Throughout the next year Undyne suffered a lot of sleepless nights. Always when she thought she could have a peaceful rest, the epileptic visions would start to dance behind her eyelids- red and white dominating over the other colours. The nightmares would always end with a flash of bright blue light and evil laughter- where Undyne would wake with a start.

She had forgotten what it was like to have a house so quiet and still and lifeless. Where was Tess' breathing, Papyrus' snoring? The blue walls and kitchen and bedroom were not her home, nothing like the old hermit's house in the lower snow lands. A lot of times Undyne had to cuddle into the ages-old patchwork jacket, or listen to the busted MP3 to lull her into an uncomfortable sense of security. Somehow her Waterfall home felt colder than the one in isolated tundra.

Knock knock.

Undyne woke with a start- thankfully one might say, since the dream hadn't exactly been any different from all the other ones. She looked up wearily at the clock, which read midnight, and wondered why there was someone knocking at the door. She burrowed her head into her pillow, willing for them to go away, yet the knocking persisted. The person did seem to have a lot of patience...

Sighing and abandoning all hope of falling asleep, Undyne stood to her feet and found her way to the door in the dark. It opened, and Undyne felt her spirit lift for the first time in forever.

"Papyrus? What are you doing here?"

The skeleton gave her a small smile. "I came to see how you were holding up. I... I didn't wake you, did I?"

Undyne was shaking her head. "I've actually been having trouble sleeping."

"Yeah, me too."

Undyne moved aside to let Papyrus inside. The light flickered, and it took her a while to adjust to the suddenly bright light. She invited Papyrus to take a seat before getting the kettle brewing. "How's the lab? You have bigger company now there, don't you?"

"Dad hadn't changed," Papyrus replied, fidgeting with his hands on the table.

"He's still mainly concerned with his work, but he has been glad to see me. Sans was over the moon, but he has been following me everywhere... that's why I came here at night."

Undyne nodded her head in understanding. "What about that new girl?"

"Her name's Alphys," said Papyrus. "Now she's Sans' best friend since Lionheart got turned to stone. But she has been asking a lot about you," he added with a mischievous grin. "I think she likes you."

Undyne snarled under her breath. "She doesn't even know me. But I'm flattered that someone thinks I'm attractive."

Papyrus shrugged his shoulders as Undyne served the tea- golden flower tea, Tess' favourite. She sat down opposite him with a mug of her own, warming up her hands as steam rose from the golden liquid.

"Is that the scarf Tess made you?"

Papyrus nodded, taking a sip of the tea. Lucky he didn't have a tongue otherwise he would've burned it right off. He began to stroke his hands along the silky material nervously. It had been made from the old hermit's red curtains, the majority of which was eaten by moths.

"It's the only thing I have left of her," he explained, fiddling with the holey end of the scarf. "You've got her jacket, so you can't complain."

"I wasn't complaining." Undyne took a sip, then downed the entire mug in a single gulp. Some even leaked out her gills. "Lay off, punk," she hissed before Papyrus could even point it out. She put down the mug with a thud, almost smashing it to pieces, and sighed deeply. "Asgore had proposed that I become the Captain of the Royal Guard."

It was only a few months since Undyne had been made a Royal Guardsman, and while she had some resentment towards her membership to a group she had hated, all the others had been so supportive and so kind and nice towards her. Even her old bullies, which she hadn't been aware had joined the Royal Guard, had been somewhat sympathetic. Undyne had made more friends in the Royal Guard than in her entire life- actually scratch that. Tess and Papyrus were worth more than all the monsters she knew before or after.

Papyrus stopped fidgeting at once. "Congratulations! You'd make a wonderful Captain! And to be asked by His Majesty himself? It's an honour!"

Undyne exhaled a sharp breath. "Yeah, I would've said the same thing back when we were at school. Now the position had become somewhat ruined for me."

Papyrus swatted his hand as if it was nothing. "He's seen your true potential! I'd love to be part of the Royal Guard!" He stared off into space, chasing some unseen dream. "Think how powerful and popular I'd be if I were a Royal Guardsman."

Undyne rolled her eyes. "Since there is no Captain, the King decides who gets to be a Guardsman and who doesn't."

Papyrus blinked at her. "But once you become a Captain you'll make me a member of the Royal Guard, right?"

But Undyne didn't reply at first, and the pause lasted so long that Papyrus snapped out of his hopeful daydreaming and give Undyne a confused glare. "You will make me a member of the Royal Guard, right? Right?"

"It's not that I won't," Undyne murmured quietly "I'm saying that I'm not accepting King Asgore's offer."

Papyrus looked as if someone just told him that he didn't receive any presents for Christmas. "What? But that's the biggest honour you could possibly achieve! Don't you know how many of the Royal Guard would've given up everything to be the Captain? Everyone says that the new Captain will be the one who sets us all free."

The loud thud made Papyrus jump, and it took him a few moments to realise that Undyne had hit her own forehead against the table, some of the tea spilling out of Papyrus' mug.

"Papyrus, you're a genius."

The skeleton blushed and rubbed the back of his skull, flustered. "Oh dear, I- know that, but why the sudden flattery?"

"It's just one human soul we need now to be set free," Undyne whispered. "One more human soul and I can keep Tess' promise for her." She reached into the pocket of the patchwork jacket, her webbed hand clutching the precious MP3. "She wanted us to reach the surface." She raised her head slowly to look at Papyrus. "Do you think the ocean's a real thing?"

Papyrus shrugged his shoulders with a nonchalant 'IDK' noise. "Tessy also said that the sky is blue. Sometimes I actually thought Tess just made those things up, but Alphys said it's all real. She has these human-history books, and there's pictures!"

"I'll be sure to stop by the lab at some point," Undyne promised. "But what I can definitely promise you is that I will set everyone free. Think of it Papyrus, we'll see the sky, the ocean, everything Tess told us about! Just imagine it!"

Papyrus tried his best to imagine everything.

Undyne had never been in such a crowded room. There was so much monsters in the king's courtyard the faces melted together to be indistinguishable- yet Undyne knew that Papyrus was somewhere in that crowd. She couldn't distinguish his voice either, for the whole room seemed to be cheering her name.

And yet she walked alone down the thin passage, heavy black armour clacking together with every move she made. The footsteps were somehow louder than the millions of voices calling her name. In one hand he held the biggest spear she could summon, glowing and humming, as if it was singing but forgot the words.

King Asgore stood grandly before his throne, the deep purple cape billowing behind him in the breeze, the golden armour catching the light. An angelic creature he was, his goat-horns like a halo. And, like Undyne, he wielded a massive, long weapon in one hand- his signature ruby-red trident. The king stabbed the air with his trident, and in an instant the entire courtyard fell silent.

And now Undyne's footsteps were louder than anything else as she finished walking up to the throne. The walk seemed to last forever, yet it was over faster than she could even blink.

King Asgore was still the greatest monster in the underground, that ever existed. Now that Undyne stepped in front of him she felt a great tremor cause her heart to pound.

"Kneel," the king ordered.

Undyne obeyed. She plunged her spear into the ground at the king's feet, and dropped down to her knees before him. A murmur went through the crowd, and Undyne's heart leapt, full of emotion; she was proud, astonished, scared, uneasy and happy, all at the same time.

"You are Undyne the Undying, the Sea Wraith with scales the colour of sapphire, one of the three Missing Children," said the king. "You are a worthy member of the Royal Guard, a warrior we can rely on, a soldier we can cheer on."

The king tapped both her shoulders with his trident, the clinks of metal against metal echoing throughout the whole room.

He beckoned over one of the sentries, which happened to be a pure white Snowdog. It was her father's family... by extension hers. The Snowdog brought forward a helmet as black as the deepest night.

"Before I place the helmet over your head, Undyne, you must swear your loyalty to the Kingdom of Monsters."

Undyne could hardly get the words past her tight throat, though she did manage to speak the promise that every new Captain must uphold.

"I swear as the Captain to serve you, as I will with your subjects and anyone who calls for my aid. I will lead your armies to glory, I will make sure your people are safe, and I will protect anyone who is weaker than I am."

She lifted her head, and the King fitted the black helmet over her head. It was snug, fitted perfectly to the shape of her face. The openings for the eyes were separate, and the mouth was carved in the shape of a jagged, zig-zagged line. "Arise Captain Undyne the Undying."

And so Undyne stood, fully armoured, and drew her spear from the ground. As she did so, the entirety of the watching monsters erupted into thunderous applause.

"You're stirring it too slowly."

"I'm stirring it as fast as I can for heaven's sake!"

Undyne rolled her eyes, though the alternate option was to teach Papyrus to fight. He had come to her (again at midnight because Sans was still paranoid that he would go missing for another six years) asking to be made a member of the Royal Guard. And now that Undyne was the Captain, she had no excuse that she couldn't.

But Papyrus? A Royal Guardsman? It seemed selfish of Undyne, since Papyrus had fought alongside her against Lionheart and was actually pretty freaking tough, but she couldn't do it. Being in the Royal Guard meant going to war with dangerous humans- a thousand times more powerful than Tess. Undyne knew it all now, Alphys had shown her everything. Fully-evolved humans had awesome powers that they needed to learn and control, were capable of wielding swords up to twenty times their own size. No wonder Tess was so shabby- her 'quirks' and unreal abilities hadn't kicked in yet.

But letting Papyrus- Papyrus of all monsters- fight a fully-powered up human was a horrible idea. Granted he did hold his own against Lionheart quite well, but he never went for the kill. He could never truly hurt anybody else. He could never be the fierce warrior he always wanted to be.

So instead Undyne decided to teach him how to cook, to keep his mind off the dream he would never realise. And it was the only time Undyne truly thanked Papyrus' naivety.

Papyrus came home from Undyne's around five o'clock in the morning. At this rate Papyrus would become nocturnal, which wouldn't be allowed to happen because he had a lot of things to do. He had to cook, to train and finally become that Royal Guardsman that he always wanted to be.

The door was thankfully unlocked, just as he left it, and he stepped inside. The lights were all off, and Papyrus yawned. He should be able to get a full hour of sleep and still wake up before anybody else did.

He took the elevator down into the True Lab, where he and his family slept. Alphys had moved in last week, and honestly she wasn't that much of a problem. The more, the merrier. It was a shame that Undyne hated Hotland so much, otherwise Papyrus would've been able to persuade her to come live with them.

He was expecting silence of the night, yet instead what he was greeted with hysterical weeping. Thinking it was a nightmare, Papyrus rapped his fist against the side of his skull to make sure it wasn't a dream.

This sounded like a job for the Great Papyrus, didn't it? He headed left towards his father's main working area, where he was working on a weird Gaster-Blaster-like machine.

Yet when he came to the sight, his father was nowhere in sight, and the two short monsters were standing so still they seemed like statues themselves. The yellow lizard was crying, her claws covering her mouth, while Sans just stood there, motionless.

"Is... Is everything alright?" Papyrus hazard asking, cocking his head to the side in question. The two lab assistants jumped in fright, their terrified gazes met Papyrus' confused one. Well the question is definitely rhetorical, Papyrus decided. They're definitely not alright.

"I can make you guys some spaghetti to cheer you up!" Papyrus tried to bring them up after what he could only assume was a failed experiment. "Call Dad over and we can have breakfast."

At Gaster's mention Alphys just replied with a huge sob. "Gaster's..."

Papyrus looked to Sans when she couldn't finish. "Where's Dad?"

All Sans could say was; "Dad's gone."

"I don't know how you do it," Undyne said one day.

Papyrus paused in stirring the soup to give her a questioning gaze. He seemed flattered already, even though Undyne hadn't specified what exactly was it that Papyrus did. "It? What's it?"

"'It' as in how you're so cheerful all the time," Undyne specified, picking random notes on her piano. She had angled it away from the doorway so that the massive gash Lionheart left on the black paint would not be visible. "You lost more than anybody ever should, and yet you're so happy all the time. How do you do it?"

Papyrus only shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I just think to myself what others would've wanted if I was the one who was gone..." he looked Undyne square in the face. "I wouldn't want people to be sad after I've gone. I would want them to be happy, to tell happy memories of me instead of crying. That's what my mum and dad would've wanted, for me and Sans to be happy after they've gone." He raised his head to look at the ceiling. "Tess always said that she wanted us to see her surface world, that she would find a way to set us free. I guess that handing herself over to Asgore was her way of bringing us closer to finally being free. She would want us to be happy."

"That's the most serious thing I've ever heard you say," Undyne pointed out, laughing quietly.

"The Great Papyrus is always very serious about everything!" Papyrus said, accidentally dropping his wooden spoon with a loud clatter onto the ground. "I always provide moral support for everyone! Just do what I do, believe that everyone will be good if they just tried."

"You dropped your spoon."

Undyne could feel terror seep into her at the sight of the pure white landscape. She could hardly recall the wonder upon first seeing it all those years ago, untouched and preserved as if it had been stuck in time itself.

There were trees, still yet blurry, around the house she had spent six of her years living in, which seemed so close yet so out of her reach. And in front of the house stood Tess.

She was beautiful, standing there, smiling at Undyne and waving over at her. So genuine...

"No..." Undyne whispered to herself, then began to shout. "Tess! Tess get away from there!" Her legs couldn't move, forbidding her to run over to her, or even move at all.

Tess crooked her head to the side like a listening dog- one of her less-common habits. "Are you okay Undyne?" she asked, puzzled and worried. "You're freaking out."

"You have to run!" Undyne kept yelling. "Please! Run!

Thought Tess just looked confused. She shuffled her hands in the pockets of her beloved patchwork jacket, then looked back towards the house.

The lights had switched themselves on, and Undyne's stomach creeped further up her throat. "Tess you have to run! Run!"

"Undyne?" The girl began to back away from the house, which began to purr deeply and ominously, like the start of a tank's engine. "Undyne what's happening?"

The house burst open, shrapnel and shattered wood blown apart in all directions. From the depths of the house there came a horrible creature, a real monster, with glowing amber eyes, mane and claws of curled golden fire. It roared and laughed coldly, raising its long silver weapon above its head, ready to bring it down upon Tess' head. Tess screamed and finally began to run, yet it was too late. Undyne knew it. The creature slammed its fists down into the ground, flinging snow into the air and rendering the human no longer visible.

Finally she could run, and she ran forward so suddenly that she stumbled before breaking into a desperate sprint. She ran straight into the snowy fog, hands reaching out blindly.

She caught Tess in her arms.

The human had always been smaller than her, yet now she seemed so tiny. She collapsed right into Undyne, her hands gripping the fins on her back. And down the front of her torso, from her throat to her crotch, was a deep gash leaking red.

"Undyne!" She was trembling. "Undyne it hurts. It hurts so much."

"Don't worry, I've got you," Undyne stammered, clutching her human closer to her, hoping that her own body would block the massive wound that could not be closed. "I've got you, I've got you."

Tess had began to sob. "Don't let me go Undyne. Please, don't let me go."

"I won't," Undyne promised. "I won't ever."

Yet her skin started to crumble, she started to slip, to melt. Her breathing became quieter, her grip loosening.

In the corner of her eye she noticed the familiar yellow flower growing idly out of the ground, staring with his emotionless, empty eyes. "Let her go," he said to her.

"SHUT UP!" Undyne shouted. "COME AND HELP ME!"

But Flowey just stayed where he stayed, watching.

And Tess was crying.

It was so hard to hold onto her.

Impossible.

"No!" Undyne said, looking down into Tess' face.

And the whole thing hit her all at once. The moment this whole thing had building up to.

"NO!" Undyne screamed one final time.

And Tess spilled into white dust, blown away by the breeze.

"Let her go."

Undne woke with a start, screaming, the white, the red; it was all gone now. She was sweating, taking in deep breaths through her mouth as her single slitted pupil widened to adjust to the darkness.

Her hands were trembling, as if she had really tried to hold on with all her might.

I can't.