The dark of Alphys' lab overwhelmed you, as if closing the door had snuffed the farthest stars. Only the hum of machines and spinning escalators mapped the framework of your surroundings. The surveillance display flickered as a dim square of light and, past that, Alphys' computer monitor did the same. If you hadn't been here before, what lay ahead would have remained completely unknown to you.

"yo, alph," Sans called hesitantly. "you here?"

Silence. You doubted Alphys heard him, even if she were standing just across the room. His quiet cello of a voice had yet to return to its steady albeit soft-spoken thrum. Today, his words quivered as hardly more than a rustle of leaves.

Before you could say anything, he flipped the switch to his left.

A clinical fluorescence flooded the lab. You blinked, not only to combat the sudden lighting but in surprise he knew exactly where to find the button. In more than a hundred visits, you had never thought to search for it.

The two of you stared dead ahead, where you found Alphys, caught like a deer in the headlights.

She curled like a cat in her computer chair, dressed in pink flower pajamas. Over her head hooked an ordinary set of headphones, though modified with plastic cat ears and nylon whiskers. A string of ramen noodles hung out her mouth, stretched in yellow coils from the chopsticks at her lips to the styrofoam cup in her hand. Chicken flavor. The broth dribbled unfortunately down her shirt.

All at once, her reflexes caught up to her and she lurched back with an audible squeak. Her seat flipped out from under her. She dropped to her tail. The force of it yanked her headphones from the jack, and her audio defaulted to the external speakers at full volume.

"But, Masuka-chan," said a passionate male voice, "my kitsune form does not allow me to love. I fear like this we are destined to part. I can no longer remember the feelings that stirred my heart so …"

"No, please," said a female voice, "allow me but one chance to remind you, senpai …"

Alphys scrambled for the mouse and clicked furiously through a series of Mettaton pop-up ads until the audio disappeared. She took a moment to steady herself, then smiled at you guiltily. Her face steamed with more heat than the lava pits outside.

At this point, Sans was already wheezing against the wall. You smiled at Alphys sympathetically.

"O-o-oh my god!" said the dinosaur monster, as if she only now recognized you. She glanced around frantically and swatted away the lingering ramen noodles caught on her shirt. "Oh, n-no, the place is a wreck, I'm not even d-d-dressed … !"

"neither are those two in a minute, the way things are goin'," Sans managed to squeeze out.

Alphys nearly barfed up the ghost. Though muted, the video still played, displaying two extremely anime figures intertwining in the throes of passion. She panicked and unplugged her monitor altogether.

"You could've t-texted," she grumbled, slumped in defeat over her desk.

"yeah, guess i shoulda." Sans' smile diminished. "y'know i'm not much for it."

He and Alphys exchanged a meaningful glance.

"S-s-sorry," she said to you. "I'm Alphys, Asgore's r-r-royal scientist."

"y'mean spy-entist."

You elbowed Sans sharply in the ribs. He flinched and hissed an expletive under his breath.

Alphys' face burned again. "O-oh right, the cameras. Well." She lifted her eyes to the giant surveillance monitor, which displayed the group of you standing together on periwinkle blue tiles. "I guess it's n-no secret I've been watching you. F-f-f-for research!" She granted you a wobbly smile.

Her stutter. The sound of it always twisted your insides. In that lost future behind you, Alphys had nearly overcome it with years of effort, therapy, and friendly support. It could never escape your mind that, because of you, all her hard work had been reset.

"I lost track of you after Sans b-broke the bridge in Waterfall," said Alphys. "U-Undyne said she handled it but I d-d-didn't know how to interpret that, you know?"

Sans closed his heavy eyes resignedly. Just as he had suspected, Alphys knew almost everything.

"But I'm glad you're s-s-safe!" said Alphys. She approached you timidly. "I thought for sure Undyne was going to k-k-k-k-kill you!"

You smiled and shook your head. Then, after a moment's hesitation, you slipped your hand into your back pocket. Your fingers locked around a paper rectangle. Your heart hammered.

"She wanted me to give you this," you said, and proffered the envelope.

Sans raised an eyebrow bone.

"R-really?" Alphys took the letter from you cautiously. A bit of color returned to her face and she picked eagerly at the seams, only to frown when it refused to budge. "Huh. It's c-closed pretty tight. Hold on."

She almost tripped in her hurry to the escalator and rode it upstairs. Even if your comfort zone had been far more than breached, you couldn't help smiling.

"heh, how about that," said Sans.

When you turned to him, his face held such a fond look for you, your heart swelled without permission.

"guess you do listen, sometimes," he said.

All fear of the outcome, all anxiety toward taking a new path through the Underground, vanished fleetingly in the wake of his smile.

"Just sometimes," you said.

He ruffled your hair a little, enough to push your bangs into your eyes, and walked past you toward the moving stairs. You started to follow him, but the sudden shriek of power tools redacted your decision. You winced and held your still pounding head between your hands. No … you'd stay down here for now.

Sans slowed to a halt.

"still bad?" he murmured.

You nodded. Bad was, in truth, an understatement. If anything, it had grown worse.

"hang here a minute, kiddo," he said. "be back in a sec."

Sans stepped onto the next metal stair and let the escalator sweep him away.

You took a deep breath and looked for a seat. You reached down to lift Alphys' chair back onto its legs, but stopped only halfway there. Had you blinked, or … had the chair disappeared? You stared into empty ceramic tiles with nothing but your shadow staring back. When you turned to your right, the chair stood completely undisturbed at Alphys' desk, as if she had never bowled it over. Your eyes fixed on its pleather folds as if they had been possessed.

The persistent scream of violent machinery upstairs told you that, no, time hadn't slipped backward. As far as you knew, that power still lay beyond reach. Your hand felt for the back of the chair and, after garnering some faith, you sat. The seat neither gave way nor vanished.

On the desk beside you, Alphys' cup of instant ramen rested sealed and uncooked. You touched it uneasily. Room temperature. You glanced around for another cup of ramen because surely this couldn't be the same one. When you looked back, it was full, open, and steaming hot. You blinked, and it was an empty mess yet again.

"Sans?!" you called anxiously, though your voice remained unheard over the screaming tools upstairs.

At the top of the escalator, Sans surveyed Alphys' room curiously. The last time he had visited this place, it had served as nothing more than an old storage room. It felt surreal to see it adorned with so much … pastel. His eyes traveled from the bookcases to the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie poster to the fold-up-cube bed in the corner. His panicked heart calmed to see just how different the place had become. The changes nearly convinced him he stood in a different room altogether.

His grin stretched wider than a half moon. Alphys stood at her work table, chainsaw in hand. She tried and failed to rev it into action, over and over again. The letter lay flat and vulnerable. With every electric sputter, it quivered as if in fear.

Sans chuckled. Alphys whipped around to face him as if he had just crawled out from the laboratory depths and begged for dog food.

"you tellin' me ya ain't got a pair of scissors in this blade factory?" he asked. He pointedly nudged a wall-mounted bandsaw into a pendulum swing.

"Y-you've obviously never seen a letter from Und-dyne before," Alphys said with a sideways smile.

Sans stopped the tool flat against the wall and handed her a puzzled expression. "she's … sent you a letter before?" he asked.

"Uh." Alphys involuntarily halted her next attempt to start the chainsaw. Her brow furrowed. "Well, I … f-feel like she has," she said thoughtfully. "Can't remember when, though."

On her next try, she managed to ignite the machine, but even that failed to tear the seal. Chunks of metal flew away from the band in sparks, and by the time she decided to retract the saw, the envelope had already torn the chain apart. She tried a drill next, then a table saw, then a blowtorch. All had little effect. At that point, Sans stepped in and summoned a small skull with a flash of blue and yellow in his left eye. The manifestation opened its jaws and focused a small laser through the paper's edge. It cut clean open.

"Th-thanks," said Alphys.

As the skull vanished, Sans' eyes darkened wearily. "alph," he said, "can i get your ear a minute?"

Her talons stopped halfway to the letter. She adjusted her glasses and nervously smiled at him askance. "Wh-what for?"

He frowned, and her eyes darted guiltily away. He sighed and massaged the bridge between his eye sockets.

"i don't get it," he said. "why didn't ya tell me sooner? hell if i wasn't convinced … i was the only one who remembered him."

"I wasn't k-keeping anything from you, if that's what you mean," said Alphys quickly. "It h-happened so suddenly, out of nowhere. Earlier this week, when I was downstairs in the lab, I felt displaced and then … I remembered him, just like that."

Sans mulled this over. The timing and her "displacement" may have coincided with your last reset. If that were the case, had she remembered Dings with every reset and said nothing, or was this development more recent? In either scenario, her memory only contributed more evidence toward his hypothesis: your time travel had widened the rift.

Sans surfaced his phone and pretended to check messages as he scanned her. The results suggested some temporal instability, but no more than he or you had initially displayed. In whatever way the rift had affected you, it had affected Alphys as well.

"did you remember … anything else?" he asked quietly.

"I-I-I don't know," said Alphys, a little flustered. "I'm m-more curious how I forgot in the first place … although I can guess." She closed her eyes and covered her face with one hand. "The test. It backfired, didn't it? I w-wasn't there so I didn't see it but …"

At this point, you had deemed it safe to venture up the escalator, but Alphys' tone halted you at the corner. Your back flattened to the wall. Though you hated to eavesdrop, you wanted less to interrupt, and in no situation were you trying your hand at running down an "up" escalator.

"we fucked up bad," said Sans. "'cause of the experiment, time ain't what it should be and i'm worried it's getting worse. have you noticed anything … weird? anything you thought was strange or not what it should be?"

"S … sometimes," she said slowly. "Down in the lab. Things will either be g-gone or just … somewhere entirely different than where I left them. I just thought I was being s-scatterbrained, but n-n-now you have me worried."

Though your fears deepened in one way, in another you sighed in relief. So it wasn't your imagination that the chair had moved or the ramen had reverted. But that hardly mattered when considering the implications. Time was … getting worse? What did that mean? What did it mean for the Underground? And just how much more was Sans keeping from you?

"God. Wingdings." Alphys' hand slipped away from her eyes. "That's it, isn't it? That's the reason you left."

"alph." Sans' eye sockets emptied. "i know it was shitty of me. i had tunnel vision, all i could think about was dings and …"

"D-Don't apologize."

"i shoulda said more than nothin'. you and me were … pretty close."

"Yeah."

Sans shuffled his feet.

"I always figured," she said, "s-s-something had happened, even if I didn't remember. I spent y-years thinking about it but never worked it out. So I figured it was probably just … something I did."

Sans' soul weakened with guilt, and his chest hurt with a dull ache. He struggled to keep his face from showing it. Even though he understood Alphys and the struggles she faced, he had still chosen to leave her behind with no answers. He was so selfish.

The room felt to darken around him, but he tumbled back to reality when he felt her hand grip his sleeve.

"S-s-stop it," said Alphys. "Wh-whatever you're thinking, stop."

"but …"

"Your brother d-d-died. You're allowed to deal with that however you want."

Sans simply stood there, drowning in a million thoughts.

"what if … " he said finally, "what if he's still down there … ?"

Alphys jolted back from him. "Wh-what?"

You almost rounded the corner.

His mind circled back to every doubt, every worry that maybe—just maybe—he had imagined the gray child. He had gone so long without sleep. It would not surprise him if he had finally begun to unravel.

"heh. nothin', forget about it," he backpedaled uneasily. "just the denial talking." He pointed to the letter and grinned. "you gonna read that or am i gonna have to?"

Alphys hesitated a moment before reaching for the sheet of paper. She unfolded it between her hands.

You focused all your energy into keeping your heart from racing. You hadn't put two and two together, not until then. His brother's death and the experiment that had broken time … they were intertwined, weren't they? No wonder he had hesitated to come here. No wonder he feared the rift. Everything made so much more sense, from his protectiveness of you to his change in attitude after you had mentioned the gray door in Waterfall. Did he think you saw … him? He had never actually said his brother died, only that he had been lost. Stars, what must be going through his head right now?

Though you were bursting with questions, you knew it was a conversation for another time. You counted to ten and untied the sweater around your waist. As you rounded the corner, you began slipping it back over your head—the picture of nonchalance.

"oh, hey, bud," said Sans.

You waved through a dangling sleeve.

"was about to go get y …"

"O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh m-my wh-wh-what?" Alphys interrupted. The page hid all but her eyes, which peered over at you with alarm. "Y-y-y-y-y-you said Undyne wrote this? You're k-k-k-kidding, r-right?"

You beamed like a tricky sliver of early-hour sunlight. You shook your head.

Alphys blushed so furiously it was a wonder the letter didn't catch fire. "I d-d-didn't know she wrote so p-p-p-passionately!"

Sans snickered.

"So what does it say?" you asked innocently.

"Sh-she … she-she-she … likes me? I m-mean I'm paraphrasing b-b-but I think … she wants to go out?"

You and Sans did your best to act surprised.

"whaaaat," he said.

"No way," you said.

"Wh-wh-what do I do?"

"Well," you began, "what do you want to do?"

Whatever thoughts Alphys surfaced burned her face so hot it practically melted. She mumbled something under her breath.

"I want to go out with her," she said finally. "But I don't know where to start … g-g-god, I think I'm gonna puke …"

You looked at Sans. Despite his apparent weariness, the lights of his eyes shined bright with amusement. They darted toward Alphys encouragingly.

You reached out and touched her arm.

"If you let me," you said, "maybe I could help."

Just as something like realization overtook Alphys' face, a large metal clang echoed through the walls. Each of you stiffened for a different reason.

"What was that?" she asked.

CLANG.

You flinched. Sans' eyelights rolled back and disappeared into his skull as if clocking out for the day.

CLANG.

"Oh, no." Alphys' voice came deep and hollow.

A brief moment of silence. Then, the wall exploded. Chunks of drywall launched across the room. Posters shredded into streamers. A gray box of a robot balanced on one wheel in the new opening.

"OHHH, YES!" Mettaton shouted. He swept his white-gloved hand and microphone in a joyous arc, as if the wall had only been wrapping paper and he, the delightful gift inside.

"M-M-M-M-Mettaton, what are you doing!" Alphys yipped, then whispered, "I d-didn't use the signal."

"Welcome, Beauties, to today's quiz show!" Mettaton continued anyway. "Oh, boy! I can already tell it's going to be a great show. Everyone give a big hand for our wonderful contestant."

Alphys fought for his attention over his uproarious applause. Confetti fell from … somewhere.

"M-M-Mettaton, stop!" Alphys hissed. "I've … I've changed my mind!"

This response stunned you. Mettaton paused, then turned the buttons of his face to his old friend. For a moment, you honestly believed he might listen to her. Then, he laughed.

"Alphys, sweetie," he teased, "the show must go on!"

Of course it did.

While you danced for your life on Mettaton's broadcast, Sans reclined toward the back of MTT Resort Restaurant, dirty feet propped on the tablecloth. Beneath his Queen Anne dining chair, a meticulously masoned pattern of white marble stitched across the floor. White walls danced with candlelight from every romantic place setting, only disrupted by the dim yellow spotlight over a wooden platform. A lone microphone clung to its metal tripod, silent though center stage.

Regulars scattered among the seating, safely distanced from the throng of Hotland monsters crowding two television screens. They hung off your performance with bated breath. Sans tried not to.

On your first journey, he had watched. His heart had pounded to the beat of the music, to your every rhythmic step and dodge. By that point he had already suspected you were a time thief, though he had hypothesized you could only slip back a little, maybe a few minutes per go. Your resilience, your determination, was truly something to witness. He had been awestruck, then, rather than worried.

Now, he squirted a thick layer of ketchup onto his bloody mary—though he assumed Mettaton had named it something much prettier—and let it slide down his throat like an antidotal tomato milkshake. His soul buzzed briefly. After one hundred fifty years, that was about the only high he could get from this kind of magic. Too bad, he supposed. He would have loved to be the drunk uncle—drunkle. He giggled.

The crowd devoured your every pose, every targeted use of MTT branding, every glimpse of determination. As you flashed your starfait, Sans lifted his own empty glass to the large green fish monster at reception.

"yo, reg, can i get another?" he called.

Reg returned a broad, toothy smile. Between them, another monster swung his inebriated head full circle.

"Hey," he slurred. "It's Comic Sans! Where've you b … been?"

Sans finished brushing the layer of gold leaf and glitter he had peeled off his last drink into a glamorous pile. "beats me," he answered with a playful shrug. He nodded toward a sign board by the empty, dimly lit performer's stage. "weekly lineup might shed some light on that."

The monster, something like a slender salamander of molten lava, slithered sloppily toward his table. Nuggets of hot sludge dripped onto the floor with steam and gasps of hate for the cold. The heat of him crawled through Sans' bones in a sickening way that reminded him of an igneous death.

He grimaced to recognize one of his old hecklers.

"haha, that wasn't very ffffunny," the salamander garbled. He blinked one eye and then the other. "tell me a joke."

Sans again motioned to the board. "schedule's right there, bud. come back when i'm on."

"Just one … joke," he insisted.

"heh, you're lookin' at it," Sans tried. "fuckin' hilarious if you ask me."

By the frown that pulled at those red-hot jowls, Sans knew his charisma hadn't saved him.

"That wasn't funny e … either."

Sans pinched the bone between his eyes and muttered incoherent curses. "look, pal," he said. "i've had a bad week and i just wanna down a few drinks, maybe snag a room for a nap. is that too much to ask?"

That frown only deepened.

"Slips," called a more sober monster to ease the tension. "Come 'ere. I got a good one for ya."

Sans stared impassively back into the salamander's seething, inebriated glare.

"Hack," Slips spat.

"wet lizard." Sans quickly found his shirt neck burning in a hot fist.

"the fuck did you say to me, anthro?"

At that, nearly every monster in the restaurant fell silent. Expressions of shock and unease calcified the air; every step, gasp, or whisper echoed as if out in the caverns. The drunken one's friend stood slowly, painfully.

Sans' eyes had emptied. Blue magic smoked off his fingertips like a curl of peaceless incense. The room had dimmed near to darkness, and so had the television screens.

"haven't heard that one in a while," he rumbled quietly, dangerously. " ?"

A large silhouette invaded their space. That massive green fish monster, the usual host and showrunner of MTT Restaurant, towered intimidatingly over the lavamander. She slid a new bloody mary slowly across Sans' table.

The grip on Sans' shirt immediately vanished.

"Go home, Slips," she gurgled. "That kind of language isn't acceptable here. Neither is disrespecting one of my comics."

"But … !"

"GO HOME."

"eh, forgetaboutit," Sans said. His chair legs scratched against marble and he chugged the deep red paste, glitter and all. "was leavin' anyway," he sighed in a gust of tomato breath. "how much i owe ya, reggie?"

"On me," said the fish monster.

Sans walked it off through the burning wastes of Hotland, down a path he had traveled so many times it took no thought. The overpowering aroma of carcinogens awakened nostalgia for the early days, when this place had been nothing more than a wasteland of fire only elementals braved on a childish dare.

How long had it taken to construct that powerful volcanic device swimming in the distance? If lifespans had been the same for monsters as humans, the project might have stolen the golden years of his middle brother's youth.

This path overlooked the great machine thereafter referred to as "the Core." He remembered when Wingdings had first formulated the idea to transmute lava into energy for the Underground. Fallen transcripts from above, detailing how humans had expanded their knowledge of fire magic into lightning, had sparked his genius before adulthood. Harnessing the magic of the earth itself so that no monster wasted their energy on simple needs was the pinnacle of resourcefulness.

Sans—already submerged, body and soul, in the study of quantum physics—had done everything to encourage him. He helped Dings salvage components from the dump, dissected electronics, and deciphered old texts that fell from the human world. Following Wingdings' design, Sans had helped him assemble a successful prototype for the Core, which his brother had presented to the royal family. It was amazing to think that what had begun as a coping mechanism for their father's death had rewarded the Underground so profoundly.

After the invention's successful implementation, Asgore repaid him with a permanent position as royal scientist, a title that had never before existed. On the same night they celebrated the Core's installment, Sans found Wingdings far away from the party, looking toward his creation with empty eyes. They had stood roughly where Sans did now.

"somethin' sinking your ship, bro?" Sans had asked.

Wingdings sighed more audibly than was necessary. Sans looked up into his face, unconvinced.

"I know I should be happy, but …" Dings leaned on the banister as if deeply troubled. "It's such a little thing and it really shouldn't bother me as much as it does; it really doesn't make a difference; words are just words …"

"it's the name isn't it?"

"Yes, god," Dings burst, eyelights practically rolling to the back of his head. "I mean, royal scientist? Couldn't he have hired a royal namemaker first?"

"should've turned him down on principle."

Wingdings sputtered with a laugh that could only be described as contagious. As their humor mellowed, however, his eyelights swept back to the Core, a little dimmer than before.

"It's not a permanent fix," Dings said quietly.

"that's not the point, is it?" said Sans with a sideways smile. "think about how many people this is gonna help, or how much easier life's gonna be from here on out."

"Here on out," he echoed with a frown. His posture squared shrewdly. "Building this machine is like I installed an indoor pool on a falling satellite, or painted a bottle rocket gold, or … or put gyftmas lights on a tree in a forest fire. It doesn't matter if the whole thing's going up in flames anyway." He gestured to the distant core. "Behold my magnum opus: 'band-aid on broken bone.'"

Sans took a moment to consider what he said, but not long before Dings planted an exuberant hand on his shoulder.

"Ugh, wow, tell me those were good metaphors. So fucking good. You all are just … so blessed to have me, y'know? Once in a lifetime monster prodigy here. God, was I on fire. Have they announced my nomination yet?"

"the ballots are in and it looks like the winner for 'most on fire' goes to …" He pretended to open a letter and read it. "grillby."

"Fucking Grillby."

Sans giggled.

"Looking at the math, though," Wingdings continued, "with or without the Core, we're due to run out of resources in only a few centuries. Our only chance of survival is to just … find a way out."

Sans looked on to their brand new power source. The creativity, innovation, and sheer intelligence it took to manufacture were nothing short of genius.

"then you'll just have to figure that out too."

Wingdings smiled warmly, and Sans did too. He had every hope for the future when standing at his brother's side.

Sans stared at the ceiling now as he did then. He wondered how things might have changed if everything had played out differently, even if minutely. Would they have found their way out if not for the rift? Would he still have his brother? And if he had his brother … would he have you?

As monsters walked past him in a steady blur of warmth and color, he caught wind of something that didn't quite belong. Its presence overcame his senses like a foul odor, only it could not be described with any of the five senses. It was simply … wrong. He turned his head, and his bones chilled as if thrown into frozen oceans.

Among the usual crowd walked someone entirely out of place, entirely in gray. He walked together with a group of Hotland civilians into one of the elevators at the far end of the rock pathway. They piled in, and the doors began to close.

Sans only stared at first, stunned to his wit's end. The moment he gathered his senses, he teleported outside the machine. Inside, no one seemed to notice the out-of-place man in gray. In turn, the man in gray did not seem to notice Sans.

The silver metal doors slid shut in the skeleton's face. Sans cursed and tapped at the button desperately, but the following thrum of electricity signaled its escape.

Sans' mind raced. His soul shook. With its innovative design, the elevator could have gone anywhere: left, right, up, down. There was no way he could check every port on foot, at least not in time. Just teleporting that short distance had been difficult for him, not only because of his current state, but … space had simply resisted him. His attempts to fold it had been labored, as if there were multiple pages stacked into one origami sheet. He chose not to question it and steeled his resolve.

He dropped in and out of reality at every doorway until, just when he thought another teleport might rip him apart, he found the monster in gray. He landed on his feet, felt his soul split with another hairline fracture. Though his insides were on fire, he hurried after the anomaly, cutting a line in dry earth to run as fast as he did.

As the stranger turned a corner into a secluded off-shoot of the platform, however, the strain of what Sans was doing finally caught up to him. He gasped for breath, felt the sweat slip down his back.

No, he thought. He had to reach him. He had to know more.

He didn't have a choice. As he neared the gray man, his outline became blurry. Sans' mind spiraled away from him against his will and his eye sockets darkened into black caves. The ground reached up to catch him.

After giving Alphys your undying support to call Undyne, you roleplayed the outing to her heart's content. The practice might have benefited from a little more seriousness, probably could have done without exaggeration on your part, but you had fun.

Defeating Mettaton had been a bit more challenging than you remembered, though Sans had lended you his dimensional box so you could stock up twice as many Glamburgers. The ratings had been phenomenal, better than ever. Even so, the conflict ended as it always had with a powerless, limbless pink machine.

What had changed, to your surprise, was Alphys. This time, she had admitted her plan from the start. Something about your offer to help, or perhaps receiving the letter from Undyne, had leached the fuel from her jets. She guided you through Mettaton's mazes with earnest, apologizing profusely along the way.

"You didn't have to tell me," you said among the remnants of her bedroom. "What made you?"

"Um," she began uneasily. "I got this feeling, d-d-deja vu, kind of. L-like I was about to make a b-b-big mistake. That I didn't have to p-pretend to help you in order to make you my friend bec-c-cause … you already were." She grimaced into the small clothes closet across her cube bed. "That's weird, huh?"

You shrugged, though the answer intrigued you. It was as if she remembered but not completely. The thought turned your stomach. What if the memories came back one day, all one hundred thirty-four of them?

As Alphys spread her black and white polka dot dress across the smooth, flat surface of her cube bed, she became very quiet.

"What's wrong?" you asked, although you could guess.

"I-I don't know if I can do this …"

"Don't you like her?"

"I d-do! It's just that she's … so far out of my league." Alphys' shoulders started sinking. "So cool, and c-confident, and funny … and I'm just a nobody."

"Alphys …"

"E-everything she knows about me is a l-l-lie. If she likes me, it's because I pretended to be way c-cooler than I really am. And if she saw the real me … she'd change her mind."

You stood straight and filled your lungs with a preparatory breath. Channeling the energy of the one and only Papyrus, you dropped a hand on her shoulder and spangled your eyes with stars.

"You're not nobody, Alphys!" you said. "Undyne wrote that letter for you, because you are cool! And smart! And passionate about the things you like! And the best part is I didn't even say all that; she did! I bet Undyne doesn't even care about that other stuff. I bet whatever it is, if you told her the truth, she'd understand."

"Th-the truth?" Her face blanched as if Endogeny had just appeared unprompted behind you. "B-but what if she doesn't like me anymore? What if she …?" She melted with resignation. "No, you're right. I should own up to my mistakes. Even if she hates me. Even if she realizes I'm a l-l-lo …"

"… Lovely person?" you filled in before she could get the chance.

Alphys didn't seem so sure of that, but she smiled. "Th-thanks," she said. "You know … when I saw Sans helping you, I thought I understood why but I was wrong. It's because you don't d-deserve to have your soul taken. You're a good person."

For the first time in a long time, that statement fell flat on your ears. After taking away everyone's happy ending, after nearly destroying Sans through countless resets, did you really deserve to be called "good?" Would saving everyone all over again be enough to forgive you?

You realized Alphys had pressed something into your hand. Your fingers uncoiled to reveal a quad-colored rectangle: a master key card to the true lab.

"I'm n-not a good person," said Alphys, looking sadly away. "If you use the elevator downstairs—th-the 'bathroom'—you'll see for yourself. I'd unders-s-stand if you didn't want to be friends anymore, after knowing what's down there."

You stared at the key a long moment and, after some deliberation, extended it back to her. "I don't need to."

The dinosaur monster froze as if you had poured liquid nitrogen down her back. "Wh-wh-wh-what do you mean?"

"The truth is … I'm not a good person either," you said. "I've done some things I regret. I've hurt people. But I'm trying to fix it. I think … that's the real reason why Sans is here with me. When you own up to your mistakes and try to do the right thing, your friends will be there to help you. Right?"

Alphys stared at you as if you were an otherworldly being.

"So it doesn't matter to me what's down there," you said. "All you have to do is promise you'll do what you can to make it right. Me, and Undyne, and Sans, everyone … we'll be here for you."

Alphys smiled and her glasses filled with tears. "Okay," she sniffled.

As you offered her the key again, she shook her head and pressed it back into your hands.

"K-keep it. Who knows? You might need it later."

Before Sans even lifted his head, he was convinced he had lost the gray stranger. His mind had only blinked, but his body told him he had rested there much longer. The monster had probably vanished by now. He pressed his forehead into the ground and cursed himself.

"He was right; you do like to sleep," said a voice, familiar in the sensation that it should not exist.

Sans opened his eyes to find himself exactly where he had fallen, staring into a pair of very gray leather business shoes. He followed the pleated pant leg up into a chillingly hollow face, empty save for the sickly wide smile that stretched across it now.

He stood shakily and eyed the monster. Judging by that awful grin, the man didn't care one bit. Had he been standing there, watching him this whole time? Suspicious that no one had found them.

This time, he was ready. He had his phone out in a few seconds, scanning, reading this person from head to toe. What he glimpsed on the screen defied all explanation, but he would look at it later. He pocketed it and faced the man who was, alarmingly, a little closer to him than before.

"You're shorter than I expected," said the gray one.

"heh … that's what ya get for havin' high hopes," said Sans uncertainly.

"I suppose if you're a skeleton, you have to be his brother … even if you're not much to look at."

Sans narrowed his eyes. He already liked Goner Kid better.

"He wants to see you," said the stranger.

Sans blinked. "what?"

"Oh, dear. Are you losing sight of me, or are you just deaf?"

"watch it," Sans snipped. "what do you mean, he wants to see me? how? wh … where do i even go?"

"Where's the first place you look, when you've lost something?"

Sans' eye sockets hollowed out entirely.

As the gray monster laughed in a way most suitable for his wide mouth, Sans' head quickly became an unpleasant field of static. By the time it had cleared, the man was gone.

Notes

Shew! That one took a lot out of me. Sorry it's late! Hoping to get ahead soon, since I'll be on vacation in a week, but we'll see about that.

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Next Up! Dating, Start! AKA Will Sans accept the invitation?