The wind was cold as it whistled through his bones. He had nearly forgotten how this felt - how angry it made him. The kid wasn't an idiot; they could control themselves. But they reset . The kid was an idiot. He kicked at the snow, flinching at the cold that slipped past the edge of his slipper - the goddamn slippers that he'd almost stopped wearing.

He walked through town with his hood up. Normally, he wouldn't bother, since the stupid thing always slipped off his smooth head anyway, but now he tugged the fabric up further, shrouding his face in shadow. He had been through this before; he had been through it so many times before, but this time was different. He was not angry this time; he was furious. The kid promised. The kid failed. They failed their promise and their friends and they failed him. He had almost been happy. He had been happy. He trusted them. And they reset just because…

Because…

"Shit," he whispered, digging a heel into the snow as he stopped. He'd almost forgotten - he had forgotten - just how fast things were lost to him. He stumbled into the inn, ignoring the frazzled bunny's cries and ripping a piece of paper from behind the desk. Frantically, he began to write.

Reset ? - Six years on the surface - kid was happy - i was happy - gang - alphys - death - undyne? papyrus? tori? - someone dusted - sneakers - pay my tab - two weeks

The owner of the inn seemed to have regained her will to move, and she strode up to Sans, tapping him sharply on the skull. "Excuse me! I do not think you are being very polite, Mr. Sans. Please leave!"

He mumbled what might have counted as an apology and left, trying to add more to the paper. But, he couldn't. What little memory he had of the timeline was slipping away. He cursed again, hurrying back to the house. Papyrus called to him as he entered, but his voice was lost to dead air Sans stalked into his room, slamming open drawers and looking for the key.

He walked into his lab, shutting the door behind him, and couldn't help but sink to the floor. The memories were clearer here; they always were, and so his tradition of visiting the secret room remained intact. His breaths came out short as he slumped against the wall, the sobs and the memories wracking his body with spasms.

It passed in waves. Sometimes a memory would wash over him, clear as day, and other times he would get only the tiniest of glimpses into the tiniest fragments of the previous timeline. This time, like most times, fell somewhere in between. He forced himself to put the pen to the paper again as it overcame him, scribbling down more of what he remembered. It wasn't much, at least when you thought about it relatively. Ten minutes of tiny impressions of memory for six years of life that never happened? Not exactly the most satisfying of rewards.

Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. He sat back, pressing the heel of his palm into his cheekbone, just below his right eye. He had grown accustomed to the lack of pain there in the last timeline, but had known it was coming. After all, the pain was always there when a new timeline started; the pain was always the worst just after remembering. He supposed there may be a correlation between the pain and the lack of magical energy coming from that eyesocket. That eye had never done what it was supposed to, leaving his magic unstable and unpredictable. It had taken years for him to finally gain control over it, and he sometimes wished there had been resets back then.

"SANS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Paps, not now, I just - I have to -"

"SANS, WHAT'S WRONG? ARE YOU HURT?"

"I'm fine, Papyrus, just get outta here. I don't want you getting hurt."

"IF WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING HERE WOULD HURT ME, IT WOULD CERTAINLY HURT YOU. ALLOW US TO LEAVE THIS PROJECT BEHIND. WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO GRILLBY'S?"

"Papyrus, I said get out!" There had been a flash of yellow and blue, a horrific crunching sound, and a shriek.

To this day, Sans was still unsure which one of them the shriek had come from.

"Papyrus? Paps are you okay?"

"I AM FINE, BROTHER. I, UNLIKE YOU, AM VERY GREAT IN THE STATS DEPARTMENT. YOU COULD NEVER HURT ME! NYEH, HEH, HEH!"

"What was the crunching noise, then?"

"SANS, I DO BELIEVE YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK IN A MIRROR."

He had. A crack had formed, running down the side of his skull and connecting with his right eyesocket, as black and dark as the void inside it. "Oh. Man, I should, uh, probably fix this, huh?" he had asked.

"WORRY NOT, DEAR BROTHER. I, PAPYRUS, SHALL MAKE YOU A HEALING TREAT. TO ASSIST IN YOUR RECOVERY."

That hadn't been the first - and it certainly hadn't been the last - time that he had inadvertently hurt himself with his magic use. Luckily for him, his magic never touched his soul, or he surely would have fallen down. It used to exhaust him; it still did, actually, but not nearly to the degree it used to. Papyrus called him lazy, but the truth was he just never had the energy to do much else while actively controlling his magic. After a while, he had simply slipped into the lazy persona, much to the displeasure of Papyrus. It was easier, after all, to be called a lazybones than to admit to Papyrus how much pain he was in when his control lapsed. It was easier to pretend to fall asleep on the job than it was to hole up in his room, blocking out the concerned calls from his brother while he tried not to black out.

Once, he had asked about magical defects, but the librarian had said they weren't qualified to give accurate information on that, and that he should talk to a doctor if he suspected something was wrong with Papyrus. Afterwards, he had thought about that remark for a while. Did they think something was wrong with Papyrus? What could possibly be wrong with him? It wasn't until someone had later commented on how much he cared for his brother that he realized the librarian had thought he would only be so desperate to learn if he thought it could help Papyrus. It was no secret how much the brothers cared for each other, even if they cared in different ways. Sans worried for Papyrus; Papyrus worried about him.

He never did ask a doctor. The only doctors were over in Waterfall, and they wouldn't know about Papyrus; they would know he was asking for himself. Why that was such a bad thing, he wasn't sure. Maybe he was embarrassed, or maybe he was ashamed. How had he turned out so differently from his brother? If they had parents, would they be ashamed of him for being so broken?

After Undyne had lost her eye to the human, he had casually slipped it into conversation, but hadn't gotten to revealing the full extent of it.

"Welp, guess we're one-eyed buddies now, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

"My right eye. It doesn't work."

"I've known you for six years, punk! Your eye works fine! What're you playing at here?"

"Nothing. My eye, it, uh, doesn't have magic… never has."

"But I've seen you use your magic; it's not like you don't have it."

"Oh. You've, uh, seen that, huh?"

"Yeah! I mean, you don't do it much anymore, but I used to see you when I'd go out on patrol. You'd be standing in the trees, muttering to yourself, and there'd be a big crackle of magic in the air. You're powerful, Sans!"

"Not as powerful as you… or Paps."

"Well, yeah, I mean, we're strong, but we don't have that much magic! It took me YEARS to learn how to use the green magic, and I'm still not great at it - you looked like it just came so naturally to you."

"Yeah, maybe too naturally."

"What was that?"

"Nothin'. How's that eye feeling, anyway?"

"It's great! I'll let you in on a little secret: it's all scarred over now, and it doesn't even hurt; I just wear the eyepatch 'cause it looks cool!"

"Oh, no pain, huh? That's, uh, great."

"Yeah! Gerson said it might hurt when I tried to use magic, but he was WRONG, fuhuhu! I still don't really get what's wrong with your eye, but I guess we're both just short an eye. Hey, it could be worse, though! It could be painful, or it could hinder our magic use, so we both got off pretty lucky, I suppose."

"Heh, yeah, lucky us," he had muttered, dropping his hand from its place on his cheekbone.

It was true, he remembered. He used to go off deep into the snowy woods when he felt a surge of magic coming. He would stand amongst the trees, hoping that the close quarters would confine his magic. There was more than one clearing of fallen logs from such attempts; not that anyone would ever know, for each time the world reset, the trees returned to their rightful place, towering up to the top of the caverns. He wondered how the forest would look if they didn't. How many times had he gone out there? Maybe there wouldn't even be a forest left. No, wait. someone else must have been righting the trees. Someone must have been pulling them back to life with magic; Frisk hadn't fallen down yet, so no one was resetting... He wondered, for a moment, who could possibly have nothing better to do than to clean up after his messes. After all, plenty of people did that now, but not without their complaints of having more important things to do.

He stood, shakily, and slumped over the workspace counter, his fingers tracing the blueprints that sat there. He couldn't remember exactly when he acquired the blueprints, but they were always right where he had left them from the last timeline. His whole lab seemed the same as it was when he left the Underground, in fact. Glancing at the sheet covering the mass in the corner, he wondered if it had something to do with that fact. But the machine's been broken forever. I can't fix it, he reminded himself. If I could just read the writing on these plans… maybe I'm getting something entirely wrong. The machine, like the blueprints, had been there longer than he could remember, and it had been broken for longer than he could remember. Something about the whole lab was off-putting, but he had never figured out exactly what it was.

His hands flew to the drawers, pulling them open in search of something new, but all that greeted him were his old notes: scribbles of previous timelines and their corresponding memories. He shoved the newest paper inside, slamming the drawer shut. "How could they be so fucking careless?" he grumbled to no one in particular.

They did it on purpose, his mind told him. They were curious - that's why they reset the first time on the surface, so what was to stop them from getting curious again? They don't love you, or Papyrus, or Undyne, or anyone. You're just an experiment to them. You're always just somebody's experiment. You -

A sharp rap on the door roused him from his thoughts. Where had that come from? Experiments? He looked up, trying to bring his voice back to a normal tone and cadence. "I'll, uh, be out in a minute, Papyrus. Gimme a sec."

"SANS YOU ARE GOING TO BE LATE TO YOUR POST. UNDYNE WILL NOT BE HAPPY WITH YOU!"

"Is she ever, bro? If anything, I'm only meeting her expectations, right?"

"HOW YOU CAN CONTINUALLY COME UP WITH NEW EXCUSES FOR BEING LAZY IS BEYOND ME, BUT I HOPE YOU SEE THE ERROR IN YOUR WAYS SOON. I WILL BE OFF TO MY POST, SO I CAN CAPTURE A HUMAN AND JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD!"

Heavy footfalls muffled by snow followed Papyrus' departure, and Sans found his fingers fiddling with the drawer handles again. Another drawer slid open, and inside was his old photo album. Pictures from a timeline were often more helpful than his jumbled notes, so he'd started taking them and bringing them back to the workshop whenever they made it to the surface. Pages and pages of these pictures didn't help him now. Now, they made him angry. There wasn't even a picture that accurately represented the last timeline. He'd grown so comfortable that after the two year picture, he'd just forgotten.

As he shut the book more forcefully than was probably necessary, he noticed something in the back of the drawer. How odd. A lone picture frame sat wedged up against the side of the drawer. Setting the book down, he pulled it out, his face knitting in confusion. The picture inside was faded, but it seemed to be of… him? With a group of people? He tried brushing away the dust and tilting the frame to get a better look, but the glare from the lights was perpetual. When he slid the picture out from behind the glass, he noticed that the areas over their faces were faded out, completely obscuring them. What the…

There was another picture behind the first. This one seemed to have the same problem, but there was only one face to be hidden. He looked happy in the photos. He couldn't remember the last time he had looked that happy. Were these photos from before Frisk fell? They must have been, right? But, who was he with? He didn't recognize any of the bodies in the group photo, and everyone was wearing lab coats, their hands hidden in their pockets. The second picture was even more of a mystery. Just looking at it made his skull throb, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't concentrate directly on the mystery person.

He left the photos out on the counter, pushing the drawer shut. He didn't have time to think about it now; he had to go see a kid about a demon.

The path was the same. It was always the same. A thin film of powdery snow followed the breeze, making the ground seem just a little further away than it really was. He could never really remember any more, but he guessed he and… Tori? Tori, right? Tara? Tori? Had been a source of happiness in each other's lives before little Pacifist Frisk came along. It was always how he started the resets; was an old routine that he fell back into with too much ease. He raised his hand and knocked twice on the door, projecting a loud "Knock, knock," in its direction.

No one answered. A chill ran down his spine, and he contemplated turning on his heel and running into the trees. Did they kill her already? He let his hand fall against the door again, somewhat louder this time, and accompanied the motion with a more frantic, "Knock, knock?"

"Who is there?

A gasp of relief hitched in him, and he closed his eyes briefly, thanking whatever good still existed in the kid that they were strong enough to resist. For a moment, he forgot that he had something to say. No matter how many times Frisk reset, he had been true to his morality, which told him that he had to make every timeline as similar to the last as he could. Memories of repeated days and lines said over a thousand times, like something from a script, flooded back. "Snow," he said finally.

"Snow, who?"

Knowing what came next, Sans could not help a small sliver of misery from forming in him. "Snow use, I forgot my name again."

Her laughter was quieter, darker, and Sans braced himself for the promise to follow. Despite all the times he'd been through this, he still hated promises. Maybe it was because he couldn't ever guarantee that he'd keep this promise, or maybe some parts of his stubborn personality just persisted through the resets and darkness. "Hey, uh, that one got a pretty good laugh outta the folks at Grillby's… What's up?"

"I'm sorry, it's just something has been bothering me lately."

"Care to share?"

"If a human ever comes through this door, could you please, please promise something? Watch over them and protect them, will you not?"

He hesitated, if only for a moment, but, in the end, he responded as usual. "Sure, why not?"

He could think of plenty of reasons why not. A human kid took out Undyne's eye, they only needed one more soul to go free, humans were dangerous when confronted with things they were afraid of, and this particular human was grappling with more than just fear. But, he had never said no before, and while he was curious what would happen if he switched things up, curiosity was what started this whole cycle to begin with. Adding another layer could mess up everything. So, he said yes, and she perked up and thanked him and promised to come back even though she was busy right now. Sans never knew the whole truth of what happened behind the door before he met Frisk. What were they doing in the hours between his promise and his greeting?

He never knew before, so logic dictated that he never would. He could ask, but he felt that destroyed the integrity of the timelines. He couldn't expect himself to be omniscient - that would only make it harder for him to keep the script the same. Besides, it wasn't like he could even guarantee the knowledge would stick. Perhaps he'd already asked once before, and the answer was lost in another timeline.

Resigning himself to the wait, he trudged back to his sentry station and sat, slumping on the counter with his chin in his palm. He'd sit here for a few minutes, then go wandering into the forest like he always did. He wasn't sure how doing things differently before Frisk emerged from the Ruins would affect the timelines, but he didn't particularly want to find out. Well, that was a lie; he wanted nothing more than to experiment with the timelines and how far he could push the limits, but that would be putting him too close to in Frisk's shoes, and he could hardly be so hypocritical as to stop the kid from doing it and then turn around and do it himself. So, he sat and listened to the monsters passing by and reminded himself to buy some hot dogs before he finally heaved himself up from his chair and walked off. A rustle behind him alerted him that some monster had just left the conveniently-shaped lamp sitting in the snow, but he didn't turn around. He never turned around.

The forest looked as it always had: trees bundled too close together, snow inching up their trunks and reaching greedily for their few remaining leaves. Sometimes, he'd pluck on off and let it flutter down to the snow, it's edges trembling and shriveling upon impact. Nature magic - the most fragile magic of them all, he would think. Other times, he didn't stroll lazily through the forest, instead choosing to take shortcuts all throughout the trees, losing himself in the maze of trunks. Once, his shortcut had led him directly into a trunk, and that had not been a pleasant experience. He shuddered at the memory, recalling the weirdest discomfort he'd felt in his life. It hadn't really hurt, but the fact that there was a tree shoved through his ribs and half of his skull had still held true to what such a circumstance would feel like.

He wasn't entirely sure when it had happened. An early reset would make the most sense, seeing as my control over my powers still hadn't been perfect, but the earliest resets were the hardest to remember. Perhaps, he considered, it had been before the resets started. Those memories were, technically, the most recent, and so often popped into his head at the beginning of a new timeline. It was strange, knowing that years and years had passed since the actions were performed - since the memories were made - but they were as clear as if they had just happened. Probably, he supposed, because they had. We may call them timelines, but time is far from linear. If it was, my life would be a whole lot many years had he lived? How old was he, really? Sure, he could say he was 28, since that's how old he always was on this day, but how many times had the kid gone through the Underground? If they didn't break the barrier, the timelines lasted anywhere from less than a day to just over a week, but multiply that by whatever-ungodly-number of resets? That was years of life, years of memories swirling around in his head - years of memories that, according to time, never happened. Tack on the years spent on the surface and the number shot up even faster.

A distant rumbling filled the air, and he sighed. It was time, finally. He had grown used to the low scraping of the ruins doors over the resets, and had once begun to embrace the momentary panic and anxiety it filled him with. It was both comforting and unnerving, both transient and eternal; the sound of that door meant either his best friend or his worst enemy was walking out into the world, and he had no way of predicting which. He stepped through the void, reappearing just within the line of trees bordering the path.

The doors closed behind the small figure, and they looked around warily. No, not warily… shakily? The kid was frantic, their eyes darting in every direction as their head moved slowly. His promise to himself became increasingly difficult to keep as they called out in a small voice, uncharacteristically loud in the quiet forest.

"Sans?"

The voice was broken and weak, and he had to remind himself that they reset, and they'd better have a damn good excuse as to why. Hearing their voice only made it harder; the kid only used their voice when they were particularly scared or upset.

"Sans, plea-" their voice broke off mid word, and they lowered their head. They, too were remembering, he realized. Their mind was full of the memories from the previous timelines, each one clear as a bell and vivid as the blood that bloomed across their chest in so many of them. But they had no reason to be afraid. They were in control of this world, and had exhausted every possibility conceivable. Any and every way he could judge them, they had heard. They knew exactly how to get what they wanted, so why should they be afraid?

And yet, they had never called his name like this. They had never looked so goddamn scared before they had even met the people they should be scared of. He wanted to step out then and there, to confront them and get their excuses out of the way, but he stood rooted to the spot. He shouldn't. He couldn't.

Defeated, they walked forward, taking their steps slowly, reacclimatizing to the path they hadn't walked for six years. How was it fair that it was so unfamiliar to them but so familiar to him? In considering it unfair, he wasn't exactly sure who was getting the short end of the stick. Would he really rather remember everything? He watched as they walked carefully, stepping over the branch as though it was nothing. They sure remembered quickly. There was no looking around curiously, prodding every nook and cranny for secrets they'd forgotten, seeking images to jog their memory of the beginning. They knew exactly how this would play out, and they remembered it.

Had they been planning to reset? He got the vague impression that there were times they had spent locked in their room for hours, hidden away from everyone. He remembered asking Tori (Tori? Tori.) once what they were doing in there, and she had replied that they had taken up writing, and did not want to be disturbed. When he asked what they were writing, she had said they refused to show anyone, but that she had caught a glimpse and it seemed to be about the Underground. Were they reminding themself how things go down here? Were they reminding themself of the story that they were going to dive back into?

His fists clenched together and for a moment he thought he was going to shatter the bones in his hands, even through the thick winter gloves, but he released the tension after forcing a deep breath. Huh, never done that before. He supposed it was a residual effect of being around humans for so long in the previous timeline. They always told them to calm down and take a deep breath when they were upset, and even if he didn't have lungs, exactly, he had to admit it was calming.

Noting their distance up the path, he stepped out from the trees, treading lightly over the snow to avoid breaking the near-silence of nature. He approached the stick and raised his foot, bringing it down in a heavy stomp. His gravity magic may or may not have been used in assisting this stomp. After all, bones alone aren't all that heavy - a skeleton needs some help once in a while. The stick cracked, releasing a loud, hollow sound that echoed through the dense forest. Before the kid had a chance to turn around, he disappeared back into the trees. He reappeared a little further than he'd have liked, but not far enough that he missed their pleading voice cutting through the air again.

"Sans, please. Just come out and talk."

But he wouldn't. They had to meet at the bridge; they always met at the bridge. He reappeared behind them as they turned to the front again and continued walking. Following at a safe distance, he stuck to the shadows, hidden just enough to be visible only to those who knew where he was. Frisk never knew where he was. He watched them approach the bridge, and suddenly their steps became unsteady.

They were falling.

There wasn't any real need for him to help them; if he hadn't, they'd just be right back here anyway, one load of a save point later. Call it instinct, or conscience, or maybe just the fact that he didn't really feel like sitting through the last few hours again, but he was by their side in an instant, one hand wrapped around their arm and another looped around the gate on the bridge. He tried not to look them in the eye as he pulled them up, but despite his efforts, he still caught a glimpse of their face. It was full of fear and pain. They looked how he supposed he probably felt, deep down. It wasn't too hard, after all his practice, to push most of his emotions deeper and deeper down until he wasn't quite sure where exactly they were. These emotions bubbled up at night and when he started to drink, but what were a few thousand sleepless nights when they let him appear mostly sane to his friends?

They stood on the bridge in silence for a few moments, Frisk regaining their composure and balance and Sans pointedly looking anywhere but at them. His eyes came to rest on his slippers, and he examined their stark contrast against the dark wood.

"Sans, I'm- I'm so sorry, I just.. I just…"

He didn't look at them when he spoke. "Don't waste your breath on apologies. Explain."

"Sans it was- I was-" Their voice cracked when they spoke, and they cut off their sentence abruptly, tugging his sleeve with a small hand. He didn't look up, and they didn't speak. Finally, they simply grabbed his face and forced his gaze up, the magic in his joints crackling as his neck moved. His eyes landed on him, and he felt a strange pang in his chest. They were so young. He hadn't seen Frisk this young in, well, six years. This was the Frisk he had befriended and bespeckled with blood; this was the Frisk he had grown to love and grown to fear. It was shocking, to say the least. He wanted to chuckle for a moment as he realized they were once again shorter than him, but he suppressed it, holding his stony stare. A flash of movement made him notice they were signing to him, and at first he didn't look. Why should he indulge them after what they had done to him? They had caused him pain, so shouldn't he get to inflict a little on them, however indirectly?

But, eventually, he drew his pupils to their hands, giving in to his conscience. He was angry, sure, but he wasn't a bad person, right? How could any good person justify being so petty as to purposefully cause a child discomfort? He watched their hands carefully, grateful for their somewhat slower pace, since, although he had known sign language before Frisk fell, he had definitely gotten better with the practice of being their friend over the years. Their slower pace, however, did not stop them from rambling out an explanation to trump all rambles, which he somehow managed to process.

Sans, I didn't mean to, I swear. I was just really scared and I panicked when they killed Papyrus - he wasn't even fighting, Sans, he was trying to talk them down and he was just being so nice to them and Undyne was trying to get him to run or fight or do something but he just wouldn't and Toriel was so close to fighting them I could see the magic she was starting to use but I couldn't just let her hurt them and Undyne was so miserable that she couldn't even summon spears and she was being overwhelmed and I couldn't see you Sans I couldn't see you and I panicked I couldn't be responsible for your death again I just couldn't I had to stop it and I just couldn't focus on the save point and it all just reset before I could even stop it and-

He reached out, trapping their hands under his own.

"I'm so sorry, Sans. I'll make it right, I swear."

He didn't speak.