A/N: One chapter to go after this! Thanks for reading, everyone. (:

2.

Knocks on the door come and go. Your brother tore a hole in the world when he fell down, left a pit in all the lives he touched when he died, and all of Snowdin probably feels his absence as keenly as you do. Your neighbors are probably looking for closure, coming to you the way people always come together after tragedy, what other reason would they have to see you? If you were a better person, you would get open and open the door.

But you're not a very good person at all. Your brother was the only redeeming quality you had.

So you ignore the soft murmurs outside, you ignore the low whines as the Dogs give up again today and leave. You ignore all the knocks on your door the same way you ignore your phone every time it lights up or rings, and you swallow the silence like a bitter pill.

Another round of knocks, and you blink through the dark. They'll give up on you soon enough.

But then the lock turns, an audible click that you can hear across the room, and the door opens; light and cold air spill inside, along with a tall, armored figure and a cascade of red hair.

Oh. You sit up. She closes the door.

"Hey," she says. She's not wearing a crown, no royal decoration. She's running things now, but it's not a promotion she wanted. Everyone loved the king, including Undyne. There's more than just one loss the Underground is suffering. Mourning is around every corner, as quiet and subtle as it might be in some places. There are shadows in Undyne's eyes you don't remember, and deep lines on her face where there should have been a toothed smile.

She looks like she doesn't know why she's standing in your living room. You can't help her out, there, because you don't have any clue, either. The two of you were never close. You saw a lot of her, though, all throughout your brother's teenage years; and even though she took Toriel's throne, you can't summon any anger.

Maybe she's here to collect a memento. People do that, right? You stand, and the room spins. You shake it off, and stuff your hands into your pockets. The winter chill she let inside clings to your bones.

"All of his stuff's up in his room," you say, trying to sound helpful. "You can take whatever you want."

Her eyes narrow at you, out of something that isn't anger, and you can't quite define the emotion that pulls her mouth down at the corners.

"When's the last time you ate?" she asks, a non-sequitur that draws you up short. She doesn't wait for an answer, striding toward the kitchen doorway and peering inside. It's dim, faint light filtering through from the frost-covered window, and Undyne doesn't look surprised when she looks back at you. Maybe disappointed. And that's okay, you're comfortable with that. "When's the last time you even came in here?"

You follow her up to the threshold and pause, the muted tiles a few scant inches from the toes of your sneakers. "Be careful," you tell her, because she's a couple steps ahead of you, and reaching like she'd open the fridge. "It's dusty."

She stops.

"He loved it in here," you add lamely, tracing his dust with your eyes where it lines stove burners and spatula handles. "I needed—a lot more of him."

Because your brother loved a lot, and fiercely, spreading his heart like a warm blanket over so much and so many that you couldn't hope to cover even half of what he loved with what was left of him. You did the best you could, and the car in his bedroom, and the action figures lined neatly along the table, and the book of bedtime stories on the shelf, are all powdered a fine gray, just like most of the kitchen is.

"Her majesty told me you left the ruins days ago," she says, moving too quickly for you to keep up. "Where have you been eating?"

Well, there's no real answer to that question, because you haven't been eating. You think of food, and you think of Tori's spaghetti with its wide smile and meatball eyes and too much red sauce, too much red in a white bed of snow, the scarf around your neck, Papyrus—

Her hand closes around your wrist, bright eyes snapping with something more wounded than fury, and she's dragging you out the door. You stumble after her, blinking through the bright afternoon sunlight. You thought it was evening. Her fingers might have left bruises if you had skin, but they're trembling, too, and you glance at her sidelong while she plows through the knee-high snow an arm's length ahead of you.

You don't know why she's here. She never liked you.

But she throws open the door at Grillby's like it did something to offend her personally, doesn't stop to apologize when it cracks against the wall. Then she's behind you, shoving you towards the bar. There are a few familiar faces that blur past, the jukebox is playing in the corner like it always does, and you climb up onto your usual stool for lack of better thing to do.

"Make sure he eats," Undyne says with iron in her voice, like it's an order she's giving one of her enlisted men, and she passes the bartender the spare key to your house. There's a lot wrong with that, you think. Grillby isn't hers to order around, that key isn't hers to give away. Grillby has better things to do. But he doesn't miss a beat; nods once, slips the key into the pocket of his waistcoat, and tension bleeds out of Undyne's shoulders like water.

Then her hand lands on your arm. Squeezes hard, but not hard enough to hurt. Like she's trying to leave a footprint in dry sand, an impression in something that fades. And then, just as suddenly as she showed up in the first place, she's gone.

Grillby pushes a plate in front of you. Someone takes a seat on your left, and a soft, furred head finds a home on your shoulder. It's warmer in here than it was outside, but you're still cold.