You never asked to be part of any of this.

Death should have been, had always been before, the solution. End of the line. Nobody's problem anymore, least of all your own.

Your father taught you that one.

He might have been wrong, though, because you know that he never woke up in a patch of honey-gold flowers covered with a thin layer of dust. And, experience your new master, you know that dying here is not the solution.

Whenever your soul cracks and shatters and you hear a distant voice that makes the intruder in your mind squirm, you realize: it's the problem.

You're their last hope. They all tell you so, even when before, all you've ever been was a nuisance.

Your mother taught you that one.

The game has never been flipped like this before; not for you.

It fills you with determination.

—

One time through, too much

Determination.

—

The last time through, you get it right.

The sky is swollen with reds and purples and oranges as Toriel kneels beside you, rests her paws on your shoulders, and accepts you into her new home as easily as she had when you were the newcomer to her world.

Your other friends are beaming, both at you and the vast expanse of fading sunlight spearing through the trees.

Sans looks a little hollow.

When you nod your head and Toriel pulls you into an embrace and your soul quivers, you suddenly realize that you feel a little hollow, too.

The game is still flipped.

Now you're the problem.

—

Alphys makes good on her promises; so do Undyne and Papyrus and Toriel and Asgore. The tea is sweet, the pie is warm and rich, skeletons are surprisingly safe drivers, and you can name every mecha and magical girl anime ever created.

Three months is all it takes for them to acclimate to the surface world. Things aren't perfect, but they're good.

They don't notice you stifling tears whenever dust blots your fingers or flies up your nose. They don't find you systematically plucking the petals off of golden flowers whenever you get the chance. Once, you gathered the courage to call your mother and wait until she was done slurring at you; gave her directions, sat in the corner booth of Grillby's new location, and buried your face in your sleeves, sitting for hours and hours and hours while Grillby had a human server bring you glasses of water.

But nobody came.

Three months is all it takes for the hollowness inside you to give way to the familiar weight that scratches at everything you do.

You're not happy.
I'm not, either.
Let's go back, partner. Let's finish the job.

—

When Chara makes your hand twitch towards knives and fills you with Determination near busy streets and at the tops of stairwells, you pray that three months is long enough for them to move on, and don't go home one night.

It isn't long enough at all. Your phone buzzes in your pocket until you drop it in the dirt road ten miles out of the city.

Mount Ebbott is as tall as it used to be, but for some reason, it feels taller. You've never been a thin child, but a newly minted life of people who are happy to feed you has left you with a bit more meat on your bones than the first time you stood here. Your knees and your palms already ache with the remembered sting of scrapes.

The Underground is empty now. There's no one for you to hurt; no one to hurt you. Nothing to tempt you into unraveling your soul and sending everything back to zero. And the Barrier is gone now, but you already know that this path won't kill you.

Chara is screaming in your soul.

It fills you with determination.

You start climbing.

—

But somebody came.

"hey, kid. hanging around?"

You are, in fact, scrabbling at a root to keep yourself upright on the steep incline, which is why the voice doesn't startle you at all. You turn your head and see Sans parked on a ledge about three feet away, his feet swinging in the air as he watches you with that infuriatingly blank smile.

Let's wipe it off his face.

"No," you grit out.

Sans doesn't look surprised, but he never looks surprised, so you turn your gaze ahead and keep climbing.

"Frisk..." His tone demands your attention; when you look back at him, his eyes are empty. "Come on. You're going to break your neck."

You want to laugh, but instead tears prick at your eyes. That's the problem, isn't it?

"I won't reset," you say. "No matter what. I won't reset."

You were wrong before; Sans does look surprised this time. His eyes close, the familiar sheen of sweat beading on his skull, and he looks down the mountain, away from you.

"i know."

You still, your hand tightening around the root. You're so stunned by the guilt in his voice that he has ample opportunity to reach over and pluck you right off the side of the mountain, drag you close, and fold you under his arm. Impressive, when he's less than a head taller than you are.

"let's talk," he says. His smile is strained.

All you can do is nod dumbly. Hugging you close to a body that smells like spaghetti and ketchup and dust, Sans steps off the ledge and begins sliding down the mountain.

—

He sets you down in a patch of daffodils next to a river, settled at the base of Mount Ebbott. The yellow hurts your eyes and it takes all your willpower not to tear them out of the ground.

"you dropped this," he says. You keep staring at the flowers until something prods your shoulder and you take it. It's your cell phone.

You put it back in your pocket without checking any of the messages.

"Thanks."

He sits down behind you with a huff, hands shoved in his pockets. You feel the hard ridges of his spine dig into your back as he leans against you. He's watching the mountain; you watch the flowers.

It stays that way for a while. Then:

"i'm not worried about the reset, kid."

You do laugh this time, and it scares you because that isn't your laugh and you know exactly whose it is. You bury your face in your palms and shove Chara back.

"You can't know what it's like," you murmur into your hands. "Knowing that at any time…"

Sans shifts against you. "...sounds familiar."

"It should. You told me."

You expect him to pull away right then, because it's Sans; somehow, someway, he always knows what you've done and even when he doesn't, you've just handed him the missing piece. He won't kill you—he doesn't want a Reset, either—but maybe he'll let you go now. Maybe he'll understand that this is the only way.

So, then, you're stunned again when he leans against you a little harder and asks, "so it worked, huh?"

"What?"

"great. i'd have a bone to pick with my past self if i didn't get you to come to your senses."

Chara is surging up, twisting your soul this way and that, because Sans is the one that got away and they're so angry. You won't finish the job. You won't Reset. You clutch your chest and curl inward; Sans lets his weight fall with you.

"I killed Papyrus," you moan. "I killed everyone. I tried to kill you."

"well, there's that," Sans concedes. There's a flicker of anger in it that makes you feel validated and tears you in two at the same time.

Then he slumps a little further.

"...you think you're the only one who's made mistakes, kid? nah. you're just the only one with a reset button. and you used it."

You're crying now. "Only because you made me."

Sans shrugs, then grabs your shoulder and gently turns you towards him. His smile is the softest you've ever seen it. Then it widens, and he winks down at you.

"friends don't let friends drive drunk. ...or whatever you were."

You're confused, but then it hits you: even if he doesn't understand the full scale of it, he knows something about you wasn't yourself that time; couldn't have been. Not the kid he stacked hot dogs on and treated at Grillby's. Not the kid he made a promise through an ancient, dusty door for.

Not his friend.

You laugh again. This time it is yours, and you wipe your eye with your sleeve.

"More like 'drive dunked'," you say weakly, and Sans chuckles whether he understands or not.

It's quiet in your soul, even though you can feel Chara simmering. It takes you a few moments to realize that while Chara's soul is powerful, there's so little room for them when your own is occupied by you and Sans and Toriel and everyone else.

You're afraid to believe it's that easy, after everything you've done. With everything you could still do. You're still counting from zero; from the underground up. You remember seeing a picture in Sans' room last time you visited, and wonder if it's possible that some things are stronger than the Reset.

You close your eyes and realize this was your last, feeble attempt to empty your soul of the others inside it.

But it refused.

They refused.

You look back up at Sans, and there's a knowing look as he helps you to your feet, a soft reprimand and forgiveness all in one expression. He slings his arm around and pulls you towards the path. The daffodils swallow the smell of dust. Despite everything, you understand what truly drove Sans here, and it floods your soul, too.

You're filled with determination.