I woke, sweat teeming off my body. Another nightmare. That face again, the face of the girl who looked just like me.

I grabbed my pillow and slid out of bed, then snuck out of my room, treading as softly as I could. I didn't want to wake mom or dad. Ever since they'd given me and Asriel separate bedrooms they'd frowned on us sharing a bed and I didn't want to get a lecture over breakfast again. I pushed at his door. It was closed. Strange, he never closed it. He always liked to have some light in his room. Even more than me he was afraid of the dark.

I couldn't blame him.

"Az?" I whispered as I opened the door. "Can I sleep with you? I… I had another bad dream."

Silence.

I peered into the darkness. I couldn't make out anything in the room. Everything was just a jumble of dark shapes.

I crept inside, approached the largest of the shapes. His bed? It must be. I could make out the starlight glittering through the window behind it at the far end of the room.

No. Not a bed. The fingers of my free hand slipped over dusty cardboard. Boxes. Just old packing boxes.

I jerked away, knocking a smaller box onto the floor. The top popped off and paper spilled out of it.

I tossed my pillow aside and knelt down. My eyes were getting used to the dark, now. There were photos amongst the papers. I scooped them back into the box. It was red, shaped like a heart.

The box. He'd given it to me, long ago.

I grabbed my pillow and clutched it to my chest. My long hair fell into my stinging eyes. I pushed it away.

This wasn't the home I shared with mom and dad and Asriel. It was my apartment. I lived alone, now, in the City. I was grown up. Those days were long ago.

So why did I keep dreaming of them?

Maybe because I'd been so much happier, then. Maybe because I'd left so much unsaid.

Even last night I wasn't able to tell him. I'd planned to. But then… but then he'd turned up at the restaurant with her. That human girl.

Did she really have to be that beautiful?

Of course she did. She was a perfect match for him. He'd looked so handsome, even more handsome than I'd remembered, with those long, feminine lashes and his gentle, smiling face. And dressed in that suit and jacket, so tall and slim and princely…

I felt that old familiar pain in my chest and crushed the pillow closer to me. My SOUL. It ached.

It ached a lot these days.

There was no way I was going to be able to get back to sleep. I made a coffee and sat in the kitchen, hugging the cup in my hands. The lonely hum of a car along the street below made me glance out the window. Outside, the world was turning grey, as it did in the City when the sun was about to rise. It must still be early.

I glanced at my phone. 4.35. Great. I'd have to go to college soon, anyway. Early classes. No point going back to bed.

I stared at the phone. No messages. I'd hoped he'd send me one. Well, I had acted like a complete bitch at dinner. Why should he message me?

My eyes began to sting again and I pressed the heels of my hands against them. God. Why did I keep screwing things up?

In this dark place I often wished I could reset everything, wished that I still had the power of SAVE. I just wanted to send everything back to the beginning so I could try it all over again. But properly this time.

No point wishing, though. I'd lost it. It wasn't coming back.

I'd thought that once I'd saved him, everything would be fine. And everything had been fine, at first. Ten years ago, now, ten years almost to the day since I woke up in a familiar bed to the sound of a familiar voice.

"Please, Frisk. Please wake up!"

I knew that voice. I'd often heard it in the darkness, echoing from far away. I'd followed it, searched for an eternity for the one it belonged to.

I opened my eyes. They ached. Everything ached, everything except for my right hand.

Someone was holding it.

I turned my head. He was sitting beside the bed, clutching my hand in his lap – a little goat boy with long floppy ears, dressed in a green and yellow striped shirt. Asriel, Toriel and Asgore's son. The one who'd died, poisoned by his best friend. The one who'd returned, a being of fear and loneliness and terrifying power. The one I'd fought and defeated, in that dark howling void between life and death.

But there was no sign of that Asriel now, the fearsome God of Hyperdeath. He was just a little boy, sitting in a chair, his face pointed towards at the ceiling, his eyes shut, whispering to himself.

Strange. So strange. Asriel was dead. Was I dead, too, then?

I lay there and listened. The sweetness of his voice made me forget about the pain.

"Oh stars," Asriel whispered. "Oh, dear, kind stars. Please. Please let Frisk wake up. Please."

Frisk. That's right. That was my name, my real name. And this was my old bed, the one in Toriel's house, in the Ruins, in the Underground.

Behind the whispering of Asriel's prayer, I could make out the distant clatter of someone doing the washing up. The air was thick with the familiar scent of freshly-baked butterscotch pie.

Wait. The dead didn't eat butterscotch pie, and they certainly didn't leave dirty dishes that needed to be washed.

So I wasn't dead. And neither was Asriel.

I tried to sit up, but fell back, gasping. My chest. My chest ached like there was a lump of ice planted in it.

Asriel wheeled around. His mouth fell open and his violet eyes grew even wider than they already were.

"F-frisk?"His voice was still a whisper, quivering with hope and disbelief.

"What time is it?" I muttered, rubbing my eyes.

Asriel leaped from his chair and sprinted from the room, shouting "Mom! Mooooom!"

I'd only just managed to sit up when he pulled Toriel into the room. Toriel. Goat-mom. I felt as though I hadn't seen her in a lifetime.

"Mom?" I whispered.

When she saw me the still-soapy pan she was clutching slid from her hands and she fell to her knees.

"L- little one?"

But before I could answer, Asriel threw himself at me with a cry of joy. I fell backwards, trying to contain the little white ball of happiness as he hugged me until my ribs ached.

"Frisk," he said, his tears wetting my neck. "Oh Frisk! A-are you… are you really awake?"

"…!" I said, gasping for air.

Toriel pulled the ecstatic little monster off me and then, far more gently, leaned down and hugged me, too.

"Welcome home, my child," she said.

She grabbed her phone and with difficulty stabbed out a text with her big fingers.

Asriel blinked at her. "Who are you messaging, mom?"

"Alphys," she replied. "She wanted to give Frisk a check-up when she finally woke up." She put the phone away and smiled at me. "But before that we need to get you some pie!"

"I'll get it!" cried Asriel, once again running pell-mell out of the room.

Toriel sat down in the chair Asriel had been in and took hold of my hand.

"Thank you, my child," she said, pressing my hand to her lips over and over. "Oh, thank you!"

I frowned. My memories were still a mess. "What did I do, mom?"

Her smile was like day breaking. "You saved us, child. You saved… him." Then the smile slid from her face, replaced by confusion. "But my dear, sweet Frisk, how… how did you save him?"

I tried to remember. I tried, but the memories slid away from me. My head tingled, but even worse than that my chest began to ache.

"No," said Toriel, placing a hand on my forehead. "No, do not worry about it. You are still weak. We will talk about this later."

"Here it is!" Asriel came running into the room, carrying a plate with a slice of pie as big as his head.

As I greedily devoured the pie, Toriel, with Asriel's over-eager interruptions, told me everything that had happened while I'd been unconscious.

My own memories flooded back as she talked. Well, some of them did. There were many things Toriel didn't seem to know about, and I often glanced at Asriel's open face, wondering exactly how much he remembered.

But then the bedroom door flew open and Undyne pushed her way into the room.

"About time you woke up!" she said, gripping my shoulder with a powerful hand and grinning at me. "Talk about lying down on the job. But you know, you did good out there - for a wimpy loser." Her eyes glistened, but only for a split-second. "Heh. I always knew you would."

Alphys appeared, then, poking her head around the tall fish-monster's side. "So h-how are you feeling, Frisk?"

"Sore," I said. Undyne's enthusiastic grip wasn't helping.

As Alphys set about poking and prodding me with a variety of weird machines I soon learned that none of them seemed to remember anything about the final battle after Flowey captured them. Flowey's ultimate form, the human souls, the God of Hyperdeath – they all as might as well have been nightmares from a fever dream. They were gone, and only I remembered them.

I looked into Asriel's gentle eyes. He blinked at me, then a flush reddened his cheeks and he pulled at his ears.

"A-are you really okay, Frisk?" he asked.

"Why?" I asked.

"Your eyes," he said. "They're full of tears."

I smiled and wiped at them with the back of a sleeve. I hadn't noticed.

"I'm fine," I said.

I was more than fine.

Alphys, sitting back and wiping her sweaty forehead, agreed. My Determination and Hope, she said, were just as strong as ever. But then she frowned.

"I-I'm getting some weird readings I don't really understand, though. I'm sure they're nothing, b-but I think we should do some more tests, back at the lab, that is, if you don't..."

Toriel cut Alphys off. "No. The poor child has had enough tests for one day." She knelt beside the bed and ran her fingers through my hair. "What she needs now is food and rest."

There was a knock and a deep voice boomed through the door.

"Ah… is it alright if I come in?"

Toriel sighed and rolled her eyes. Undyne opened the door and a familiar goat monster pushed his huge armoured bulk inside the room.

Asgore.

His kind eyes went wide when he saw me and he smiled hugely. "Frisk!"

He fell to his knees beside the bed and swept me against his barrel-like chest, his blonde beard scratching my face as he hugged me. "My dear child, so you're awake at last!"

Toriel clucked her tongue. "Asgore, put the child down. She needs more rest. And more pie." She stood up. "I will go get her some."

She was almost at the door when Papyrus burst in.

"BUT DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE SOME SPACE FOR SPAGHETTI!"

The lanky skeleton, with his red bandanna wrapped around his bony arm like a waiter's serving cloth, swept a plate of the stuff onto the bed in front of me.

"i wouldn't eat it," said Sans, the shorter of the two skeleton-brothers dawdling into the room with his hands in his pockets. "he cooked it days ago and he's been keeping it in the bottom drawer of his dresser the whole time."

"BUT IT WAS THE BEST I'VE EVER COOKED," explained Papyrus. "I DON'T THINK I'D BE ABLE TO OUTDO IT! BESIDES, SPAGHETTI ONLY GETS BETTER WITH AGE."

"that's wine," said Sans.

"WINE?" cried Papyrus. "IN SPAGHETTI? SCANDALOUS!"

I stared at the spaghetti. It certainly did look days old… and was that a sock nestling among the meatballs?

Wait. 'Days'? I'd been asleep for days?

"You wouldn't wake up," said Asriel. "No matter how loud I called out to you." Tears started in his eyes again and he wiped at them with his long, floppy ears. "W-we thought you weren't ever going to wake up."

Sans, meanwhile, had sidled up to the bed. "so," he said, fixing me with a curious blue-white eye. "you managed to find the last piece of him, then. took you long enough."

"WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Papyrus butt in. "WHO IS THIS MYSTERIOUS 'HIM'? IS HE TALL, HANDSOME, DASHING? … WAIT! IS HE ME?"

I had no idea who Sans was talking about, either, and when I tried to remember that pain in my chest started up again.

Sans shrugged. "hey, don't sweat it. i guess it doesn't matter now, anyway."

"Everyone out," cried Toriel, her face suddenly stern. She'd seen me grimace. "What the little one needs now is rest and pie! Out, out, out!"

My other friends knew better than to argue with Toriel. They said their goodbyes and left, Asriel included, though Asgore had to pry him off when refused to stop hugging me.

Toriel kissed me on the forehead. "Forgive me, my child. I must leave you too for a while to check on the other pie. I will return soon."

Alone again, I lay there, staring up at the ceiling. What had Sans meant? The last piece of who?

My chest twinged. No, he was right. It didn't matter.

All my friends were safe. And now, at last, Asriel was, too.

Thanks to mom's cooking, I quickly grew stronger, which was lucky since there was lots to do with the barrier broken and the monsters getting ready to leave for the surface. Asgore made me the official ambassador between humans and monsters and I promised to take the responsibility seriously.

The humans of the City had always seemed alien to me, but now they were doubly alien after everything which had happened. But when they came looking for someone to talk to, the fact that Asgore and all the other monsters had put their trust in me filled me with the determination to meet them.

I'd wondered why Asgore had chosen me as ambassador, but I soon came to understand. I mean, who can be scared of a little kid?

The humans quickly learned that the monsters too, despite their strange appearance, were harmless - the dogs and bunnies being chosen by Asgore as the first monsters to make official contact alongside me certainly helped. The king, despite Toriel's misgivings, proved diplomatic and charming in his own gentle, unassuming way and we soon managed to convince the human authorities that all the monsters wanted was peace.

That's not to say there weren't misunderstandings. There were lots. I mean, how do you integrate living jello and miniature volcanoes into a society of mistrustful hairless apes? But with my friends' help, life eventually returned to… well, you couldn't say normal, exactly.

For one thing I was happy. I had friends at last. And a family, too.

That first evening, when we all stood on the surface for the first time and stared out across at the human City glowing like a distant paradise, Toriel had asked if I would like to stay with her.

Asriel had been there, too. He refused to leave my side for long, as though worried I'd vanish. As he waited for my answer he tugged at his long ears. He often did that when he was nervous.

But when I finally said I'd stay, I was crushed in a two-way furry hug by both monsters.

"I'll be your mom," Toriel said. "For as long as you need someone to care for you,".

"And I'll be your bro!" added Asriel with a grin.

A mother, and a brother too, now. No, not just a brother.

A best friend.

A short while later I got a dad, as well. With Asriel reborn and the human souls restored, Asgore and Toriel patched things up at last, although she never did give the poor guy a moment's peace. But Asgore seemed happy to return to being a family man, and also a part-time groundsman at Toriel's new school. He set aside his crown and his trident for an old beat-up straw hat and a pair of pruning shears and never looked back.

With peace between humans and monsters, there wasn't much for an ambassador to do any more and so I fell back into being a little kid again. Soon it felt as though my happy family life with Toriel, Asgore and Asriel was all I'd ever known. I never called them by those names, though. To me they were mom, dad and Az.

At the start Az and I, just like real siblings, shared a room together. We had a bunk bed. He let me have the top bunk. It wasn't a new bed, but I didn't ask why they had a bunk bed lying around. The answer was staring at me when I lay down on the top bunk for the first time.

Scratched into the wooden frame were the words CHARA WAS HERE.

I covered the carving with some of Asriel's Mettaton stickers. The robot's winking face wasn't my first choice of someone to share my bed with, but he was better than… than her. I didn't want to see her name. I didn't even want to think it.

I already saw her face enough in my dreams, enough to last me a thousand lifetimes.

One day, when she was visiting us for tea with Undyne, Alphys offered to help me remember, saying that she'd designed a machine which could bring my memories back. But mom, with some sternness, told her that it was better not to dredge up the past and that the important thing was that everyone was happy. Alphys pushed her glasses back on her nose and glanced across at Undyne, who was trying to grab a sugar cube with the tongs. It shattered into powder and she sat back in her chair, grinning and rubbing the back of her head.

"I-I suppose you're right," Alphys said with a shy smile.

Az agreed with mom.

"Every time I try to remember, my chest stings," he said. "Maybe sometimes you forget things for a reason."

I decided he was right and stopped trying.

We talked about everything else that had happened, though. Asriel remembered fighting me, remembered being filled with fear and loneliness and a desire to reset everything, but anything to do with Flowey had become vague, like a half-forgotten nightmare.

I envied him that.

Asriel still loved flowers, though. Now we were on the surface, he could grow whatever flowers he liked. He even had a little patch of golden flowers. They grew like weeds on the surface. Dad was forever having to dig them out of other parts of the garden, but he loved the tea made from them and he loved the way Az happily tended his one little patch, so he put up with it.

Seeing the golden flowers in the vase in the kitchen often filled me with melancholy, but Az loved them so like dad I just put up with it.

Mom opened her school and Az and I both went there. At first there were more monsters than humans, but local families soon learned what a great teacher mom was and sent their kids there, too. That always made mom proud.

She was a great teacher, and we both loved going to school. We made lots of friends, monsters and humans alike.

Life was so carefree in those days. After school, I'd go with Az into the forest around the house, hunting snails for mom's snail pies. I still hadn't got a taste for them, but I did enjoy hunting snails. I'd always been a bit of a tomboy, wandering the wilderness on my own. I guess I'd always wanted to stay as far away from my fellow humans as I could but now, with a family, I finally felt strong enough to deal with other people.

But I still didn't really understand them. Luckily, Az was always there to back me up. On his own he was kind of a crybaby, but together the two of us seemed to be able to overcome a lot of things we couldn't deal with on our own.

And I always knew where to find him if he was upset. The lookout.

I found out about it on our first Valentine's Day. I'd woken up to find a little heart-shaped box at the bottom of my bed. As soon as I touched it, Az poked his head over the side of the bed.

"Happy Valentines day, sis!"

I went digging for the card I'd made him at school. It was a picture of the two of us made from pasta stuck on cardboard and painted, badly.

"I love it," he said when I handed it to him. "Go on, open yours!"

I opened the box. Inside were hand-made chocolates.

"Mom showed me how to make them," he explained excitedly. "I kept burning myself, but it was worth it. They look great, right? Try one!"

I bit my lip. "Uh, maybe later," I said.

Az frowned. "What's the matter?" he asked, the smile slipping from his face. "Are.. are you feeling sick or something.?"

I shook my head.

He stuck his face in the box. "They… they don't look that bad, do they?"

"No, they look delicious," I said. "It's just that… it's just that I'm allergic to chocolate."

Az laughed. "No you're not. You love it!"

Slowly he realised his mistake. It wasn't me who'd loved chocolate. His face fell and his lip started to quiver. Suddenly he snatched up the box and ran from the room.

"I'm so sorry!" he cried.

"Az, wait!" I shouted after him.

He was already out of the house as I ran through the living room in my pyjamas. Mom did a double-take as she came out of the kitchen carrying a fresh pie for breakfast.

"My child, whatever is the-?"

"It's Az," I said, breathless. "I'll explain later!"

I wandered the forest looking for him everywhere. I finally heard him crying and followed the sound. The trail led me in a direction I'd never been before, up the side of a ridge. An incredible view burst open me as I reached the top. I would have stood there and stared, mouth agape, if I hadn't seen Az sitting a short distance away on a fallen cedar.

He turned and started when I got close, but I stopped him before he could run away. "No, Az, wait!"

He put his face in his hands and started crying again. The heart-shaped box was lying nearby.

"Az, I'm sorry!"

He lifted his tear-stained face and blinked at me. "Sorry? Why?"

"You made those chocolates for me," I said. "And I..."

Az shook his head. "No sis, I'm the one who's sorry. I… I got confused. I… thought it was you who loved chocolate. But it was..."

He left her name unspoken, but it hung there huge in the silence on the edge of the world.

I threw my arms around his neck. "C'mon, bro. Stop crying."

"But I wanted today to be special," he sniffed. "I wanted… I wanted to show you this place."

"This place?"

He nodded. "I found it a few days ago. But I kept it secret, even from mom and dad. I wanted to surprise you."

I sat down next to him on the fallen tree.

"It's beautiful," I said, looking out across the landscape. From where we were sitting you had an incredible view of Mt Ebott on one side and of the City and the bay on the other. A short distance in front of us the ridge dropped away suddenly. It was a beautiful place, but a bit scary, too.

"I don't need anything more than this, Az," I said with a sigh. "It's perfect."

He rubbed at his face with the sleeves of his pyjamas. "You.. you really think so?"

We sat there together for a long time, just enjoying each other's company and not saying anything.

"We'd better get back," I said at last. "Mom and dad might be worried."

"Frisk?"

"What is it, bro?" Az only ever called me Frisk when he was being really serious.

He turned to me. The deep sadness on his face broke my heart.

"Frisk, I… I feel ashamed, sometimes. About her."

Her. There was only one 'her'.

"Ashamed? Why?"

He sat there, wringing his hands. "That… that I loved her so much. That… that even after she did such terrible things, I couldn't stop loving her."

I looked out across the landscape stretching before us. I couldn't bear to see his face when I asked him the question.

"Do… do you still love her, Az?"

His hand touched mine. I turned to see him smiling at me and shaking his head.

"No," he said. "No, she's gone, now, sis. Just a nightmare."

"Yeah," I said, taking hold of his hand. "Just a nightmare."

Silence for a while. Then:

"You've got nothing to be ashamed of, Az," I said. "Auntie Undyne once told me something. That love is the scariest opponent there is, since you can't predict what it's going to do."

Az blinked. "Auntie Undyne said that?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I think she was talking about Auntie Alphys."

"So love's a whole lot more complicated than just giving someone chocolates," said Az, philosophically.

The chocolates. I suddenly felt bad.

"I love the box, though," I said. "If it's okay, I want to use it. To keep stuff that's important to me."

"Sure," said Az. He was beaming, now. "That's a great idea, sis."

I leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day, bro."

He burst into tears, happy tears this time, and hugged me so tight I found it hard to breathe.

The lookout, after that day, became our special place. If we ever needed time to ourselves, we'd always go there. But we never enjoyed being alone for long.

Snail hunting. Picking mushrooms. Chasing froggits and bullying whimsum and just wandering the forest for hours together, holding hands.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Mom would call us for dinner and we'd rush home. She'd learned to make all sorts of human food now, as well, although I did eat monster food with them at least half the time – snail pie was the exception. I never got a taste for it, no matter how hard I tried. They loved to see me try, though. I'd take a bite and struggle to get past the awful salty taste and the gross texture and act like I was enjoying it. Az would stare at me and cross his wide, violet eyes and spin his floppy ears around, trying to make me laugh. Every single time he managed to make me laugh and I'd have to swallow the gross mouthful so I wouldn't choke.

So like I said, I never learned to like snail pie. But as we sat around the table, a family, I finally felt happy and at peace. They were alien feelings I'd learned about, deep in the Underground, among the monsters.

Happy times. But I was always happiest when I was with him.

Even sleeping in the same room, though, wasn't enough to keep all those dark thoughts away. Az had more nightmares than I did. Often, late at night, I'd wake up to hear him tossing and turning beneath me, kicking out at the sideboard.

"Az? Bro?" I'd whisper.

He'd quieten down. A short while later I'd feel the bed shiver as he climbed up the ladder at the end.

"Can… can I sleep with you tonight, sis?" his voice would float across the dark to me.

I always muttered, but I never said no. The mattress would sink and I'd feel him toss his pillow down and then squeeze his furry little pyjama'ed body next to mine.

Truth was, my muttering was all an act. I liked having him sleep with me. I often got cold at night and Az… well, he was always so warm. Warm inside and out. He'd just lie beside me at first, but after a while he'd roll over and hug me. I'd force myself to stay awake until he did.

It was like having a big stuffed-toy in your bed. The only problem were his longs ears, which would sometimes flop into my face and I'd wake up, sneezing. But it was worth it.

My own nightmares stayed far away whenever he was beside me.

I wished we could share the same room forever. We managed to talk mom and dad out of separating us for a while, but then one day an incident brought the issue to a head.

Az was getting bigger than me, now, and he could sit on me or hold me down no problem. Boss monsters are physically stronger than humans, after all, and he was a boy as well. But even then, if he ever tried to tease me by using his size against me, I had a nuclear option.

Az was super ticklish. He hated being tickled so whenever he tried to use his weight against me, I'd tickle him. A few quick attacks on his ribs or on the soles of his feet if he was foolish enough not to be wearing socks soon sent him squirming on the floor, laughing until I was worried he might choke.

One afternoon we were squabbling over snacks. We were supposed to share a pack of popato chisps and Asriel was in a playful mood. He kept holding them just out of my reach. He'd sprung up a few inches over the past months while I was still as close to the ground as ever.

The fight started in the living room and progressed up the stairs and across the corridor, through mom and dad's room and finally into our own. Az climbed up onto the top bunk, my bed, and started stuffing chisps in his mouth as I struggled to climb the ladder.

"Hey! Stop it!" I cried, climbing madly. "You'll get crumbs in my bed!"

He made smacking noises and pretended not to hear me. Annoyed, I was left with no other option.

I flung myself at him and started tickling his ribs. This time there was no foreplay, no messing around, no threats, just a direct attack. He started laughing even before I touched him, but as soon as my fingers brushed his sides he began throwing his arms and legs around in a vain attempt to stop me. The packet of chisps went flying but I no longer cared about it. All I had in mind was revenge.

"Ah! Ah! Sis, stoppit! Stoppit!"

"No mercy!" I cried, my hands slipping up to his neck. That part was ticklish, too. I was lying on top of him by now and although I was pretty light, his laughter had rendered him powerless.

I kept up my assault. I wouldn't let up until I'd got what I wanted, and that was to hear him bleat. I knew it embarrassed him, when he lost all control and stuck out his tongue and started bleating like a goat. It was the cutest thing ever. I needed to hear it.

His laughter shifted.

I grinned. "Hey bro, did I just hear a… bleat?"

His struggles became more desperate. "No, sis! No! Stoppit! I'm going to… I'm going to… mehhh!"

I laughed. But once wasn't enough. I scooshed back so that my butt was on his pelvis and I slid my hands under his armpits.

He went crazy. "No! No! Mehhh! Mehh mehh mehhhhhh!

I stopped then, and sat back laughing.

"Ow," I said. Something hard was sticking into my butt. I leaned forward again.

Az was staring up at me, a strange look on his face. I laughed again.

"Hey bro," I said, bringing my face an inch from his. "You're as red as a beet!"

He looked so serious. His violet eyes were wide, moist with tears from all the laughing. In the electric light they sparkled. It was the weirdest thing. Had his eyes always looked like that? With their long lashes? When had he started looking so cute? And his chest, firm beneath mine. He was really warm. Lying on him like this was nice. He smelled nice, too. There were popato chisps on his breath, sure, but there was another smell. His fur had it. His clothes had it. It was his just smell, I guess.

I liked it. A lot.

I was so close to him. If I wanted to, I could just lean in a little closer and I'd be kissing him.

My heart raced. My face was so close to his I could feel his breath.

His wide eyes blinked. "Uh, sis? Are you… are you okay?"

I realised I was staring. "It's nothing," I said. My face burned. I was blushing. Mortified, I let go of his hands and rolled off him.

Straight away he grabbed my pillow and put it in his lap. I frowned but said nothing. Wait. Was he blushing now, too?

He turned away. "Sorry for teasing you," he said.

Phew. Luckily, he hadn't seemed to have noticed my weird reaction.

"Hey," I said suddenly remembering the reason for the whole fight. "Where did the chisps go? I think I saw them flying over-"

I looked over the edge of the bed. The door to the room, which had been ajar, slid closed like a guilty thing.

My heart leaped into my throat. Someone had been there, watching. I knew it could only have been mom. She'd seen everything.

That night there was a family meeting. Nothing about the tickle-fight was mentioned. Mom just said, matter-of-fact, that we were getting too big to stay in the same room and that dad would clear out the stuff from the spare room.

Dad didn't seem too happy about the idea, but he went along with it. He glanced at me. He could tell neither Az nor I were happy, either. But one look at mom's face told us all that there was no point arguing. She'd made up her mind and so it was going to happen.

I'd like to say I got used to sleeping in my own room, but I didn't. Even with all the posters and stuff on the walls, it never felt like my own space. I missed sharing the bunk bed.

One night I had a terrible nightmare. In it, I kept getting texts on my phone, strange texts, texts made up of weird symbols, things like stars and crosses and hands.

I rolled out of bed, tried to find the ladder and fell out. I grabbed my pillow and crept out into the corridor making for our old room which Az now had on his own.

In the dark I collided with something and cried out. A hand slipped over my mouth, a fuzzy one.

"Sis, it's just me," Az hissed. "Quiet, or you'll wake mom and dad."

He took his hand away. I sucked in the breath I'd lost from my cry.

"Did I wake you?" I asked.

The soft brushing of his ears across my face told me he was shaking his head.

"I couldn't sleep," he said.

He took my hand and led me back to his room. He slid into bed and pulled me in after him.

"What if mom and dad find out?" I asked.

Asriel snorted. "Oh, c'mon. We're just sleeping together, not… well, you know."

I felt heat from his face. He was blushing. My heart skipped and I felt a weird tightness in my chest.

I reached out for him, wanting to say something, but Az had already rolled over and fallen asleep.

I rolled over and tried to go to sleep, but couldn't. His little tail kept poking into the small of my back where my pyjama tops had rolled up. After a while I felt Az murmur and roll back over. He threw his arms around me and hugged me from behind.

I let him. And in the space of three shared heartbeats I was asleep, too.