"Don't you have anything better to do?"

"What? Asriel, I came down here to save you. I thought I did SAVE you, way back there! I understand why I can't, and if you don't want your parents to see you turn into Flowey again, I understand, but I'm not going to walk away and let you die all by yourself! These are your final moments as not-an-evil-flower! No, I don't have anything better to do!"

Asriel chuckled, softly. "Okay, then. But when I do turn back... promise to just walk away, all right?"

"I don't want..."

"Promise me!"

"Fine. I promise that when you turn into Flowey again... I'll just walk away."

"Okay. I'll try to let you know... when it starts."

For a brief moment, Frisk considered breaking their soul in half and offering the other half to Asriel. No, that wouldn't work, not in this universe. Maybe if... but that would just be... they couldn't ask Asgore and Toriel to create another SOUL, because that would be a new child entirely... They slumped down, defeated and nearly out of DETERMINATION. It didn't help that they'd only been taking very short, healing catnaps for the past several hours. Dodging a marathon of attacks was exhausting. They could at least rest their eyes for a little while, because they didn't need to see Asriel to be with him, right? Asriel looked pretty tired, too, so it'd be all right, they could just lie down together with their eyes closed. They'd still be alert, they were still listening, right? That was enough, they didn't need to...

"HEY, DID YOU TWO FALL ASLEEP ON A DATE?"

Frisk awoke with a jolt and a groan. How long had they been asleep? They first turned to Asriel, who was also just waking up, to make sure he hadn't transformed into an evil flower possessed by a transdimensional demon, then turned to the innocently grinning skeleton.

"Papyrus, what are you doing all the way out here?" Frisk asked.

"WELL MY PHONE RAN OUT OF BATTERIES BUT THE LAB WAS CLOSED, SO I'M LOOKING FOR A CHARGER! HAVE YOU SEEN ONE?"

"No..." One-word answers were the only way that Frisk knew to get Papyrus to stop talking. They weren't about to discuss how many chargers Papyrus must have skipped on the way over here.

"Please, just.. go away..." Asriel groaned.

"WOW! HEY, YOU LOOK JUST LIKE ASGORE AND HIS CLONE! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

"It's Asriel, just get out of..."

"REALLY? HEY, THAT WAS THE NAME OF ASGORE'S SON! HAVE YOU EVER MET HIM?" He reached for his phone, but of course it was still out of batteries. "HEY FRISK DOES YOUR PHONE DO PICTURES? YOU SHOULD TOTALLY SEND ASGORE A PICTURE OF CLONE KID HERE! HEY... ARE YOU ASGORE'S CLONE'S SON?"

For the first time in a very long while, Asriel innocently laughed, long and loud, until he choked up with tears. He almost said that his mom was not, in fact, his dad's clone, but that might have led to Papyrus asking how he knew who he was talking about, which would have led to a bad time. "Papyrus, that must have been someone else, my dad doesn't have" -BRRRING-

"Hey, uh..." Frisk started, looking at the caller ID with dread. They couldn't call her "Mom" in front of Asriel, and they didn't want to say "Toriel"...

"My child, are you unwell? It has been some time, is anything wrong?"

"HEY NOT ASGORE'S CLONE! NOT YOUR SON IS HERE!" Both Frisk and Asriel gave him looks full of blame. "I DON'T THINK I WAS SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU THAT?"

"Oh, Frisk, are you saying you're a girl? I was never really clear..." A brief moment of silence.

"WELL FRISK DEFINITELY DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOU. NOT LIKE THIS BOY SITTING IN THE FLOWER PATCH DOES. AND NOW STANDING IN THE FLOWER PATCH. AND CLENCHING HIS FISTS. WITH AN ACCUSING LOOK OF PURE RAGE IN HIS EYES. I AM LEAVING NOW. QUICKLY." He left puffs of dust in his wake.

"Frisk... is Asriel with you?" Toriel asked, very, very quietly.

Completely out of options, Frisk pointed the phone towards Asriel. "Don't come here, Mom! Just stay away!" Frisk just shook their head. The odds of Toriel actually doing that were nil, and she'd already hung up instead of staying on the line. Using a phone and walking at the same time was not a skill she had mastered.

Asriel sat back down onto the flowers. He didn't want her to see Flowey, not after purging everyone's memories, but the last thing he wanted in the world was to have her meet her long-lost son again right before his form dissolved in her arms, leaving only a soulless husk. "Come on! Just finish it already! Why is this taking so long?"

"Asriel... she's your mom. Even though I called her that. Make the most of it."

"You called her your mom? Why?"

"Well, she keeps calling me 'my child', so I figured, if she was going to... if it weren't for the dreams telling me to go, I would have stayed with her in the ruins forever. Better than my real parents."

"Heh. Just like Chara and the others. Nobody with a happy family ever climbs Mt. Ebbot."

"I was hoping to have one here, but Mahh.. Toriel isn't getting back together with Asgore. And.. I guess, I almost had a brother, but..."

"Is that why you came down here to save me?"

"I wanted to save everyone. But.. yeah, it'd have been nice to have a brother."

Asriel smiled in spite of himself. "What do siblings even do? I mean, I was an only child, and Chara wasn't really..."

"I don't know, either. Play games? Talk? Ruffle each other's hair?" Asriel playfully ruffled Frisk's dark hair. "Now you're just giving me reasons to miss you."

"Oh. Sorry."

"No, it's okay.. oh, hey, someone's coming." Heavy, hooved footfalls rounding the corner in an outright gallop, heading straight at Asriel at maximum speed. Frisk was used to dodging Toriel, so jumped out of the way; Asriel was swept up like a bird in a hurricane.

"Mom, don't!" She hugged him anyway, lifting him off the ground in a deep embrace. "No, you have to go before I turn back into Flowey, and of course you don't remember who that is because I wiped everyone's memories right before I stopped being God so please just go away!" She kept right on hugging.

"...Son?" Oh no. Not him. Not Dad. No, no, Mom was bad enough, but this... "Is that really you?"

"Yes it's really me, but you can't stay here-" But Asgore wasn't possibly going to listen and Asriel was hugged by both his parents at once, hopelessly trying to explain what had happened to him and why they had to leave.

Sans wasn't too far behind. "hey, frisk. howzabout we give 'em some time, eh? as long as they got." Frisk nodded and started walking away with the skeleton. Now that he wasn't abandoned and alone, they weren't too keen on watching Asriel transform, either. "'sides, i gotta ask you somethin'. why ain't he-" Sans was interrupted by a scream behind him, and Frisk immediately ran back before they realized what they were doing.

"Frisk, you promised to walk away! I'm going to.. no.. it felt like I was, and now it feels like I'm not! What's wrong with me? Why doesn't this just end?!"

"wait a minnit. i think i get it. you ain't got no SOUL of your own, asriel. and of all the SOULs in this room, whose do you think is enough to keep you from turnin?"

Silence. All eyes in the room slowly went to Frisk.

"For how long, Sans?" Asriel asked before his parents could.

"mebbe a day. mebbe a week. hey frisk, you feel anything doin' this?"

"No, I don't feel any different."

"mebbe forever."