For Papyrus and Undyne, the destruction of half the Underground had taken place over the course of only a few chaotic days. To all those on the outside looking in, the human was an unstoppable whirlwind of chaos that tore through things in the blink of an eye then vanished into smoke before anyone could think to retaliate.

Truly these weeks were a nightmare to all of monster kind.

But for Rain and Chara the passage of time was much different. The days once again were stretched beyond their natural limit; smeared into a state where time was nothing more than an odd thought in the back of their mind.

This was not a nightmare for them. This was hell.

They had both come to despise each other’s Determination in their slow uphill war against themselves. Rain could not fight for long but she was getting better and better at making her short outbursts count. She was becoming less frivolous and more strategic in her attempts.

But Chara never stopped moving. She could be slowed down, yes, but never stopped. She could be killed but she did not stay dead.

Again and again Rain would manage to save someone by the skin of her teeth only to have Chara reset things and try again and again and again until eventually Rain was too tired to stop her. Then Chara would consume, chewing on the world like a ravenous black hole.

Thus Rain would grow all the more quiet as each rebellion cost more and more of her.

It was amusing to think that her great desire to make things right, her Determination, played a big part in kindling the flame that allowed Chara to maintain control over the timeline. Chara knew how to manipulate that Determination. Rain did not. And so long as Chara was able to keep the secret of control to herself, Rain was nothing to her.

Rain became a dull, numb thing. She began to believe that there was nothing left inside of her worth redeeming.

Where once she had wanted vengeance against those who had stolen her friend a cloudy lifetime ago, now she only hoped that those same people could somehow muster the power to stop her as well. She no longer dreamed of seeing the sun. She just wanted to stop seeing dust. She just wanted these accursed long days to end so she could sleep. Yet even that seemed like a hopeless dream.

So when Papyrus and Undyne arrived to confront them, she had been pleasantly surprised by the reprieve it brought her. For once Rain hardly had to lift a finger to stop her counterpart. Chara had managed to dig her own grave with these two. They had trapped her inside a situation that was impossible to win.

Chara tried luring Papyrus within striking range before Undyne showed up but she was always too slow. She tried throwing her spear at him but Rain would muster just enough energy to make their aim go askew, or the massive skull of Papyrus’s blaster would pull itself into existence and shield him from the blow.

If she ran the other way they would end up cornered by Undyne. Chara had set her last save point within the gauntlet so there was no way out. She didn’t have enough time to evade them and every time she tried to strike one of them down Undyne would take the first blow and be transformed. It would all go downhill from there.

They were not exactly stronger than Sans had been but unlike Sans, they were not facing her alone. They truly were a spectacular team. Despite what the Underground thought of naive, quirky Papyrus, he had indeed been taking his training seriously. He knew the rhythm of his friend’s attacks. He knew the gaps and the breathers between each round and he knew how to bolster and fill in those weak points perfectly.

They abused the terrain too. If Chara tried to fight in the gauntlet they would box her in with barricades.

If she tried to scale the walls? Undyne would paint her soul green and cut a line in the stone that she could not cross.

Fight out in the open water? Papyrus would hit her with a blue attack and she would drown.

Rain watched the whole thing unfold again and again with a solemn sort of amusement from the distant reaches of her mind, doing her best to stay out of reach when Chara came looking for a human shield to dull the pain.

But this stalemate could not last forever. Either Chara would find a way to kill them, or she would reset their progress and take them through the Ruins again and make sure to separate the two friends next time.

In light of this new understanding, it made Papyrus’s pleas all the more heart wrenching to endure.

Where once Rain would have given anything to have someone reach out and try to help her. Now it just hurt to see him try so hard only to tread water with them in every attempt.

She could not help him. She could not save him. Any progress they made would soon be erased. She could not answer his please, no matter how much she wanted to.

She began to appreciate the cold understanding Sans had shown her in the Judgment Hall when she had tried to make peace with him. She was dammed. Sans had known that. Yet still Papyrus tried.

“Human, I know you are hurting...”

“I don’t understand why you did it…”

“I want to help you!”

She moaned at this, shaking her head and turning away, trying to drown out his voice.

Every single time, without fail, when they would reset and he would immediately offer them mercy. She had to close her eyes and hide away in the back of her mind when she realized that he was starting to notice the resets in his own cloudy little ways. He even commented on it once or twice, acknowledging that he had felt the day flicker and that even though she had come back for them again, he still believed she had the choice to try to be better this time.

“Papyrus, no. No. I don’t have a choice! You have to let me go. You have to give up on me. There is no one left here for you to save. That’s not me anymore! You are not talking to me. That’s not me!”

“I know you can be good again.”

“I can still see kindness in your eyes.”

“Please. Just stop. You need to let me go.” She was so ready to give up. So eager to crawl back into her dreams and stay there forever. Her mind was being pushed beyond what one would dare try and inflict on someone if they ever hoped to keep them sane.

Yet still he called to her, refusing to let her go when she herself was ready to give up. It tore at her in a way she could not describe. His words brought back memories of that fleeting moment of contact when the other human souls had fought Chara inside her dreams and Daniel had tried to help her.

What had they been trying to tell her back then? What was it that she had failed to figure out? What was she missing? They had been counting on her but she had not been able to make a difference with her second chance. She was a disappointment to everyone. Just like she had been a disappointment on the surface.

Her parents had been right about her. She never had amounted to anything, had she? Even her attempt at death had been a colossal screw-up. She knew this now. She accepted it. So why couldn’t he?

Outside of her mind, the battle was ending again. Chara made some strangled noise of frustration and fell to her knees. Her back was decorated with spears, her skin blistered and her body soaked to the bone as she collapsed in the shallows.

“Fine! You want to talk to her so bad, Papyrus? Here! Knock yourself out! I’m sick of having to die on my own like this.” Chara spat, rolling back and giving up control, thus throwing Rain’s brooding consciousness to the front by default.

All at once she was able to see the world without the discolored dreamlike haze. She took in a sharp breath of surprise as the pain she had been avoiding so well came up and hit her hard enough to make things briefly go out of focus again.

“Dammit, Chara.” She hissed through her teeth, doubling over on herself. At least she was dying pretty fast this time. Already she felt things going numb.

“Go on. Say your piece. After this we are going back.” Chara warned.

Rain closed her eyes in understanding. Another true reset then. Another long slog through the snow. God, she hated snow.

She felt the cool water lapping against her face, blood giving the pool a metallic taste. She was vaguely aware of someone running towards her. Off in some impossible distance she could hear Undyne shouting in objection.

She felt someone nearby, water splashing against her face as they dropped to their knees beside her, tossing her fire poker away. The spears lodged in her back dispersed, bringing some degree of relief that was quickly outshined by the pain of involuntary movement when a pair of trembling boney hands gently disturbed her position.

She groaned, face screwing up against the pain as Papyrus scooped her up and cradled her close to his chest. Tears fell off the corners of his jaw and faded into her already damp hair while he cradled her head.

“Human,” he whispered, rocking her and stroking her hair. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Truly I am.”

He always apologized for her death when he won. He always begged her to forgive him for hurting her- even though he never intentionally dealt the killing blow. The drowning were always just an oversight on his part. It wasn't something he had ever had to think about when training with a fish.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on his voice as it continued to grow more and more distant.

This was the first time in memory that he had had enough time to do more than just call to her across the water. This was the first time he had been able to hold her.

She coughed, painting his chest red. He did not seem to notice. “Papyrus?” She mumbled, numb fingers grasping at his forearm as she struggled to look up at him and get her heavy lids to stay open.

“Please, human. I know you can be good again. Why must you do this?” He nearly sobbed. “There is so much I don’t understand, but I want to try. So please, help me understand!”

Damn. Now she was going to start crying too, wasn’t she? “You have to let me go, Papyrus.” She begged, voice nothing more than a thin whisper. “You have to let me go. I’m not myself anymore. You can’t fix us. I tried. I tried so hard to fix us but I can’t figure out the secret. I can’t…I …” Her whimper became a feeble sob. “Just let me go. Just let me go so I can give up.”

“No. No, never! You can do this. I know you can!”

Undyne was at his side, spear lowered in a protective way. “Papyrus, let her go. She could still be dangerous.” She ordered, hands trembling and breath heavy after the draining fight.

Papyrus looked up at her, the edges of his jaw stained red where they had pressed against Rain’s head. “She’s dying, Undyne. The least I can do is comfort her!”

Undyne’s face fell, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her tired lips. She crouched down and rested a comforting hand on Papyrus’s shoulder. “Hmph. Even after all this, you are still you.” She murmured.

Rain closed her eyes and focused on the sensation of being held. It had been such a very, very long time since she had been touched. Too long since she had enjoyed any sort of kindness or warmth. She did not deserve it now but that did not stop her from selfishly drinking it all in. She wanted to hang on just a little bit longer and rest. She wished she could hide in this little moment of warmth forever.

…This was nice.

“She is going to reset again.” She managed to croak. “All of this is going away.”

Papyrus nodded in understanding. “...Good... Good. I look forward to that.” He sighed. “We can finally make things better. We can do better. Next time.”

Undyne gave him a curious look, the only one of the three that did not understand what was going on.

Rain coughed and reached out to touch his face, drawing him closer so that he had to look her in the eye. “No. No. When I come back it won’t be me. It will have my face and my voice but… It. Wont. Be. Me.”

“But it’s you now!” He laughed, hugging her again and beginning to rock her once more. “You are a good person. I knew you were! And when you get back, I promise human, I will do my very best to remember you this time. I will remember and help you.”

Damn this darkness. It was chewing away at her vision now. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. “…No. No, Papyrus you can’t.” She argued, eyes closing against the sudden exhaustion. It hurt but she rather enjoyed the rocking sensation. His bones were even kind of warm. That was nice. She liked warm. She had missed warm.

“Papyrus, I’m begging you, if you remember anything at all from all this, remember this: I need you to kill me.”

“Over and over and over if you have to. Bring Undyne, the guards, your brother- bring them all with you and fight me.” It took her a moment to realize she was merely thinking these thoughts now. She couldn’t feel her body anymore. The quiet sobs of the strange, kindhearted Papyrus were but a distant echo bounding through the many cracks of the darker darkness now.

“Ah. Well, too late I guess.”

Darkness.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

***

“I would say rest in peace, but we both know that’s not going to happen.” Sans’s skull cracked against the trunk of the tree, the force of the blow causing its snow laden branches to free themselves of their weight and attempt to bury him as he fell.

She reset and began again, grateful to have such a pathetic punching bag to take out all her frustration on after having lost to Undyne and Papyrus one too many times.

There were now dozens of resets set between their current situation and their encounter with Undyne and Papyrus. Chara had tried several times now to kill both Sans and Papyrus before Undyne ever had a chance to get mixed up in things but it never quite worked out. So after countless wasted attempts, Chara was taking a break so she could let off some steam. She reloaded the same save over and over again and took her frustration out on Sans, since despite his more accurate knowledge of what was going on, he still remained too lethargic to do anything about his gut feelings until it was too late.

She met him out in the snow and killed him over and over again, skull cracking against the same tree every time, causing Rain to flinch until she just closed her eyes to it, disappointed in his lack of fighting spirit. Even when she could tell he could feel that something was wrong he continued to offer them that stupid handshake instead of trying to stop them.

Was it because he still believed in them? No. No, if he had even the faintest memory of the Judgment Hall then how could he? This was just his… acceptance.

It was so frustrating to know that if he could have just brought himself to care none of this could have ever happened in the first place. If he had done his damn job right from the start Chara never would have been given the chance to do all this.

But without Flowey there to goad him on, without the whole Underground first going empty under his watchful eye, nine times out of ten he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to do anything.

At least by letting Chara have her fun with him it kept her from her real task a while longer. It gave Rain time to think and try to come up with something- not that it helped.

Chara went on like this until Sans finally wised up enough to kill her first. Even then they only lost because Chara had managed to screw up the rhythm and slip, giving Sans some extra time to react.

Then she reset once more, running through a few true resets for good measure to clean the slate before doing things in earnest. After countless failed attempts to cut corners, Chara settled on simply mirroring the actions that had brought her so far during her first attempt.

She let Flowey escape to who knows where. Rain failed to give him any sort of warning and Chara vowed to kill him once she got the chance in New Home.

Rain finaly got to watch the truth unfold in Toriel’s house when she saw that the old monster had never meant them any harm in the first place. Chara had once claimed that Toriel had been scheming with someone on the other side of the door but now Rain knew that she had only been talking to Sans. Reminding him of a promise he had once made not to hurt any humans. It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under her. She didn't know whether to feel ashamed of herself, grateful for the unexpected kindness Toriel and Sans had shown by honoring their agreement, or angry that she could have been stopped by now if Sans had never made his promise.

When they confronted her about leaving the Ruins Toriel begged them to reconsider. She tried to calm them, comfort them even.

…There was such betrayal in her eyes when they cut her down.

Maybe Chara was right. Maybe letting them die was a kindness. After all, what had all of Rain’s troubles won monster-kind in the end? A few days of muddled confusion where they were left to grieve over those she could not save? A few days were they got to relive the same nightmares, the same pains, over and over again because she was not strong enough to save them and was too weak to let just them go? Suspended in that kind of limbo was no way to exist. Maybe Chara was right. Maybe they were not the ones were were broken, maybe it was the world itself that was cursed.

Maybe death was a kindness.

She cried.

They shook hands with Sans; laughing even though he had forgotten the whoopee cushion again. They smiled like it was all a good natured joke when he told them to just keep pretending to be a human for his brother’s sake.

She marched through the bitter cold, head bowed to the wind as she ignored one puzzle after another to the great distress of Papyrus and the ever mounting worry of his brother, who seemed to be trying to recall something oh-so-important lurking just at the edge of memory.

Rain tried to warn them but her attempts had grown weary and halfhearted. Everything was a slow and discolored thing viewed at a distance now.

To her great personal grief, Papyrus had somehow managed to keep his promise despite all the resets that should have rotted his memory. Where they should have had their final confrontation on the outskirts of Snowdin, he instead waited in the cool dark of the fog with open arms and a voiced belief that he could teach them to be good again.

Despite all those they had hurt along the way, he still believed in them.

“Please, Papyrus, if I can save only one it would be you. Just give up on me. Let me give up on myself. Let my memory die. Then run. Run like hell and never look back!”

It was one of the only places where she still managed to scrape together enough effort to fight back but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. And so he died with a smile on his face, arms still held open to embrace her as he turned to dust.

They donned his flame colored boots. Chara cracked his skull underfoot, then turned her back to the echo of his dying words.

Those words ate away at Rain’s back with every step.

“I still believe in you…”

Maybe death was a kindness.

She laughed.

Undyne fought valiantly, once again managing to draw on her own Determination when Chara became too overzealous. Rain tried to help but every time she did, Chara would just use her as a buffer against the pain, torturing her until she finally relented. Then she would smother her in a cloak of darkness, dulling her emotions and causing her thoughts and memories to become sluggish and blurred.

Eventually Undyne fell. Without Papyrus there to support her, the gaps in her defense could be exploited. Undyne laughed at them as she died. She flashed death an amused grin as she melted, promising them that monster kind would live on despite all this.

Rain covered her ears and closed her eyes, pressing herself as far into the darkness as she could go. Her dreams swallowed her and her memories enveloped her, hiding her from reality.

Maybe… death was a kindness.

***

This was not real. It was a dream. A memory.

…Good.

She watched from atop her favorite hill as their neighbor popped open the hood and began to fish around in the car’s engine. From under the cover of her favorite tree she sung quiet songs to herself and strained to listen to the distant murmur of the man giving his son instructions on what to do.

It was all nonsense to her, garbled and overridden by the summer song of birds. Yet still she watched with secret curiosity as they pulled things apart, replaced them, ran tests and crawled in and out of various places to search of the source of the problem.

When they took a break from their work the man pulled out a pair of sandwiches to share with his son. They sat in the shade and joked with one another.

That looked nice. That boy must have a cool dad.

She climbed down from her hill and went inside to grab a lunch of her own, casting a few sideways glances out the window to keep an eye on the visitors as she did so.

Her parents had been fighting again recently. It had been one of the bad ones. Dad had stormed off the other day and had not been back since. That morning Mom’s car had had trouble starting and she had missed work. She had spat out a string of curses from between her pinched lips and cigarette while she called around to see if anyone could help her. A neighbor from down the road had answered the call.

They didn’t know them very well. They didn’t seem to be home very much but she had seen the boy in passing a few times in town. Her mother had warned her not to bother them when they showed up since they had a job to do.

She made her own sandwich and went back outside. Since the neighbors were still on break she wandered around among the hills, quickly eating her lunch and singing to herself as she collected wildflowers.

“When you climb mount Ebott, you may not like what you see

There are monster hid beneath the rock, nasty as can be

Their demon cries won’t reach the skies, their souls trapped down beneath,

Hid within the darkest dark, filled with lots of teeth.”

She jumped when she heard something disturbed the silence with a chorus of breaking twigs and rustling grass. She spun around with a little gasp, cheeks going bright red with embarrassment when she saw the boy standing there.

“Hi!” He chirped.

“Um, hello.”

“Were you singing the monster song?”

She looked down at the ground in shame. “Sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” His brow scrunched up in confusion.

“About singing.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“Yeah, well, my mom said I shouldn’t sing because I’m tone deaf and it’s annoying.”

“Well I think it sounded pretty. Just like a song bird! I won’t tell her that you sing.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”

There was an awkward silence between them where they just smiled and looked at everything except each other. “So, um, do you want to come help me work on the car? We saw you watching us.”

She looked back in the direction the car was in, curious but cautious. “I can’t. I was told to stay out of the way of men’s work.”

He frowned again. “I’m not a man, I’m a kid!” He informed with no small level of confusion. “And my dad said it’s important to learn how to fix a car, so I think it must be kids work too.”

She scowled at him, unsure of this reasoning. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm! Come on, it’s fun! Don’t worry, my dad is really nice.”

She shuffled forward. She had to admit that the guts of the car did pique her interest quite a bit. “Ok. If you say so. If you don’t think he will be mad.”

He scoffed at this. “My dad’s a big dork. Even when he’s mad he just looks funny.” He nodded back in the direction of the car. “Follow me. If we hurry maybe you can have one of our cookies before he eats them all. I made them myself!” He raced off down the hill, crashing through the grass, leaving her to follow after him with a more cautious pace to her steps. “Come on, Song Bird!” He called over his shoulder.

“Ok.” She peeped.

“Oh and if you want to keep singing while we work, you can do that too.” He added; a little red in the face. “I will sing with you.”

“…Ok.” She would not sing again.

“Oh by the way, my name is Daniel. What’s your name?”

She smiled a little. “My name is…”