Chapter 41: Call Me

Snowdin felt empty.

For all that it was only missing a single resident, the absence was a palpable hole. Even Flowey—who had only ever barely tolerated Sans, and vice versa—could still tell that something was just off now that he was gone. He could feel it.

(That couldn't be possible, he hadn't felt anything since… forever.)

Papyrus was in the kitchen, but he wasn't cooking. He was just standing at the stove, one hand on a spoon sticking out from the pot of now-basically-solidified spaghetti. Listless in a way that just didn't suit the tall skeleton.

In the living room, Frisk was curled up at one corner of the sofa with a pillow clutched to their chest. They were shivering in an unfelt chill, simply breathing and trying to feel alive. Since it had become pretty evident that the spaghetti would never be edible, Toriel had left around a minute ago to get them something they could actually eat.

And… she had told Flowey that he, of all beings present, would be in charge while she was out.

He was still kind of reeling at that. It's not like she trusted him.

But then, given the alternatives were either an emotional wreck of a skeleton or an emotional wreck of a human child, perhaps the possibly-psycho plant really was the best choice.

Which was kind of sad, to be honest.

He had been moved into an old empty container meant for leftovers, set on the end table by the couch, and told to keep the shaking child company. Flowey wasn't very pleased with the setup, especially since his new 'flower pot' smelled strongly of tomatoes. At least is was better than M-… Toriel's pockets.

It was still annoying, though. Nobody could look properly threatening while trapped in a sauce-stained tupperware tub.

"Psst, Frisk," Flowey hissed, sick of the grim quiet. He kept one eye on the kitchen to make sure the skeleton wasn't eavesdropping on them. "What're you going to do about this?"

The kid uncurled enough to squint at him.

"You know what I mean, idiot." He huffed, stem curling back on himself in a gesture of annoyance.

When Frisk finally replied, their voice still had that fragile edge… but they were determined. "We have to get him back."

"Why am I not surprised," Flowey sighed, looking every inch as petulant as a flower could be. "You don't think he's dead?"

Their head shot up, gaze as fierce as he'd ever seen. "He has to be alive."

"Fine. Say I believe you—"

"He's not dead."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, whatever you say."

"He's not."

"That's not the point." A leaf waved the issue away, then settled on the brim of his tupperware. "How are you even going to bring him back?"

Because as determined as Frisk was and still is, this was the Void they were talking about. As far as he knew, the resets were—or rather, had been—the only not-one-way way to get there.

Well, kind of not-one-way. The time travel aspect did make it sort of one-way.

Regardless, they had no way of getting in there and Frisk knew it. They buried their face back into the pillow for a few minutes, thinking or brooding or (most likely) some combination of the two. Then, very slowly, they glanced up to the door at the end of the upstairs hall. The one that had always been shut tight and warded by harmless flickering flames.

The one that today had been left open, and now led to an empty room.

His room.

"Do you think… maybe…?"

"His bedroom's full of socks and trash." Flowey said, rolling his eyes and crossing a pair of leaves. "Not exactly helpful, Frisk."

But clearly they had latched on to something in that idea. Frisk fully lifted their head, and though they were still clinging to the pillow, they looked more confident. "It might still be in his room."

His brows drew low, not catching their train of thought. "What?"

They blinked at him then, surprised that he couldn't guess it immediately. "The key." At his blank look, they very quietly added, "To his basement lab-workshop place? He has a weird machine in there, I don't know what it does. But… maybe it could help."

Flowey glanced to the bedroom door and then to the floor, in the general direction of what was apparently a 'basement lab-workshop'. He had never actually been in the basement, though he had known there was something down there. Getting in had been one of his missed objectives, so to speak, since Smiley Trashbag had set up defensive barriers over both of his rooms. Even if he stole the keys—and he had, once or twice—he still couldn't get in if Sans didn't want him to.

The barrier on the basement, in particular, had been surprisingly strong.

Well, less surprising if one knew just how powerful the supposedly 'weakest enemy' actually was. And Flowey, for one, was well aware.

If flowers actually had spines, those memories might have ran a shiver down his. But they don't, and instead his yellow petals curled up somewhat defensively around himself. Sans had handed him more than his fair share of resets, after all.

He shook off the memories. "Don't know about that," he admitted reluctantly. "I never got that far."

Frisk gave him an incredulous look. "How?"

"I just told you, idiot." Flowey scowled at them. "I never got inside."

At that they simply gave him a look, silently asking him to share more and explain how he—despite however much not-really-time he was in control of the resets—had never managed to bypass a single door.

His return glare clearly wasn't very effective, and he fully blamed the context of him being stuck in a tupperware bin. After a long stare-off, he sighed. "My guess is, Smiley could tell I was… missing something. You know how he was— er, 'is'."

Frisk frowned slightly: probably because of his trip-up, because they unfortunately did know what he meant, and, most significantly, because they are a compassionate sap. They made half a motion of reaching out to him, before rightly realizing such comfort would not be appreciated.

He didn't need it.

He didn't want it.

(He didn't deserve it.)

Flowey twitched, unsettled as that rouge thought drifted through his mind like an errant breeze. It ached in him, like a bone set to start healing, and he didn't know what it even was.

"Yeah." Frisk's voice was always soft, but now it was nearly inaudible. Their eyes flicked down to their clean hands for an instant. "I know."

He smirked, petals relaxed again. "Well, at least we know for sure now."

Blinking at him in confusion, Frisk asked, "We know something?"

Though Papyrus seemed way too out of it to pay any attention to what they were saying, Flowey still shot the kitchen another glance before replying. Better safe than busted.

"That he remembered."

Flowey had always suspected as much. In his earliest runs, Sans had just been too unpredictable compared to everyone else; maybe he would simply be somewhere he shouldn't, or he wouldn't be somewhere he should, or he might say something that was a little too sharp to be only a coincidence. The flower had never had proof, though, and had actually spent some of his later resets trying to find some.

All he'd found were notes on some kind of research into the timelines. Which could explain it, but had never settled quite right.

Like how Sans had become more predictable as the resets continued. Though Flowey was only just realizing that that was the case, comparing his own early runs to Frisk's.

And now he knew why.

Smiley Trashbag was even more tricky than he'd thought.

"He knew…" Frisk barely finished the word, eyes wide and staring at nothing.

"You can't believe he… did what you said he did, just based on vague 'data reports' and mysterious 'readings', right?" Flowey bobbed side to side, a floral shrug. "Trust me, if he didn't remember, he wouldn't care. No idea how he managed to remember anything, but—"

"He remembered everything, the whole time," said Frisk, finally realizing the full ramifications of a single name. "He knew Chara was there."

Flowey froze. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet for a new reason. "What?"

"He said their name, and I-I… I only ever learned it… They only ever said their name, that first time… after Asgore, after everyone was…" They couldn't bring themselves to finish that sentence, starting to shiver again.

Somehow, it wasn't hard for Flowey to fill in that blank.

Dead. After everyone was dead.

But they hadn't gotten to the end. Not really. Flowey knew that in the past run—the last run, ever—Frisk had been stopped in the golden hallway. He had been watching, after all, so he knew they had never gotten to Asgore. It made no sense—

'They only ever said their name, that first time…'

And he realized something else.

"How many times?"

Frisk turned away, whole body trembling again, and they said nothing.

He could remember the resets.

He could.

Yet he only remembered one attempt at a complete massacre. Only one run where Frisk was actually trying to kill everybody in the Underground. There had been a lot of deaths in runs before that last, sure; the fallen child had toyed with different fatal scenarios just as he had done when he had control of the timeline.

Flowey only remembered a single genocide run.

Frisk had implied more.

"How many times, Frisk?"

Their voice sounded rough, like just speaking the words was painful. "…I don't know."

"Oh."

And Flowey remembered none of them, save the last.

"Did I…?" He didn't even know what he was asking.

They shook their head, mute.

Before he could say anything else—whatever else it might have been—there came a buzzing from the cushion Frisk was holding. They yelped, startled by the unexpected vibration, and instinctively launched the pillow away from themselves. Directly at Flowey's face.

Luckily he ducked.

"Hey, watch it!"

The cushion smacked against the wall with an only mostly soft sound: there was something in the pillow case that hit with a distinctly solid thunk.

They both blinked at that, sharing a curious glance.

"You heard that, too?"

And apparently they had finally made enough noise to drag Papyrus's attention from the pasta cement. It was strange hearing his usually energetic voice so empty, even as he still half shouted everything. "WHAT WAS THAT?"

"Don't know." Frisk actually got up, walking to the pillow and fishing around in it for a moment. Then they made a small sound of victory, and pulled out… a cell phone.

Flowey craned his stem over to get a closer look. "Do you think it's Sans's?"

"Must be," they mused, turning it over in their hands. "Papyrus wouldn't leave his in a pillow."

"I WOULDN'T LEAVE WHAT… OH." Papyrus had joined them, and was looking down at the small device with hollow eye sockets. Hollow in an emotional way, that is. Well, and in a literal sense, technically, but mostly emotional.

Frisk flipped it open. "It's locked."

"Of course it is," Flowey muttered, unsurprised but still kind of annoyed.

"Oh. He got a text, looks like…" They read the notification on the locked screen. "…It's from Alphys."

"WHO?"

"No one important." Flowey scowled. "What's it say?"

Frisk was staring at the phone still, as if trying to figure that out for themselves. "'Are you okay?'"

=X=X=X=

Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and the thin sunlight shining through the barrier warmed the king's broad shoulders as he knelt to work in his garden.

It was a beautiful day outside.

Asgore pulled a weed, carefully setting it into his basket to be replanted elsewhere. Plants weren't really rare underground, not anymore, but it was a habit from when monsterkind had first been sealed away. Back when the only plants in the whole cave system had been the occasional bit of moss or struggling grass.

And the golden flowers, of course.

It had taken such a long time for magic to take root, so to speak, and coax life from peculiar notches in reality. As it had done with the way stalagmites sprout up from the ground and grow into the tall pines outside Snowdin, or how sounds echoed off the cavernous walls became reflected in the luminous blue flowers of Waterfall.

It was a good thing monster food was made of magic itself, and so the continued existence of monsterkind didn't depend on their ability to cultivate crops underground.

Asgore sat back on his heels, one paw lifting to brush his fringe of blond hair out of his eyes. It was very quiet, save for the gentle sound of birdsong.

Too quiet. He sent a concerned glance to the door of his throne room with a small frown.

How unusual. Sans may present himself as a lazy layabout, but he was very rarely late to one of their meetings. And never without calling in first.

Today was usually the day when Sans would drop by to report in, passing on tidbits and anecdotes of various goings on from very nearly anywhere in the entire Underground. Heavens knows how the skeleton heard half the stuff he would relay, but the King trusted his Judge to speak only the truth to him. If, perhaps, not all of it.

He knew something serious had been bothering his friend for quite some time now, though he hadn't the faintest idea what it could be. Sans was always evasive about such things, and the most he had gotten him to say about it was a more-than-cryptic warning that he should be cautious around flowers.

Asgore looked down at his paws, stained slightly green and brown from his gardening, and then to the patch of golden flowers he had been tending to.

Perhaps he should give Sans a call. To check and make sure he's alright.

Just in case.

He pushed himself to his feet, taking a moment to dust off the dirt from his pants with a few pats and pick up his basket of pulled weeds.

Sans is fine. He probably just overslept, that's all.

Reassured, but only very slightly, he left his throne room garden.

And very nearly tripped over the pacing yellow monster just outside. The young scientist yelped and backpedaled and almost tripped over herself, her round glasses staying on only by virtue of the small piece of tape sticking the bridge of her eyewear to her snout.

"K-King A-A-Asgore! I-I don't mean to bother you, but, uh," she stuttered, nervously straightening her white lab coat. "I h-have something you really need to see."

He smiled gently, hiding his worry, and set a careful paw on one of her shoulders in reassurance. "It's no bother, Dr. Alphys. What is it?"

She had her phone out, and she was fiddling with it. "I-I, uh, it'd probably be easier to see on my computer, b-but I obviously c-couldn't b-bring that so—" Claws shaking, she held up her phone for him to see. "I-it's from yesterday morning."

The screen was tiny, and he had to lean close to have a chance at making out any of it, but there was enough white and green that he guessed the video was from somewhere near Snowdin. After a second, a small figure walked into view: Sans, from the coloring and lazy stride.

And then— Gone.

"No…" he whispered, a worried frown creasing his furry forehead as the video looped. "He can't have just… vanished."

"I-I-I don't know, your Majesty," Dr. Alphys stammered, turning the phone so she could watch it again. "I-it looks like he just… H-he just fades away. It's much clearer on m-my computer, but—"

"Then we shall go see it on your computer," he commanded, setting the basket of weeds down by the door and heading for the labs. "I need to see it for myself."

"O-oh, alright." That prospect seemed to make her very nervous. "I-I'll go on ahead, and, uh, get it all, you know, set up—"

She bolted, nearly tripping over her lab coat.

He followed after her, purposefully slowing his pace so as to give her a few minutes to get her space prepared for a visitor. She lived in the lab, after all, but her computer was probably even more personal to her than her bedroom. It was only polite to give her a chance to tidy up, so to speak.

Though apparently he hadn't walked quite slow enough, as after he arrived he did still catch a glimpse of her desktop background—a dynamic screenshot of one of those 'anime' shows she loves—before she very embarrassedly opened up the video to cover it up.

Asgore graciously did not comment on it.

"S-s-s-o here's the clip again," Dr. Alphys said. "I-it was from Camera 82 out past Snowdin."

She hit a button on her keyboard, and the snowy scene began to play out on the big screen.

White drifted across the screen, peaceful, and after a moment Sans walked into view from the right. There was a split second when he might have glanced to the hidden camera. It was hard to tell. He kicked at the snow on the ground, pink slipper almost falling off, and then…

Mid-step, he just faded away. No reaction at all.

"I-I tried texting him earlier, as soon as I found it, but he hasn't—" She swallowed dryly. "He hasn't replied yet. Usually h-he's really good at that, too…"

Asgore crossed his arms, watching the video loop once more with an unreadable expression. After a long moment, he asked, "Did you try calling him?"

Freezing like Gyftrot faced with strings of decorative lights, the scientist stared at him wide-eyed. "C-c-c-call him?" she squeaked. "O-oh, no, no I-I didn't, I couldn't, I-I…"

He held out his hand, and she numbly handed over her phone.

And then took it back a second later to type in the phone number for him. There was a reason why he stuck with his trusty landline and its reasonably sized buttons.

The phone rang one. Twice. Thrice.

And then somebody answered.

It wasn't Sans.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

A glimpse back into the Underground.

I feel pretty guilty for ending it there, but by golly, I wasn't gonna delay a chapter again. I need to get back on schedule, it just makes me feel better about life as a whole.

Updates are on the first of the month. It's close to the deadline, but we're back on the first! Seems like a victory to me.
Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, follows!

Agent 3 Novi drew an adorable little comic strip sketch from the events of Chapter 39! You should go check it out on their tumblr, or by using the link on my profile which hopefully will work.

Also, Soda-fiedPsycho (or Arcane Warlock on YouTube) has posted videos reading some of the chapters! Go give it a watch if you're interested!

See ya on the flipside, everyone!