"Stay away from me!"

"You need to come home!"

"Don't make me do it! I will, Lyssa! I will!"

"Tabatha Strong, are you threatening me?! I will not stand for this!"

A wash of fire suddenly lit the empty side street with a brilliant orange flash, blinding the older woman, who shielded her eyes reflexively. When she finaly managed to blink away the spots, her stepdaughter was gone. Jogging out to the main road, she looked both ways before racing across, just barely making it down the crosswalk before the light changed. Joining the flow of people, Lyssa Strong made her way to the bar she had caught one of those accursed skeletons frequenting not too long ago—the one called "Grillby's".

She was hit with a sudden warmth as she stepped inside the door and blinked at the abundance of monsters and humans crowded inside. Putting aside the minor surprise she felt, Lyssa made her way over to the bar, towards the man-shaped fire tending to the drink orders, keeping sharp eyes out to spot her troublesome child among the diners.

"Pardon me," she began, her tone pleasant, "would you have happened to see a young woman with a ponytail and wearing a purple jacket?"

The monster looked at her (or at least she assumed so based on how he turned his head—if he had eyes, they were hidden behind the reflection in his glasses). After a moment, he waved down a waitress and signed something to her, getting a nod in turn.

"Mr Grillby says that he isn't certain she didn't come in, but he did not see her," the server reported. "He said you are welcome to wait for her if you planned to meet up here, though."

"Oh no, nothing like that—I just thought she might have stopped by; one of her friends frequents this establishment, I believe," the older woman replied airily. "I suppose she stepped into one of the other shops then. Good night then."

Lyssa turned and left, leaving a confused waitress behind, who looked at her boss questioningly. Grillby signed to her briefly, telling her to go back to work and that it was a private matter. After twenty minutes or so, the fire elemental went to the back room and walked towards the storage. There, tucked between the extra napkins and placemats, crouched a young woman with a brunette ponytail and clad in a purple jacket.

"She's gone," Grillby murmured, tone gentle. "You were right: she knows you have at least one friend who comes here."

"Did she disturb anyone?" Tabatha's voice was a little shaky as she got to her feet, playing with the end of her ponytail.

"No. Asked about you and when Jane said I hadn't seen you, she left."

"She left that fast?" The brunette's brow furrowed. "Normally she'd wait for at least an hour to ensure I wasn't hiding somewhere...could she have figured out you were protecting me?"

"I saw no such sign of that suspicion, but she was very casual when she asked for you." Grillby's flames flickered as he tilted his head. "...Would you like me to call Sans to come get you?"

"...yes please," the human whispered. The fire elemental nodded and rested a warm hand on her shoulder before returning to the front. Tabatha sat back down to wait for her friend to come get her, holding back tears.

It was starting to feel like no where was safe.

Papyrus was pacing again. This was becoming more and more common the longer it took to come up with a permanent solution to the whole "obsessed stepmother" business. Tabatha could sense his desire to be comforting—despite not facing him on the couch—but also his respect for the space she had requested and it made her feel bad that he seemed so helpless to do anything more productive.

"so Grillbz told me he's not sure you should come to work anymore, huh?" Sans commented, his voice low and weary. "looks like today just can't go right."

"DID YOU COME ACROSS ANOTHER ROADBLOCK IN YOUR RESEARCH?" The younger skeleton stopped pacing for a moment and began to fiddle with the end of his scarf.

"apparently it's illegal to present a recording in court if it's done by a third party. has to be one of the participants in the conversation recording it to make it valid, so Tabatha would have to do it and there's a lot of risk for potentially no reward."

"And Lyssa usually sounds like an angry parent, not necessarily an abusive one. It would be weak at best and I don't want to do it over the phone because then she'd know a way to contact me at any moment."

Tabatha tugged the band out from her ponytail, letting her dark hair pool around her shoulders.

"There's probably some sort of loophole somewhere that we could use, but none of us are legal experts—not in human law anyway," the young woman mumbled. "It'd probably get overturned in court anyway though..."

"I KNOW THIS IS A TOUCH OFF TOPIC," Papyrus interjected, coming around the side of the couch, still fiddling with his scarf, "BUT...THE MORE TIMES WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEM, THE MORE I START TO THINK THAT OUR EFFORTS FOR A RESTRAINING ORDER WON'T BE ENOUGH. SHE SEEMS TOO DETERMINED TO GIVE UP EVEN IF THERE IS A LEGAL PROTECTION IN PLACE..."

"I doubt the restraining order will be the final solution," Tabatha admitted. "It's more of a start than anything else...if she breaks it frequently enough, there would be consequences and it's better than nothing..."

Sans' expression was sour, indicating some amount of disagreement, but he said nothing as he rubbed at his brow bone. With a sigh, the older skeleton got to his feet.

"gotta get back to work," he mumbled. "no offense or anythin', Tabby-cat."

"No, I understand," the brunette sighed, leaning her head back and curling up against the cushions. "Just wish I could be more helpful to you."

"staying safe is help enough and you've already helped me a lot in gettin' on the right track with all the legal stuff. just take care of yourself in the meantime. Pap, i'll be home for dinner but probably not gonna be on time again."

Rising, the shorter skeleton gave his brother and friend a short wave goodbye before he vanished from sight. Papyrus slid off and re-tied his scarf nervously.

"...WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP ME FOLD LAUNDRY?" he suggested. "WE CAN WATCH SOMETHING WHILE WE WORK...PERHAPS MORE OF THE CLONE WARS SHOW? WE HAVE SEEN ALL BUT THE MOST RECENT OF MOVIES AFTER ALL."

"Sure, I'll go get the baskets," she offered, getting up off the couch. "You go ahead and get it started. Be right back."

The young monster watched her move down the hall, a sad frown set on his skull. He'd known that things would get worse before it got better, he just hadn't comprehended how much worse. He wanted to help, but he didn't have Sans' intellect to study the laws nor the permission from his friend to confront Mrs Strong. All he could do was be supportive and as important as that job was, it was frustrating to not see any longtime results come from his efforts.

It was incredible how well his human was doing under all the pressure: despite a few scares and close calls from her stepmother, she did her best to keep cheerful and be helpful around the house, always keeping a positive attitude. Her openness, her cheer, it was inspiring to witness, but Papyrus knew how much it cost her to keep up that image: some days she couldn't even get out of bed, completely bogged down with exhaustion. But she kept trying and as long as she tried, he needed to try too.

Sans' fingers were pressed so hard against his skull, it was a small miracle that the bone wasn't being scraped off. Human law was so complicated. Their divisive natures and lack of magic made it so much harder to determine the criminals from the innocent and the ways they meted out justice was reflective of that. Stars above, he had a mind built for understanding the cosmos and advanced science, not this tangle of rules and exceptions, Judge or no.

Asgore had been consulting human lawyers on what to do in their situation, but the answer had been mostly the same: the evidence was circumstantial and the situation as they understood it would need a much more decisive solution than just a restraining order. Evidence was once again the enemy.

Dropping his hand away from his face, the stocky skeleton used his magic to close and levitate the thick book in front of him, settling it onto the pile of other one's he'd read. The information rattled in his head, different snippets jumping out at him, none of them helpful or important.

if only the laws were as simple as that game made them out to be, he thought wryly, mind going back to the weekend at Mia's. In that game, the crimes were just logic puzzles, many of them that he could solve with his sockets closed. Then again, that game had the advantage of a lot of supernatural elements: able to conveniently gain evidence from the murder victim's last memories or even detect for certain when someone was lying.

The last thought struck a chord in Sans' brain. For a moment, he wasn't sure why...

...then the lightbulb went off in his head.

He had to call Asgore.

Alright, so I really wasn't in the best state of mind last night when I put this up and it's been pretty much the same thing everyday for the past while. I put a lot of pressure on myself to produce stuff for y'all to read because I know you enjoy it and when I haven't updated in a while, my anxiety starts talking to me. Thanks so much to everyone who left me some encouragement last night when I was down on myself; I really do appreciate y'all.

And without further ado, here's my responses to the reviews from chapter 38!

Skater1ooo: Heh, the TL;DR looked a lot longer in the editing document than it did when it was published. And I wasn't sure you'd actually read it anyway. A lot of my chapters these days are scribbled down in my brief moments of free time before I have to get back to work, so they tend to be short and blunt. I want to finish this thing, dangit! Either way, I'm glad you've been enjoying all those details! One of the ironies of writing fiction is how much realism goes into it and how people look for that. Can make it pretty tricky to not lose my head in all that.

SansSational: Hey, no problem; I want to make all my readers feel appreciated. Glad you enjoyed!

GoldGuardian2418: Hehehe! Quien sabe? (Who knows?) ;)

TabbyCat: The cycle of feeling better and worse comes around again...the Determination is on the low right now, but I'm holding to the Perseverance as best I can. Thanks for your consistent support! :D

king tem: tANKs tEM!