A/N: Wanted to get this out before the weekend. :) Hope you enjoy!

Past shimmering magic and the inner turmoil of a hundred souls, another heart-ached voice cried out. Its miserable, forsaken ballad reverberated across your ancient bond. You clung to Sans' hand like a lifeline. You knew who waited for you beyond the veil. More than ever, you wanted to save him, though words had never been enough.

"Asriel," you called.

His winged form faded into sight among hazy, darkened rainbows. His muzzle hid in his claws. He appeared confused, scrambled, as if all his motivations had fallen out of sight. The souls that had become him no longer listened. They had filled him with emotions beyond anger and hate and abandoned him to face his demons.

In all his terrible majesty, the frightening creature Asriel had become did not deter you. When you glanced back for reassurance, Sans released his grip with an encouraging nod. You stepped as near as you could and touched a small hand to Asriel's shoulder.

"Azzy . . ." you said more dearly.

"What . . . what did you do?" he murmured. Behind his talons, his eyes shone with sadness, confusion, and anger. "What's this feeling?"

"It's okay," you chose to reassure him. "I'm here."

"No. NO!" he snarled and tore away. "I don't need you. I don't need anyone!"

A hundred tiny comets gathered at his hands. You took a step back, knowing too well the rain of destruction that followed. With a single push of his arms, those projectiles charged you like a murder of crows after scraps. They whizzed like fireworks past your head, fanning wild the burnt umbre of your hair. You followed the steps you had always taken to avoid their pattern, but this formation was different. Without thinking, you dodged one bullet directly into the path of another.

Sans pulled you out of the way with less than a moment to spare. With a crack and blue flash, his shortcut shifted both of you just a few yards from a meteor shower and cosmic annihilation. Your arms clung to his, shaking. This time, you were truly grateful he had stepped in to save you from the treacherous walk along your tightrope.

"Why?" Asriel snapped. "Why do you like playing with him more than me?!"

The magic that had once immobilized Sans outside this dreamspace now crushed him. Pain splintered through every fiber of his body. Though he resisted, Asriel's raw, merciless strength forced him out of your hold to his knees. One bone snapped, then two. If he could breathe he might have screamed or even begged, anything beyond the wild silent grimace seizing him now. Bright stars burst behind his darkening eyes. Red began to spark and burn bright in his chest.

"Stop!" you yelped. "You're killing him!"

Asriel certainly knew. A rage more personal than you had ever witnessed gnarled his face. His razorlike claws curled to channel his magic with mounting pressure. Sans buckled under the torture running fissures through his bones. You dropped to his side and held his cracking form close.

You knew Asriel did it to hurt you. You knew he did it to break Sans' determined spirit. There was nothing Sans could do to stop it. There was nothing you could do. There was no escape.

You bit back your hopelessness. No. Giving up was exactly what Asriel wanted. Plenty of opportunity had passed to surrender, and now was not the time to relent. You pushed yourself firmly to your feet to chase one more chance.

"Get away from me," Asriel growled as you approached again. He bared his teeth. "You think I won't tear you apart?"

You clenched your fists and walked forward defiantly.

"I said get away!"

You had already locked your arms around him.

The fury of his magic sputtered like an engine out of fuel. The invisible death grip crushing Sans squeezed tighter, then tighter . . . then slowly released. Asriel's shoulders slumped.

Sans coughed dust and shuddered amid the red threads sewing him back together. For a long moment, he simply lay there, mind racing with shock and trauma and relief to be free of him. His natural sense for the inner soul, what he focused to ascertain your sins, tasted sour with malintent. Asriel had wanted him to hurt. He had wanted him to pay.

"Let go," growled Asriel. He had again curled into himself. "Let me win . . ."

"Please," you said. "Please, Azzy, you don't have to do this anymore."

"It's the only way you'll stay with me," he protested. He hung his head over your shoulder. "I'm not ready for things to end."

Sans bitterly rose, muttering several choice words that described "the prince of this world" a little less kindly.

"It doesn't have to," you said into the great emblem on Asriel's chest. "It can keep going. You and me, into the sunset, on the surface."

"No," he said. "I can't. I'll be a heartless little flower running around the Underground, all alone, forever." Tears sped down his face. "I'm so afraid, Chara."

His broad, frightening pauldrons and sharp talons retracted. As his silhouette shrank in more than posture, a small, sobbing boss monster child in a green striped sweater took his place. He clung to you as if letting go would untether him from port, sending him adrift into the maelstrom again.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

Asriel wept at length on your shoulder.

As he watched, a realization both blistering and chilling crept over Sans' soul. After everything, his great and terrible adversary had been nothing more than a frightened child. He set his teeth and bit his tongue, every inch haunted by the phantom pains of snapping apart. Was any context enough to forgive him?

From the mist of his memory, Toriel emerged. He remembered her grief, her loneliness, the children she had lost. He thought of you, how you had loved the soulless flower enough to save him, even though you couldn't remember why.

His heart calmed. If he could reconcile anything, it was that he loved you more than he wanted to hurt him.

Eventually, Asriel dried his eyes and smiled at you faintly. "I always was a crybaby, wasn't I?"

You nodded. "Just a little."

He surveyed you as if you had returned from the dead—and for all accounts and purposes, this was true. "Is it really you?" he asked. "Are you really . . . Chara?"

You pondered this for a long moment and for many long moments to come. Chara was the name you had been given at the start of your journey. It was this name that fueled the fire behind Asgore's law, this name that had given weight to Wingdings' final experiment, this name that had led Asriel down misery's path. What were you if not the culmination of your experiences? All you had remembered could not be unwritten. And yet someone had reminded you that who you once were and who you could be were two entirely different things. You were not tethered to your ghosts. The road ahead was yours to choose.

You met Sans' gaze over your shoulder. He stood a safe distance away, hands pocketed, even if his posture were tense. His left eye burned brighter than the right, at the ready, apprehensive but following your lead. Trust. Even when you lost sight of yourself, he believed in you. He always would. You wanted to be that person.

You wanted to deserve it.

"I go by Frisk now," you said.

Sans' burning eye sparked with blue and gold like fireworks.

Asriel studied the emotions passing between you. Bittersweetness tainted his smile.

"I was so jealous," he said, "of you two. I still am. It's . . . childish, isn't it?"

"an ass-toot observation," Sans muttered under his breath.

To his surprise, Asriel actually chuckled, even if small and removed with sadness. Sans' hackles relaxed marginally at the sound. Even at its coldest, his heart always melted to a child's laughter.

"Sorry," Asriel said bashfully, then continued, "I know I can't have you all to myself. That's not fair. I'm . . . not entirely sure what brought you together but . . . I can tell it was special." His small frame shrank further. "I didn't understand that the way I was 'playing' was hurting you . . . or maybe I did. I didn't care. I couldn't care. And Sans, you were only protecting them. You were doing what I should have done. I'm so sorry."

Sans teetered between accepting and refuting the apology. Then, he turned his eyes away, content to do neither.

Asriel nodded knowingly.

"There's no excuse for what I did," he said. "I hurt you. I hurt so many people. Friends, family, bystanders . . . I understand if you can't forgive me."

Your heart sank to recognize his words. You knew what he planned to do and what it meant. Like every time before, he would break the barrier and return to the Underground's depths while the rest of monsterkind walked on sandy beaches under a bright blue sky. You would forgive him, and it wouldn't matter.

"You'll do great," he said quietly. "They believe in you." His eyes drifted to Sans. "Both of you. Whatever you do . . . don't give up."

As Asriel's young form ascended with mounting energy, Sans rejoined your side.

When he had broken the barrier in the past, Sans only experienced the sensation of a colossal power falling around him. Every time, a great, bright light had enveloped him and when he opened his eyes, their long-coveted freedom waited just ahead. To be here, standing among every soul accumulating with fervor, radiating like the sun, streaking through the darkness like new stars—the vision was nothing short of phenomenal.

He rested a hand on your shoulder. His eyes stared into the lights with the same enamoration you had felt roaming the magical streets of New Home. The instant you looked into his face, this moment that had become one of sadness came alive again. You smiled, thankful to share this with him, grateful to have him by your side.

As the barrier shattered into a thousand pieces, Sans' rapture twisted into dark apprehension. The sight shook you. Shouldn't he be happy?

Before you could ask him what was wrong, that familiar brightness overtook you more quickly than it ever had before and spat you out from this nightmare into the real world once again.

Your souls burst from Asriel like a flying fish from the water. They rocketed through the air in search of home, spinning around each other like sparklers in a gush of red glitter. Then, they found their marks. They took off like shooting stars, straight toward their empty shells.

The sound of his name called Sans back to life. It sounded spoken at a distance, shrilly, and in dramatic sobs begging him to wake up. The words grew louder until bouncing around his skull. He squirmed in a pair of bony arms that gripped him far too tightly.

"can't . . . breathe," he wheezed. He tapped out faintly, three slaps to the dirty, broken floor. "bruh . . ."

"SANS!" screamed Papyrus.

Sans gasped as his brother unsealed the vacuum in his ribcage. He coughed and gagged.

"FINALLY!" Papyrus wiped frantically at his face. "LAZYBONES. ALWAYS NAPPING."

Sans blinked up at him from his lap, color rising. "were you cryin'?" he asked.

"NO!" said Papyrus. "I DON'T CRY! I JUST . . . CAUGHT SOMETHING IN MY EYE."

A smile crept onto Sans' face to recognize this age-old exchange. "what did you catch?"

"TEARS!"

Sans chortled, and Papyrus' haughty facade quickly crumbled to join him. Skull to skull, arms around each other's necks, their laughter came from a place much deeper than humor. It echoed through the overfilled halls until every monster in the Underground knew just how happy they were to be alive and together again.

As their voices calmed to smiles, Sans fondly rubbed the smooth bone of his brother's skull, the same way as he had when the stalk was only a bean. On an average day, Papyrus would have protested, but things were different now.

Sans tallied his friends. They had flocked together around Asgore's fresh hole in the wall, where he had sheltered your empty body. His relief dissipated. He climbed out of Papyrus' arms and scrambled through rocks, debris, and cracked hallway floors. Just inside the group, he tripped and fell over his own shoelaces, but that did not stop him. He elbowed his way to the front past Undyne and Asgore on his knees.

Hardly a breath stirred your chest, though subtleties of that new color had returned to your cheeks. A fresh breeze tickled your skin and sunlight glimmered across you with true, unabated warmth. Birds whistled a disjointed chorus into your ears. Though your new name danced around your head in many voices, only one drew you out from the reverie.

"frisk? frisk. frisk!" Sans snapped his fingers in front of your eyes. "c'mon, kid. don' scare me any more than you gotta."

You pushed his hand away. "Back up or get chucked on," you gulped. You rolled over and buried your head in your arms, fighting the urge to expel your guts all over the broken floor. Your vision swam. As the memory of today's events unfolded behind your eyes, however, you bolted upright and swung your head around.

"The barrier," you said.

"Broken," Toriel answered, gently brushing the hair off your forehead, "with thanks to you . . . Frisk."

Her touch had felt different, familiar and knowing, timid and shaking. In the dampened, ocean-salted fur of her cheeks bled an aching recognition. Without doubt, she saw the truth of who you really were, even if she didn't understand it. You opened your mouth, but someone else called to her first.

"Mom?"

Every face turned toward the flower bed.

Sans' clenched your shoulder, then, trepidly, he helped you stand. Your eyes, so bright, so nearly crimson, widened to brand this sun-crisped sight on the inner pages of your soul. Your determination swelled red hot until overflowing.

There, among emerald leaves and amber petals, stood Asriel.

He looked just as he had the day you met, daylight burning in a familiar halo off pale white fur. His hands, small, frightened, and confused, held his attention. One paw retracted to clutch his heart, as if something unexpected resided there, as if for the first time he felt alive and whole and real.

"Why am I . . . here?" he asked breathlessly. "What is this inside me? Who . . ."

A moment of awestruck silence filled the passage. Then, to everyone's surprise, Sans burst out laughing. He chuckled like a pull string doll, arms clutching his stomach with relief and joy and perhaps a slightly twisted sense of humor. Papyrus raised a cold hand to slap him upside the head but before he could, Sans pointed a bony finger at Asriel.

"you stole your own soul, you idiot," he laughed.

Asriel blinked. "Huh?"

Before he could slip in another word, you had flung your arms around him and tumbled him down into a knot. Leaves, pollen, and petals burst into the air as if to punctuate the act, or perhaps to celebrate it. You nuzzled into the bright fur of your long lost friend, your brother, here, alive, saved.

Toriel and Asgore soon rushed into the fray. How they felt about each other didn't matter. Their children had returned. Their children were alive. They sobbed and smiled and questioned reality, but whatever the truth, none of you wanted it to end. You lay there happily engulfed, your lost family whole again at last.

Soon your friends had piled in to create a pile of bones and scales and fur. Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus . . . you opened your eyes to look for Sans.

He stood apart, hands pocketed. Though he hadn't followed, his pinprick eyes watched you fondly over a smile never stronger, never truer. At that moment you knew: it was Sans who had walked your brother home. Somehow, he had discovered the answer and followed through . . . for you. Thankful tears filled your eyes. You should have never doubted him. You outstretched your hand and called his name. He took a bashful step forward.

Suddenly, he froze. Deep below his feet, seismic shudders warped and churned. Their volume and intensity expounded until stones quivered by the soles of his shoes. His phone vibrated, clattering against his phalanges in a life or death intelligence check against the dungeon master. The results snuffed the lights from his eyes. His smile ran away screaming.

"What's wrong?" you asked.

"we have to go," he breathed.

Asgore rose from the pile. "Sans, what is happening?" he asked.

Sans snatched your outstretched hand and pulled you from the tangle as well. To Asgore, he said, "everybody needs to leave the underground, now." His eyes dashed wildly through a mist of sprinkling dust. Hairline cracks were spiraling through the floor, walls, and ceiling, still deciding where best to split apart. "we're outta time. come on, kid, we gotta move."

When Sans began running with you in the opposite direction, Toriel launched to her feet with dismay. She clung to Asriel, eyes wide with fright. "Where are you taking them?" she cried.

"trust me!" Sans called back, though regret speared his throat. "run!"

The royals' leap of faith became easier as dirt worked itself loose from the overhead stones in silver drapery. Asgore's booming voice ushered everyone out, a more effective siren than Sans' quiet cello.

Halfway into the rumbling Core, you still clung to his hand, afraid but trusting. "Where are we going?" you finally asked. "Sans, why are we going the other way?"

Sans flinched as he tried and failed a third time to take a shortcut. The atmosphere swam with an increasing disregard for all laws of physics. The pathways jittered as if each step could fall through or fly away. Thankfully, their footing remained stable, even if deja vu ran their heads ragged.

"when i was in the void," Sans explained through huffs of breath, "dings said the rift was on the verge of bustin' wide open."

The two of you broke from the Core into MTT Resort. Mettaton's statue lay in pieces, and you splashed through its rippling puddle on the marble floors. As you hurried onward, Sans quickly urged what lingering monsters remained to flee the underground.

The world trembled more ferociously the farther you traveled.

"one more broken barrier and he couldn't hold it back anymore." He led you down the stairs, across Hotland's quickest path. "but the machine in the basement can stop it."

You passed the Lab. A hard crack split that edifice down the middle and southward through the plateau. Hot steam billowed threateningly out the fissures, which you dodged following Sans' deft footsteps. The heat nearly blistered you; no doubt the smallest misstep would have seared straight through your boots. At a glance down the stairs, you could see that the River person was no longer present—and neither was the river.

Just before reaching the cave to Waterfall, an explosion threw you viciously to the cooling ground, where you collided with Sans in a helpless pile. The two of you turned back to the Lab in horror.

The building hovered in pieces, slowly lifting in an arc from its shattered foundation. The surrounding earth collapsed into the bubbling lava, splashing and steaming as if a volcano had erupted. A hollow in the molten rock folded inward below an accordion of walls and floors, eaten whole by a crisp fracture slicing reality like a shattered mirror. The Rift was expanding.

"to your feet, kid!" Sans barked.

You scrambled out from your shock and kicked off the ground to follow him.

"I thought you couldn't fix it!" you shouted above the crackle of earth that chased you.

"dings told me what i was missing," Sans answered.

"Which is . . . ?"

He hesitated. "i'll show ya when we get there."

Clouds of dark mineral dust showered down from the quaking ceiling. Around your feet, ancient crystals and loosened stone scattered and jostled as if you sped through a rock tumbler. Together you struggled through chaos and occasional monsters running past. You wondered if you should warn them about the rift awaiting them.

Sans guided you through a field of glowing mushrooms, which flickered and faded and illuminated again as if time itself combed their stems. You jumped rivers, slipped between waterfalls, cut corners through unfamiliar caves. He knew this place better than you ever did.

The cold air nipped at your ankles first. Then, the yawning mouth to Snowdin glittered bright with a blinding cloud of stirred snow. Relief like the scent of familiar incense curled around you a second too soon. Cracks rocketed into ravines in the stone above. They shot ahead to the far opening, where the cavern arch began to give way.

Sans' fingers finally sparked with blue. He set his teeth.

"hold on tight," he said.

Just as the ceiling snapped and transmuted into plunging rubble, a shocking cyan portal scooped you up and spat you out into a dark room.

Cold tile pressed against your human skin, and the scent of earthen mildew crawled through the air. The basement. A nearby clatter told you Sans already searched for the light switch.

Under that single fluorescent bulb, there was no hiding his panic. The distant tremors were growling slowly louder, only minutes behind you. Though the earth had yet to tremble here, the sound alone quaked his bones. His shaking hands missed the outlet twice before plugging in the machine.

"Sans," you said.

He tore back the curtain. That roughened, scorched jumble of metal hardly saw light before his left hand slapped the power switch on its side. It groaned to life with opposition, but once it got used to the idea, it hummed a steady note. The frequency curdled your blood.

"Sans," you repeated.

His fingers trembled on the keyboard with hesitation, then dashed across the keycaps faster than you could type. Pixels on the screen scrolled through data more quickly than could be read. Its signs and symbols matched the ones you had seen him use when scanning for anomalies: stars, bombs, skulls . . . hands.

"SANS," you snapped.

Finally he turned to you, though his head hung low on his neck.

For a moment, nothing but tremors, magic, and electricity shuddered the air. Your hair felt to stand on end.

"Why am I here?" you croaked.

This made no sense. It went against everything you knew about Sans to drag you back into the fray. If the Underground were truly moments from collapsing, he should have urged you out with the others. The puzzle had been clicking together, but the missing pieces hid in his pockets.

A hundred emotions crossed his face, emotions he had once guarded from you behind a grinning mask. You couldn't decide which was worse. He skirted around the back of the machine, where he pried open a dusty compartment. Inside were an empty reservoir and a fogged out fuel gauge that rested on zero.

"thought this was for regular ol' magic," he said quietly. "heh . . . putting gas in the diesel tank 's what i was doin'."

You eyed him uneasily.

After a long, long second, he met your stare guiltily.

"it doesn't need magic or electricity, or gas or diesel neither," he said. The words left him distraught. "it needs . . . you."

Your eyebrows tried to touch. "I don't understand."

"determination!" he nearly burst. His arms spread wide as if to take flight. "a mighty heaping helping of bloody red determination."

The statement didn't strike you as worrisome until you saw just how upset it made him. He paced back and forth, breathing fast like a racehorse. His hands balled into fists until they shook and dug their knuckles into his forehead. Blue magic leaked from his left eye.

The realization snuck up behind you. Even if the lab hadn't been destroyed, Alphys had already run through most of her supply treating fallen monsters who would become amalgamates. Only siphoning from a source could supply determination now-directly from a human soul. You had no idea what that meant for you, but by the way Sans acted now . . .

"stars fucking damn it!" he snarled.

He braced himself against the machine and kicked it once, twice, three times. Then he gripped the corners more gently, and his shoulders heaved.

The tremors were growing louder.

"kid, it could kill you," he breathed through a mess of tears. He pressed his forehead to the metal. "you could die and even then it might not be enough to work."

Plaster and dust exhaled from the ceiling.

"but the rift doesn't care," he went on. "it won't stop with the underground or the surface. if we let it go, sooner or later . . ."

Your heart skipped into your throat.

"i don't know what to do," he said. He slumped to sit in front of the temporal flux manipulator and cradled his face in his hands. Angry tears slipped through his phalanges. "i'm sorry."

You watched him shudder under that impossible weight. Your eyes lifted to the splintering ceiling. Your ears turned to the quaking earth. Your tongue tasted dust in the air. Your nose breathed the scent of dirt and magic. Your mind raced with everywhere you had been, everything you had seen, everyone you had met and learned to love.

Sans felt your human warmth draw near. Behind his fingers, a brightening glow of red permeated the bone. His face twisted alongside his heart in knots.

Your soul pirouetted above your hands just as it had for Asgore, only this time no self-sorry streams decorated your cheeks. A smile lingered instead, melancholy but determined.

"frisk, no," said Sans. He took your wrists and pushed them back toward your chest. "i can't make you do this."

"You're not making me do anything," you said.

"there's no tellin' what'll happen," he said quickly. "even if it works, we could go back before the barrier was broken and never get out again. whole thing could rewind to the day we clipped the timeline." Pain clutched his eye sockets. "you and asriel . . . you two could stay dead."

"What about your brother?" you asked.

Sans grimaced and blinked another swell of tears from his eye sockets. "there's a chance," he said, "maybe the only chance in the world he'll come back. but it could kill him too. truth be told . . . we're flyin' blind."

Your bright red heart bled for him in your hands. You knelt down only a breath away. "You saved my brother," you said. "Let me try to save yours."

Sans shook his head miserably. He still clung to your wrists, though faintly, barely holding on.

The basement floor's ceramic tiles began to separate and collide, spitting up caulk and crumbs of stone. Flakes of plaster landed on your shoulders and in your hair.

"We're running out of time," you said as calmly as you could when your heart rattled your ribs like prison bars. "It's either some of us, or none of us. That's the choice, Sans."

He hung his head, knowing it to be true.

"I'm determined to do this," you said. The corner of your mouth twitched into a knifelike smile. "You can't stop me."

As he searched your eyes, his soul swelled with conviction, burning hot and red like engine coals. He faltered then, mind rushing with a thought he hadn't considered, a truth he hadn't faced until dying repeatedly at the fiery claws of a bitter demon. Determination: the power to stay alive, to undo death, to spool back time until you hit that god damn bullseye.

"and i'm determined not to let you die," he said.

He flattened a hand to his chest, then tugged out his soul by an invisible string. Though scars clenched its shell in a thousand barbed teeth, it burned brighter than the North Star. A brilliant red overtook most of its form, more vivid and overwhelming than he expected, even if the edges whitened like frosted glass.

The sight of it overwhelmed you. Never had you seen a soul like this. Never had you imagined his to be so hauntingly beautiful.

He lifted you to your feet and pulled you close. The walls around you were crumbling, but your souls hummed strong and true.

"i promised to see ya through," his voice lilted into your ear. "so let's do this together."

The moment you understood what he planned to do, you shook your head adamantly. "No, you can't," you said.

"yes, i can," he insisted. "ya always try to do everythin' yourself. just this once . . . let me help you."

Suddenly, there it was: the truth you had been denying since the start. It had never been the resets at the core of what hurt him. What had truly wedged you apart had been your drive to shoulder everything like a lone wolf. When you had first decided to rewind the clock, you had done it without a word to anyone. When you had sought to save Asriel, you had pursued it alone. Even when Sans had finally forced your hand, you had resisted his aid at every step. It had crushed him to dust. It had broken bridges in Waterfall. It had cast him into the void. It had nearly driven you to darkness, until once again he had reached out into the encroaching night and saved you.

You held on a moment longer despite the urgency raining down in gray clouds. If he didn't make it, you wanted to remember how it felt.

"Okay," you said.

Programs sequenced into action with a few more entries into the data pad, which shuddered the machine into a readying hum. He tied your souls to those machinations in ways you didn't quite understand: magic threads both warm in the pit of your soul and cold where they spooled into the darkness of an empty chamber.

He lifted his hand to rest on that all too familiar lever and stilled to find yours already there. You smiled confidently, ready with a single nod. His grip gained courage, and together, you pulled down into gear. Lines of data poured down the cracked monitor. The earth beneath you shook harder. A ravine split through the ceiling. Everything went white and still.

A/N: One more chapter and then epilogue. :') We're nearly there.

Thank you so much for reading.

Next Up! Chapter 16: Together Apart