Chara was late this time, Sans observed, reclining on his barstool and popping open his quadrillionth bottle of ketchup. He leaned against the counter of Grillby's as he guzzled the condiment.

The restaurant felt dead, as dead as half the inhabitants of Snowdin. The jukebox still played its easygoing old-timey music, tunes he could have normally listened to for hours without complaint. But without the additional noises of the dogs barking at one another, monsters arguing over card games, and the subtle squeak of a cloth on glass as Grillby obsessively washed his dishes, the music seemed more eerie than relaxing.

There was no place he would rather be, though. At least there was no dust covering the furniture. At least he didn't have to look at the couch and think of how Papyrus had been so excited for the next episode of his favorite show, an episode that he would never get to see.

The skeleton shook his head. Not the time, he reminded himself. Not the time to be sad, not the time to be hopeless. It was a time to get angry, a time to throw every second of pain he had been forced to endure over the many oft-repeated years back into the face of the tardy human child.

He reached one hand up to his eye and drew out one of the human SOULS, an orange one. The fiery heart floated just above his palm, pulsing with more power, more Determination, than any one monster could or should have been able to wield.

Well, Daddo…thought the skeleton. Sorry I couldn't just rely on your gift. I know you always wanted me to use it when I…well, did this. Gonna have to cheat just a bit, Pops.

He tucked his other hand under the SOUL, squinting, trying to use his magic to adjust how he saw its color. If he blurred his vision just so, the orange heart almost looked scarlet, crimson as the blood of the human he had almost stolen a red SOUL from. He snarled, anger at what Chara had made him do to his child bubbling up in his hollow breast. If Flowey hadn't acted so brazenly and selflessly, he would be holding Frisk's soul just like this.

He shoved the orange SOUL back into his eye and focused the unimaginable power he had gained on seeing what was going on in the nearby hotel. Flowey was keeping vigil over Frisk and the child was sleeping, curled up on his side. The little boy didn't have Papyrus' habit of sucking his thumb in his sleep. Instead, he wrapped his skinny arms around his little body, as though he was so desperate to show love and affection that even when he slept he needed to embrace something, even if it was only himself.

What a cute kid…Sans thought, letting his phone fly out of his pocket and setting it on his knee. He took a sip from the ketchup bottle and after confirming that Chara still wasn't in position, he decided to take a moment to look at his device. Alphys might have left him a message a few dozen kills ago, but his phone had been on 'silent' ever since his confrontation with Frisk in the Hall. Nothing spoiled a vengeful FIGHT like a stupid ringtone buzzing right when one was delivering the final blow, after all.

Alphys had, indeed, messaged him no less than fifty times. Pleas, begs, questions as to where he was and if he was okay: Answer, please! I'm so worried! The Evacuation is now, Sans! Sans! Sans!

Then silence. Either she had finally left him for dead and gone ahead with the Evacuation or Chara had found her before she could escape. Either way, he didn't bother responding and ignored a tug of guilt in his chest. He hoped she was okay. It didn't really make a difference if she was okay or not. By the end of all this either everyone would be okay or nobody would, after all. Still, the less pain his friends had to experience, the better.

Hopefully she didn't watch what happened with Undyne…I know how she feels about her…

That unpleasant thought caused him to look away from Alphys' messages and notice another notification from a number he didn't recognize. A voicemail.

He hit 'play'.

Flowey's voice emerged first. "What was that?"

A small voice, a child's voice slightly distorted by the poor reception and the sound of billowing wind in the background, replied: "His voicebox. He didn't pick up."

Sans, skeleton though he was, did have a heart. It was hidden by clothes and a thick, protective layer of magic, but it was there and sometimes, if he focused very hard, he could hear it gently beating.

It stopped right then, when he heard the little boy's disappointed tone. An adorable little voice. He hadn't noticed when the child had uttered a few words in the Hall. He had been too consumed with rage to notice something as trivial as how gentle and sweet the child's voice was.

"Leave a message anyway," Flowey ordered, worry and ire melting together in his high-pitched tenor. "Maybe he's just sleeping."

"'Kay. Uhm, hi Dad!" chirped the child, and Sans felt his still heart plummet to the bottom of his chest cavity. There was that title again, alien to him, and yet he felt a spark of pride at hearing that word and knowing that it was meant for him. It felt like a royal epithet, though he was certain that Asgore would have agreed that being called 'Dad' felt so much better than being called anything else, even 'King'.

"Listen, we, uh…"

"We?!"

"I! I did something bad and now Flowey and me are back in the Underground. We're gonna head back to Uncle Asgore's castle and try to exit the normal way, but if you can, come pick us up! Bye! Love you!"

Beep!

The message ended and Sans stared at the phone for a good long while, at the blank contact box which he imagined, in Frisk's timeline, bore a picture of the child. Maybe a family photo. Maybe he was one of those dads, the sort that had three million pictures of his kid on his phone and changed his backdrop to a different picture every week just so he'd have an excuse to show off his child. "Oh, my kid! Yeah, look, here he is with his Uncle Pap, and here he is at Grillby's, and here he is…"

Sans wasn't exactly an active skeleton on most occasions-even before the constant RESETS had made him lose all drive he had been unashamedly lackadaisical, too lackadaisical to think of parenthood. Then, after all the RESETS had started, he had been too busy protecting his brother and keeping an eye out for the anomaly to ever contemplate something as mundane as being a father.

But knowing that he did, in a better time, have a kid made him more happy and worried than anything. Did he spend enough time with Frisk? Hopefully he didn't get too caught up with work, like Gaster had. Did he put a lot of pressure on him? Gaster had always had high expectations for his eldest son, too high in Sans' opinion, but Sans couldn't picture himself becoming easily disappointed with the kid. As long as he was a good kid, that was all that mattered.

Did Frisk laugh at his dad's jokes? Did he groan at his puns like Papyrus did? Papyrus! Pap would have been too delighted to have a little nephew! Sans almost laughed as he imagined Papyrus trying to show the child how to puzzle properly.

He was smiling now, and not just because his face wouldn't let him do much else. Surface or no surface, the thought of such a pleasant little existence, of watching time march on, watching his kid grow, made his heart steadily rise and then, as he thought of Chara, blaze with Determination.

He silenced his phone, eye glowing as he let the SOUL power flow through his stout frame. He wasn't just fighting for the world now. He was fighting for answers to all the questions he had about what sort of father he was. He was fighting to hear the word 'Dad' fall from his child's mouth.

And with a motivation like that, Sans wasn't going to be losing his will to fight anytime soon.

He sensed Chara's approach.

Showtime, he thought with a chuckle, summoning a screen with a snap of his skeletal fingers.

Screen.

Sans.

Snark.

Surprise from Asgore.

Same as the last three-hundred and seventeen times. The only difference this time around was that Flowey-2 wasn't at Chara's heels as she and her father faced the child's insufferably casual foe, but that minor difference was so negligible that even Sans didn't take notice. His attention was fully on Chara, and she sensed Determination emanating from the monster. He was even more pissed at her than usual this time around.

Fine, she thought.

Flowey-2 had asked for a head start, which she had given, delaying Asgore for a good amount of time by asking him if he still had her artwork and wasting the minutes away nodding and smirking as her father showed her his little treasure trove of her sketches and macaroni art.

And now, she thought, it's showtime.

While Asgore stepped forward to debate with the skeleton for the hundredth time about Chara's character, the girl squinted at Sans' screen. Sans would have been forgiven for assuming that she was merely glaring at him in spite, but really she was looking behind him, at the bottles.

She saw what she had been looking for: a single sun-colored petal resting on a shot glass. A grin broke out on her stolen face.

She drew her dagger.

"Sans, this is a misunderstanding, I'm sure. My Chara would never harm a soul, human or monster. Now, why don't we all sit down civilly and have a cup of…"

But before he could complete the offer, Asgore cried out as pain consumed him. Chara slashed at his back, and with all the leveling up she had done that was enough to end the Monster King before he could even turn and face the traitor. His fuzzy body turned into a heap of dust.

Even Sans seemed surprised by her sudden brutality. She had ended Asgore last time, of course, but given how their conversation had gone he hadn't thought she would just kill him right away.

Maybe she's afraid, he thought. Afraid of feeling something.

Chara stepped forward, standing right on the small mountain of dust that the King of the Mountain had been reduced to. She craned her neck upwards, looking right into Sans' left eye, straight at the SOULS.

"Humans!" she cried, pointing with her dagger to the dust heap she stood upon. "Here! Here's the monster that murdered you! Are you happy? You should be, after everything he did! He pretended to be kind, pretended to be good, but he was a coward! A filthy, cowardly child-murderer! All of the monsters here are the same: they'll act kind, like they just want to be your friends, just want to be understood, just want to protect those they love! It's a joke! Isn't that right, Sans? You, all of your kind, you attack lost children and then play innocent! You cry out in pain while you strike us and then pretend to be morally superior when you have blood on your hands! This is why the humans tried to wipe you out! This is why we should have wiped you out! But no…we showed you mercy! We spared your kind, gave you a reduced sentence as it were, and how do you repay us? You do exactly as we knew you would: rip children to shreds and steal their souls!"

She stomped her foot, sending a small flurry of monster dust into the air. "Enough, Souls! Enough being hurt and used by monsters! Help me! Help me! I'm human like you! Help me and we can get revenge together! No more monsters! No more being locked up in little jars! No more being stabbed in the back by 'friends'! Help me and you can be free! Fight with me and we'll never have to worry about monsters ever again!"

At first there was no reaction. The SOULS did not stir. Sans almost sneered at her new plot.

But then his eye began to ache.

Heyo guys! Long time, no see, but as usual school and work have been kicking my keister. This chapter was originally gonna be super long, but I opted in favor of cutting it apart a bit and giving you the fight scene next time. It'll be beneficial for my update time and my fingers! I'll get back to this as soon as I can (though leaving reviews would certainly motivate me wink wink nudge nudge).

Speaking of reviews! Special thanks to:

Kirbytd3d: Short and sweet!

DannyPhantom619: Agreed : )

Thederpypikachu98: Thanks so much! I tried to do that once, but it really burned me out, having chapters on the backburner! I prefer to get out chapters once I have them, writing too far ahead just slowly kills my drive for some reason (unless I'm writing an original novel, but that's a different story!)

Skyran the Crazy Fangirl: Thank you! That's such a great compliment, especially considering all the great fan work for Undertale! I'll definitely check out your stories if I have time. I'm PERSONALLY not a shipper of Flowey and Frisk: I see them more as a cute sibling duo than as a romantic thing. But either way, I'm glad to have sparked your interest in something writing related!

Karbonkevin: Thanks!

Goldenblaze: You should be! MWAHHAHAHAHA!

Coincidencless: Asgore and Toriel are both boss monsters, but as far as the universe of Undertale goes a Boss Monster is simply a very powerful monster that will give their power to their child as the child ages. My memory of the exact description for Boss Monsters is admittedly a bit shoddy since I haven't played Undertale in awhile, but I DO believe Sans could qualify as a Boss Monster, as could Papyrus and Undyne.

Thanks for all of you for reviewing! 260 reviews! I'm so giddy! And also thanks to everyone who has read so far: this story has had almost 60,000 views since I published it! That is AWESOME!

We still have at least a few chapters folks, though we're beginning to approach the end. Strap in!

I'll be back!