a good question," he said slowly. "Why would you come to me? I mean, you've got your parents, you've got Kid… Seems I shouldn't be that high on your list. Unless… you've been having nightmares about something you don't want them to know about."
Chara lowered her head, unable to look into the skeleton's sockets any longer.
"How did you-"
"I didn't… not for certain anyways. But, uh… out of all the things that could be keeping you up at night, well… that was the obvious one."
Sans fell silent, waiting for her to speak while Chara tried in vain to compose herself. Of course he knew. Despite his laid-back demeanor, he paid close attention to everything that happened around him.
"Every night," she found herself saying, her synthetic tones shaking as she spoke. "The same dream. Over and over. I carve through half of the Underground before…" she choked on the words, falling silent for a moment before barely managing to say;
"Kid…"
Her shoulders were trembling now, and despite her attempts to keep them at bay, tears rolled down her porcelain face, their travel slowing as they began to freeze. She held her hands in front of her, sporadically clenching and unclenching them again.
"I never hurt him before," Chara managed at last. "What if… I.."
"Chara." Sans's tone was difficult to read, and the robotic girl looked up to see him staring down the lit street. Snow began to slowly fall from the sky, the flakes lazily dancing and twirling in the slight breeze that had picked up as they stood there.
"We both know what you've done," he continued. "I didn't think you could be anything else, didn't think that there was any cure for you except for death. I was wrong." He turned his gaze back to her. "If I thought there was any chance you were still like that, I would have already killed you, rather than risk you falling back into your old ways.
"The fact that you're haunted by these nightmares tells me that you've really changed. You feel guilty about what you've done, I can see it in your eyes. And that's good."
He took a step towards her.
"You should feel guilty about that. You were a merciless killer, slaughtering indiscriminately. Just because you got a second chance, well. It doesn't make all that go away."
Chara's gaze had dropped again, and she was trembling under the skeleton's verbal barrage. He was right. What she had done was unforgivable. She didn't deserve a second chance, didn't-
"But." Sans's tone was gentler now, though Chara still didn't look up.
"You remember what I said to you, when I faced you down in the Judgement Hall?"
"You said a lot of things…" Chara replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Do you think even the worst person can change?" Sans quoted. "That anyone can be a good person, if they just try? Heh. I admit, I wasn't expecting much from you. But you did change. You're not that person anymore. You have friends and family… people who care about you. I don't think the person you were was capable of any of that."
Chara finally managed to bring herself to look back at Sans, who was still watching her, though his gaze seemed gentle. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, not sure what she could say to him.
"Remember what you were. Don't ever forget. But don't let it destroy you, either. Learn from it. And do better." His smile seemed to widen for a moment. "Shouldn't be too hard, right? You seem to be managing pretty well so far."
Chara nodded slowly. Though the memory of her nightmare still clung to her, she had to admit she felt a little better for getting some of that off of her chest. Still…
"Alright Sans," she spoke, her synthetic tones low. "I'll try, but… could you do me a favour? If I start to fall… If I become that again… you'll stop me, right?"
"Of course," the skeleton replied solemnly. Then his tone lightened. "Heh. Just like old times, right?"
Chara gave a disbelieving snort.
"Only you would joke about something like that."
"Well, we just had a serious discussion that ended in a kind of reverse death-threat. Figured I needed to lighten the mood, I still gotta get home after this. Kinda hard to move with that whole heavy atmosphere thing."
"You're insufferable."
Sans winked at her.
"Kinda my thing, kiddo. C'mon, let's get you back home before Tori checks on your room and has a panic attack. Don't want to make this any more complicated than it needs to be, right?"
Sans reached out a hand to Chara, and she took it after a moment's hesitation, closing her eyes in an effort to combat the queasiness that ever accompanied Sans's shortcuts.
When she opened her eyes again, they were standing outside her home. Sans pulled his hand back and put it in his pocket, before turning and silently walking away, disappearing around the corner, Chara watching after him.
When he vanished from sight, she took a shaky breath, and entered the house, drying her feet off on the doormat. It wasn't going to fix everything… perhaps it never would. But if she remembered what she was, maybe she would be able to keep from becoming that again.
Maybe it would be enough.