Even after the event was several days in the past and they had achieved a few more DT extractions without any complications, Alphys still felt like her stomach was a tar pit of nervousness and lies.

Rain had been merciful enough to not press her or poke holes in her various excuses when she gave them but the look she gave her said she was not convinced by the explanations she was given.

Chara on the other hand, had been particularly brutal in her attempts to bore into her with questions and accusations. She had snapped and snarled at her until Rain managed to regain some semblance of control and calm her down.

Alphys had been reduced to a tearful, stuttering mess.

“I am going to keep trusting you, Alphys.” Rain had said, her voice quiet and her overall body language that of a worn out ragdoll given a half-life. These past few weeks- well, technically months by now- were not being kind to her. Her soul was growing weaker. “I’m going to choose to believe that you are telling me the truth because I have always told you the truth and you chose to believe me. I am sorry for her outburst. I’ll try to keep her from snapping like that again.” They hadn’t talked since.

Alphys sensed that Sans still wasn’t happy with her either. He was tired and the fact that nothing they had done so far had given them any indication of progress didn’t help. She knew he wasn’t mad at her. Sans was a pretty calm guy. He wouldn’t shout or throw things like Chara did but he would get quiet. She knew he was disappointed, maybe even frustrated. He was sleeping more and working less again. Back to his usual self, which she was starting to think may not be so usual after all. He had seemed so interested in this project at first, there had been a light in his eyes that she had forgotten about. So seeing him go back to being lazy no longer felt right but that's what he had chosen to do.

Guess it had been a flash in the pan.

“Well, I got the tests results back from the samples she gave us.” Alphys piped up, rubbing at her eyes and adjusting her glasses. “Turns out it’s only a reaction to the intense stress she is under. The Underground is so saturated in magic that it probably made the manifestation take place faster than normal since the stress was directly connected to soul trauma. The white color probably started seeping through the resets the same way everything else did.” She smiled to herself a little. “Once her stress level is reduced she will probably go back to her natural hair color.”

The poor thing had become convinced that she had started losing her hair color when she lost her soul to Chara. She would be happy to hear that wasn’t the case.

“cool.” Sans was leaning back in a chair on the other end of a table piled high with empty noodle bowls and stacks of paper. He kept the chair balanced on its back legs so he could prop his feet against the desk while he read through the results of their last DT extraction.

“anything on your end?” She prompted.

“same ol same ol. she is still regaining dt faster than we can drain it. it’s still not enough to stop her from resetting.”

“has she…tried to?”

“she reloaded this morning. chara pushed for a reset but rain dragged them back into a reload. oh, that reminds me, we should probably cancel today's extraction.”

“What? Why?” Alphys realized the obvious reason a second too late.

He grinned, happy that she had walked right into his trap. “forecast calls for some bad weather.” If Rain had popped out of a reset this morning then the extraction that was supposed to take place a few hours from now hadn’t gone over well.

She groaned. “I knew you were going to say that.” She really needed to get her head wrapped around all this time traveling stuff.

“come on, your smiling.”

“Sans…” She chided, trying to hide it.

“but yeah, she said the session didn’t go over well. we should probably just weather the storm and wait for chara’s mood to blow over. otherwise today is gonna be a rainy day.”

“Sans!”

“We will just have to hold out and hope the next storm is a brainstorm instead of a rainstorm.”

She hid her face in her hands. “Oh my god. Stop. Just stop.” This was her life now. A 24/7 forecast of rain and other weather related puns.

He chuckled good-naturedly. “so anything on your transfusion theory?”

The amusement slipped from her face and she sighed in frustration. “No. I-it took me months to isolate Determination. I don’t know if we have enough time to isolate an-anything else from the other human souls. She’s uh, she’s not looking too good, ya know?” She read down her very, very short list and shook her head. “I, um, I isolated a few other components while I was trying to isolate Determination. I think they could best be described as Patience and maybe a sense of... Justice? I never really came up with official names for them. I don’t think they would help though. And even if we did find something in one of the other souls that could help her, it would take weeks if not months to re-outfit the extractor to siphon it.” She tossed her papers over her head in defeat and propped her head up on her hand.

“what if we let the souls themselves try to help? maybe the kids will know how to do something we can’t.”

“Do you really think they would be willing to help after all we have put them through?”

Sans looked out at nothing. He had a weird look in his eye and his voice came out a little bit quieter than usual. “yeah. some of them.”

“I’ll look into it.” She yawned. “But I doubt it will lead to anything. It-it would mean we would um, we would have to come clean to Asgore about this so we could get permission to use the other souls. I mean I guess it’s worth looking into- Rain did say that one of the souls was a good friend of hers and that they tried to help her once before… but the encounter ended in a true reset, s-so we r-really shouldn’t do anything until we have a better idea wh-what we are dealing with. Not to mention the fact that waking a soul from its dormant state carries the risk of it escaping if we are n-n-not careful.” She sighed as the cons continued to weigh in on her. “And if Asgore decides to co-come after her…”

Sans’s sockets widened a bit and the pricks in his eyes shone a little brighter in surprise. “she knew one of the souls?”

“Mhm.” Alphys was too busy looking through a folder to notice anything odd about his reaction. “The uh, the last one, I think. The boy who hid in the city for a few years?”

“oh.”

“Did- did you ever meet him? O-or were you not a sentry yet by that point?” She folded in on herself. “S-sorry. That’s probably kind of a personal thing to ask, isn’t it?”

He sucked in a slow breath through his teeth. “yeah, i knew ‘em.”

Alphys jumped a little when a nearby timer went off; warning Sans that his break time was over and he had to get back to one of his real jobs.

“welp, pleasure as always, al. but i gotta get back to my snowdin spot before undyne comes in to check on me. don’t want her giving me the cold shoulder again. or worse, an icy stare.” Undyne had been working herself into a frenzy and was really cracking down on everyone. This was the second time that a human had managed to evade her and seemingly vanish into the shadows and it was driving her nuts.

Alphys felt horrible for not telling her what was going on.

The two friends bid farewell. Sans took his leave and Alphys took a break to go heat up some more takeout and sneak in a few episodes of a new anime she had found, while she multi-tasked between eating and reading through her recent Undernet messages. Undyne wanted to hang out again soon and was asking about coming over later today.

She was taken by surprise when she heard a buzzer go off, signaling that someone was at the main door. For a brief moment she worried that Undyne had decided to skip the pleasantries and run right over like she usually did but when Alphys checked her security feed she was surprised to find a different familiar face waiting outside. She recognized the monster on her screen from the pictures he had posted on the Undernet: it was Papyrus.

She spoke through the intercom. “P-Papyrus? Wh-what are you doing here?”

He leaned towards the speaker outside. “Greetings! It is I, CoolSkeleton95. Also known as the great Papyrus.”

“Y-yes. I know who you are... I just used your name.”

His eyes shifted off to the side. “Oh. Well, anyway, I am here to visit a dear friend of mine. Her letters have been very concerning lately and I think she is in need of company. So I thought I would come visit!”

“Uhhh.” Alphys droned, trying to figure out what to do. “I, um, the lab really isn’t o-op-open to v-visitor right now. Sorry?”

“Oh. Well can I still checker out? If you catch my drift?” He winked at the camera then shuffled around for a second in the awkward silence that followed. He held up a black and red box, looking a little embarrassed with himself. “Checkers. I brought checkers. That’s my drift...” He frowned distastefully at himself. “…I may be spending too much time with my brother.” He muttered. “I need to see other non-pun-intending people for my own mental health. Ever since the queen showed up, nothing is sacred anymore! They are punning late into the night! And as you can see, their bad habits are burrowing into my subconscious! So can’t I go see her? I promise to be quick about it!”

“I-I’m sorry Papyrus. You seem like a really sweet guy but I am really busy right now and don’t have time to um, to take you to her.”

A third voice came in over the intercom “It’s ok Alphys. You can let him in. I already gave him the rundown, he won’t cause any trouble.”

She scowled. “Sans?”

“Howdy.”

“What are you still doing here? I thought you left.”

“Forgot my coat.”

“I thought you had it on when you left?”

“Huh. Guess I did. Welp, found my coat! Thanks. Just send my brother on in. I will meet him in the elevator.”

“Well, ok. If- if you are sure… She has been kind of down lately. I guess she really could use the company.” She hit a button to unlock the door and Papyrus stepped inside.

He waved to every single camera on his way to the elevator.

She smiled a little. She was glad Sans was ok with his brother speaking to Rain. Papyrus seemed like a nice guy.

***

“Psst. Human. Are you awake?”

Rain emerged from the covers, knocking several manga books to the floor as she squinted up at the bright lights overhead. Had she fallen asleep again?

“Oh good, you are!”

She balked. “Papyrus? What are you doing here?” She threw the covers off to the side and rushed over to the door, peering at him through the electric bars. Was this another dream? A hallucination? She couldn’t imagine anyone willingly letting him in here. He hadn’t come to visit her the last time she had experienced this day, before she had needed to reload to this morning. Had something changed because she had told Sans to cancel the DT session?

Chara woke up and watched him with hungry eyes,wondering if there was perhaps a way to get at him even now. She was bored of playing Rain’s game.

“Chara, I swear to god if you so much as touch a single joint on that skeleton’s sweet, goofy body I will ram the both of us into the nearest electricity field and I won’t stop until we are so fucking crispy we belong in a twelve piece bucket! Do you understand?” Rain snapped.

Chara sank a little deeper into the background so she could scheme in peace.

Papyrus held up an opened letter; probably one of her more recent ones. He had a friendly smile on but when he looked down at what had been written, a small concerned scow furrowed his brow. “It is my understanding that you have been having a difficult time getting better. Your last few letters have been somewhat concerning and you seemed rather down in the dumps.” He brightened up. “So I thought: what better way to brighten someone’s day than to receive a visit from their very special mentor and best friend: the Great Papyrus!”

Rain folded her arms and tried to peer past him to see if anyone was supervising this encounter farther down the hall. “That’s very sweet of you Papyrus, but how did you get down here? You didn’t break in or anything, did you?”

He put one hand on his hip and the other on his chest as he gasped. “Rain! I am surprised at you! The Great Papyrus would never consider breaking and entering!”

“But breaking and exiting seems to be just fine.” Chara snerked. Memories of him crashing through a window played out to her hearts content.

“I assure you I got permission from Alphys before coming to visit.”

“Oh. Ok then. As long as someone knows you are here I guess it’s alright to chat.”

“Great!” He held out a black and red box for her to see. “I brought checkers. As well as several of my favorite word searches and books. If we head over to the break room we can set things up and you can tell me all about what’s getting you down while we play a nice relaxing game to lift your spirits!”

Rain let out a rattling “uhhhh” sound while Papyrus shifted the weight of the box against his hip and set a questioning scowl upon the energy field. “So what is this thing anyway? How do you open it?” He reached out to touch the panel on the other side of the wall.

Chara watched, eager and grinning.

“Stop! Papyrus, you can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Alphys is a kind of doctor! It counts!”In his first letter, Papyrus had mentioned Sans telling him that she was sick and that he had found a safe place for her to recover. No one had ever specified to him what Sans had meant by “sick” so she had simply played along to that tune whenever she wrote him. She kept up the facade partly out of her own personal shame and also out of the assumption that Sans probably wouldn’t be happy if she spilled the beans.

“Germs.” She blurted; a little red in the face.

“Germs?” Papyrus echoed.

“Yup. Germs. Super bad germs. I’m sick, remember? The field kills them before they can get out of the room. I have to stay in quarantine. Sorry. Doctor’s orders.”

“Really Rain?” Chara snorted.

He withdrew his hand. “Oh.”

Seriously, had no one bothered to warn him against unlocking her door?

“Well in that case I guess I will sit outside then.” He plopped his boney butt down on the floor and began to remove the contents of his little box. She walked him through how to slide stuff under the bottom of the field so he could give her a few books- because, you know, the gap at the bottom of the door could totally sanitize things against these “germs.” Obviously.

Rain looked over her new entertainment. When he had said he had brought his favorite crossword puzzles he had meant it quite literally. The paper was old and bogged down with several layers of erased pencil marks over each hidden word.

With the crosswords offering no real challenge, they eventually settled on checkers. He set up the board on his side of the field and let her choose what color she wanted to be. He moved her pieces for her. It was a little clunky but the company was nice. They played several games, time flitting away unnoticed as they talked.

She had to break him of the habit of flipping the board every now and then though. Apparently Undyne was the one who had taught him how to play.

After he got a checker stuck in his eye socket for the third time, he finally relented and agreed not to use “surprise attacks” in checkers anymore.

Their careful banter carried on. He didn’t press her too hard for information she did not want to give and insteadlistened to her complaints with a sincerity that she both craved and found rather alien to her current situation. He took her mind off of her dreary situation by telling her various stories about his little day to day adventures while he completely owned her ass at checkers.

She finally got to learn about what was going on outside of her four sterile walls. She had never let time progress this naturally before so it was nice to hear that her efforts to keep moving forward were bearing fruit, even if she did not get to see and enjoy any of it herself.

Papyrus was still carrying on with his super-secret training lessons that everyone knew about, Undyne had bounced back from her injuries with a vengeance and was still “upset” that she had lost track of the human.

Thankfully Papyrus assured Rain that when he had learned that she was in the lab, he had sworn not to tell anyone how to find her. It was a stressful burden to bear but the Great Papyrus always kept his word.

He bemoaned the loss of his brother’s jobs and had mixed feelings about the ex-queen staying with them. He was calling her Toriel now instead of Clone Asgore, although he still slipped up now and then, which made Rain smile. He praised Toriel’s kindness and had noted that she got along famously with Sans, which made him happy. But the puns… oh god, the puns. Nothing was off limits. No time of day was too late or too early, no topic too sacred to be spared by the duos punny crusade.

No wonder he had come to her little retreat seeking asylum.

But other than that, he loved having her over. “It’s like a never ending slumber party!” He said. And apparently the cinnamon butterscotch “quiches” his brother sometimes tried to make were decent now that Toriel kept him from straying from the recipe.

He looked rather sad however when he admitted that Toriel was still out there looking for her. He accompanied her on her long walks when he could. “She looks very sad and worried when she thinks no one is looking.” He said, looking rather crestfallen himself. “She will not tell me what she is sad about, but I know she is very worried about you. Maybe… maybe you should write her a letter sometime, too? Just so she knows you are ok and trying to get better?”

Rain pointed at one of her checkers and the place she wanted it moved to. “Maybe someday.” She replied, cagey through and through. “Now king me.” He made an overly intricate bow and kinged her. She smiled in satisfaction. She may actually win this round. “It’s just been really hard, you know? I thought I would be making more progress than this once I found someone who understood my situation.”

“Well if small steps didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t have legs!” He chirped. “Or stairs!” He jumped several of her pieces in quick succession.

Damn. Maybe victory wasn’t so close after all. What was he going to be like when he brought over something like Chess, or Stones? It would be a massacre.

“I understand your frustration, dear human. I too have felt the weight of similar struggles in the past.” He placed a hand on his chest and struck a dignified pose. She half expected the air conditioning to kick in to overdrive so that his scarf could start fluttering heroically behind him. “It may surprise you to know that even the Great Papyrus has had his rainy days.” He froze in place. “And that was not a pun!”

She chuckled and settled on her next move, trying to salvage the game. “What kind of problems would be big enough to weigh down the Great Papyrus?” She mused.

“I need not bore you with my past troubles.” He assured with an airy turn of the wrist. “For I have thoroughly trounced them! Why, I have a friend for every finger on my hand now and am doing particularly well in my training lessons with Undyne! I should have nothing to worry about now!”

She felt her heart sink a little. She got the feeling Papyrus had been pretty lonely at one point. Perhaps he was even lonely now. Maybe that’s why he had been so adamant about keeping in touch; he was a little more familiar with her situation than she had realized.

“Still,” he began hesitantly, hand hovering over a red checker, “There are some days where I still feel like I’m not moving as fast as I would like to. Like with my training for example. I have only been training for a few months but sometimes it feels like so much more than that.” His brow furrowed. He looked like he was falling into a deeper level of thought than she was used to seeing him in. “Sometimes… it feels like I have been having the same lesson over and over again for years and haven’t gotten anywhere with it yet.” He put his hands on his hips. “To be honest it can be really uncanny sometimes! It’s like the days get all mechanical and blend together. And my brother’s terrible puns don’t help! They are so predictable- it’s like I have heard them all used in the exact same way before. It drives me nuts!”

The tension in his shoulders melted away and his smile returned as he decided upon a move. “But Undyne said I have to be patient. It takes time to learn new things and she said it’s natural to have slow days. And she was right! I have been learning a lot more in the past few weeks now that I’m getting the hang of it. So I’m sure you will get better and make progress too! We just have to take the small steps and eventually we get to where we want to go!”

She cringed away from her guilt. She had hoped that he had been blessedly oblivious to the resets yet in the end even someone as optimistic as Papyrus seemed to have suffered some wear and tear from the repetitive days. “But that’s just it, Papyrus. I don’t think I’m even taking little steps anymore. At least not forward.” She rubbed at her face and groaned. “I just feel so tired all the time. All day, every day. Even my dreams wear me out. And I just... I was alone for a really long time with this problem that I have. I want people to stop treating me like I’m toxic or made of glass but I can’t blame them when they do because I am. I don’t want to be alone anymore but when people avoid me I can’t blame them for it.”

He pulled back a little. He looked hurt. Then he shook it off, laughing as he rubbed at that spot in his neck. “Well, then those people are just acting like nincompoops. I certainly don’t treat you like that!”

Oh. Oh no. She had hurt his feeling hadn’t she? Dammit. “Oh, no. No of course not! I wasn’t implying that you did that. Honestly you are the only person who doesn’t. If everyone in the world was like you, I wouldn’t have to be down here in the first place. I wouldn’t even be sick.”

He looked at her expectantly, like he was waiting for her to clarify something. But when she didn’t he shrugged it off like water on a ducks’ back. “Well, of course I did not think you meant me! After all I am a spectacular friend!” He gave her a genuine smile but she still noticed that he looked a little relieved. “And I am a great listener too.” He promoted, inviting her to tell him more. When she didn’t he finished with, “I am glad to have met you, Rain.”

She smiled and propped her head up on her hand. This guy. What had she done to deserve him? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. “I’m glad to have met you too, Papyrus.”

And then everything went black.

***

Apparently Undyne had noticed Papyrus had been acting a little odd today and had tried to follow him here. When she lost track of him she asked Alphys if she had seen him. When Alphys successfully deflected the question, Undyne decided that since she was in the area anyway, she may as well come over for a visit.

Alphys was in the middle of frantically trying to dissuade Undyne from coming over when the room went dark. Everything shut down. The lights, the cameras, several of the automated systems and even the doors.

“Oohhh that’s not good.” She slid out of her chair and scuttled over to the door marked as a bathroom. She had to pry her way inside and kick on the emergency power before the stupid thing would even let her descend to the bottom floor.

“I s-swear, if the dogs chewed through those wires again I-I’ll!” She shook her fist at the darkness but the threat died on her lips. Nothing. She’d do nothing. They were probably just bored because she hadn’t had a lot of time to play with them lately.

Yet when she went down to check things out, almost everything seemed to be in perfect order. All she had to do was flip a few switches and things started booting up again. “Weird.” She murmured, scratching her chin and checking through some of the other systems. It looked like there would be a few minor hiccups but nothing crazy. She turned around and scanned the room for any telltale mist or sludge dripping from the walls or corners to indicate who had shut off the power but she didn’t see anything. “Did one of you guys bump the switch?” She called out.

No answer.

She sighed, shook her head and shuffled back to the elevator. “Guys, we have been through this. Th-this room is really important. You can’t k-keep goofing around in here, ok?”

Still nothing. Whoever had done this had bailed.

She rolled her eyes and went back upstairs. She made a mental note to play and feed the amalgams a little earlier than usual today so they wouldn’t get fussy.

It was taking a while for the lights on the top floor to turn back on but the security cameras were already coming back online and the glow of the distant monitors were enough to help light her way through the room when the elevator deposited her on the top floor again. It sounded like the intercom was back online too, judging by the voices coming in from Rain’s room.

She didn’t notice that the main entrance to the lab had been pushed open. She didn’t see the blue glow from behind the mound of stacked noodle bowls until it was too late.

“Alphys.” Undyne barked.

Alphys yelped, jumping several inches off the ground and wrapping her tail around her leg. Her glasses nearly fell off her face. “Undyne? Wh-wha-what are you doing h-here?”

She used the glow of her spear to light the way as she marched to the halfway point between them, picking her way through toppled takeout containers. The play of light and shadows cast across her face did not do her anger justice. “Who cares what I’m doing here. What the hell is that thing doing here?” She demanded, pointing her weapon at one of the screens.

Alphys shrank in on herself, stuttering out a dozen half formed words that never quite found their ending syllable. Sure enough Undyne’s screen of choice was the one focused in on Rain’s room. “Un-Undyne I c-c-can explain.”

“Why have you been hiding her from me? From me, Alphys!” She seemed to be torn between being angry and being hurt. “And why is Papyrus in there with her?” She made a move as if to rush off into the darkness in search of her friend but Alphys got in her way, holding out her hands. “W-Wait! Undyne, I can explain. Don’t- don’t hurt her. It-it will only make things worse.”

The bad situation then took a nosedive and somehow got worse. The lights finally turned on just as she heard the telltale crackle of static that warned of Sans’s arrival.

“aright. i’m back. guess my bro’s lesson went overtime today. undyne never showed up to check on m-ohhh, heeey undyne. what brings you here?”

Undyne looked like someone who had just unmasked a Scooby-Doo villain and discovered it was her dad. Her mouth fell open and her eye went wide. You could see the gears turning in her head, overheating in their attempt not to jam altogether.

Sans was in on it too.

Sans, the guy who slept through all his jobs and then kept her up at night whenever she slept over because he was always making midnight snacks and laughing at his own stupid jokes.

Sans, the goofy hotdog man.

Sans, the guy who always took such good care of Papyrus but never managed to take anything else seriously a day in his life. He had fooled her. He had been fooling her the whole time.

“You!” Her eye narrowed. She could be upset with Alphys. She could be disappointed with her. But Sans? She could be all out pissed at Sans. “You are the one who took her, aren’t you?”

He looked at Alphys for some indication of what was going on and tried to play the innocent card. “uhhh what?”

“Don’t you dare play dumb with me!” She snapped. “I can’t believe you would put your own brother in danger like this!”

He frowned. “what the hell are you talking about?”

“U-Undyne its ok. She can’t get past the field. They s-seem like really good friends. He will be fine.” Honestly she kind of adored Rain and Papyrus. Would it be weird to ship real people together?

Undyne scowled in confusion. “What field?”

Sans’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait, my brother is here? In the lab? With her?”

It was Alphys’s turn to be confused. “Y-yeah. He came in around the same time you came by to get your coat… y-you said it was ok to le-let h-him visit?”

“Alphys,” He said slowly, “I never came back for my coat. I never took it off in the first place.”

“Th-then. Who? What?...how did?”

Undyne snarled, jabbing a claw at the screen again. “I don’t care who said what! He’s in there with her unguarded! So someone needs to tell me where the hell that room is before I start punching my way through the damn walls until I find him!”

Sans was looking at the screens now. The white pricks of light in his eyes were barely there. “Alphys. The field is down.”

“What?” She squeaked, the information finally registering for her. She rushed over to see for herself. “I-it can’t be. I-I made sure h-h-he couldn’t unl-unlock it by himself and I made sure that room was hooked up to the backup power supply!”

Sure enough Papyrus was in the room with her, keeping the still- dark screen aglow with magic. The power had not been restored to that level of the lab.

“I gotta get in there. She’s still volatile!” Sans took a step back like he was planning to teleport but Alphys snagged Sans by the arm and pulled him back. “Wait! Wait a second Sans, l-listen to me.”

“What are you waiting for? Why aren’t we moving?” Undyne demanded, unable to grasp why Alphys wanted to sit around and talk in a time like this.

Alphys looked at Sans, voice quiet as they watched the screen. “If we rush in there all a-angry a-a-and panicked and we upset her, we risk putting him in m-more danger. A-and if this is a trap, hasn’t she already reset today? I-if you go in there, she may already know where you show up and what you plan to do. If Chara is in control then she could be b-baiting us.”

“He’s my brother, Al! I can’t just leave him in there!”

“And if she has already reset today, then she knows that! I-I-If we all go running off i-into t-the dark then she would have the advantage. But if we wait until the power is back on, we c-can trap her and…well…” she hunched her shoulders at the macabre prospect, “force her to bring him back, you know?”

Sans stared at the screen in shock as Alphys continued to press on. “B-but it may not even come to that! I think... I think we need to trust Rain a little here. At least until the power comes back.”

Sans took in a long, slow breath and pinched the bridge of his nasal cavity. “dammit… fuck.” It was too late for them to forcibly pull him out of danger if this was where the human wanted him to be. If they pulled him out before she was done she could just reset and try again.

If Chara did manage to regain control, going down there now could initiate a morbid game of power-outage packman. Their safest bet was to restore order from up here first and then corral her.

Both Sans and Alphys suddenly found themselves questioning if the DT extraction had really been the reason Rain had reset today.

“Ugh! What the hell are you two talking about? Why is no one explaining why you have been hiding a freaking a human in the lab? Why is Papyrus in there with her?”

Sans didn’t make a sound when Undyne picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and shook him. “Alright funny bones. Time to talk. What the hell is going on? What have you gotten Alphys in to?”

He looked over his shoulder at the security feed, both of them ignoring Alphys’s feeble pleas that they don’t fight. “you better pull up a chair.”

***

She was used to the power going out every now and then. But if she ever got close to the door the energy field would still light up to ward her off. Alphys had made sure it was hooked up to a backup power supply so that it would never fail.

Surprise! It failed anyway.

Her hands balled into fists as she felt Chara press against her will. “Let me take him.”

“No.”

“Papyrus.” She kept her voice calm but the edge was unmistakable. “You should go find Alphys.” She took several steps back until she felt her back bump up against a wall.

“I don’t actually know how to find her." He admitted sheepishly. "I should probably stay here with you and keep you company until the power is back.”

“Papyrus, you need to leave. I’m dangerous.”

“He practically came here on a silver platter!”

“No!”

She heard him get up and cross the line into her room.

“Please, just go.”

“I don’t get it. Weren’t we just talking about how you didn’t want people to treat you like you were dangerous?”

“Don’t you want the hurting to stop? The first one always hurts the most but after that it’s so much easier.”

“Rain, are you ok?”

“No!” She slid to the floor, head in her hands and teeth grinding so hard they hurt. “I’m scared. I’m scared, ok? Just go!”

A small blue bone appeared, hovering above his hand. Its glow illuminated the small room and cast eerie shadows across their faces. “Are you scared of the dark? Its ok if you are.” He sat down next to her and set the bone on the floor, lifting his hand up above it and causing it to stretch until it was as long as her forearm. In a wordless silence he wrapped her up in a hug.

For a brief second she tried to jerk away in alarm. Then slowly, cautiously she accepted it and leaned up against him. The acidic, bubbling presence of Chara’s internal blows seemed to fade off into the distance a little once she found that small island of solace to cling to.

How long? How long had it been since she had had a hug? How long since someone had wanted to hug her? How long had she been keeping herself away from everyone when she craved just a little bit of friendly interaction? How long had she been poisoning herself?

They both stared into the blue light of his magic in a sad, blank sort of silence.

“It’s a cool trick isn’t it? Sans taught me. Back when I was afraid of the dark too.” Papyrus finally piped up. When she didn’t say anything in return he began to fill the silence by himself. “Rain, what is really going on here? I know you are not sick. You haven’t sneezed or coughed or anything. Not even once.”

“I am sick. It’s just… I’m sick on the inside.”

“Oh.” He said simply, holding her a little tighter.

Eventually enough time passed for the lights to flicker back to life. Their harsh artificial glare made them squint a little at the sterile walls of the room but the hum of the electric field that was supposed to go over her door did not return.

Papyrus waved a hand to dismiss their little blue nightlight. “Rain, am I not a good friend?”

She pulled away a little so she could look up at him. He seemed to be genuinely concerned. “What are you talking about? Of course you are a good friend.”

He rubbed a hand over that spot in his neck. “Well, you know, I am always trying to find new ways to become even cooler than I am now. So feedback is important. That’s how I came to be so great in the first place: practice! But, well...” He lowered his voice and his eyes slid off to the side. “It’s just that sometimes I can tell that people are hiding things from me. And I really want to help but they won’t tell me what’s going on. Am I doing something wrong?”

She balked, her mouth falling open. Never before had she seen Papyrus seem so… unsure of himself. She wouldn’t have even thought he was capable of it.

She put a hand on his boney cheek and made him look at her again. She had to fight to keep her fingers from becoming claws at the beck and call of Chara’s hunger. Her hand shook but she held it somewhat steady. “No. Papyrus, that’s not it at all. I swear that it’s not. They are just trying to protect you.”

He smiled a sad little smile that was so unlike him. “What about you? What are you trying to protect me from? Because I bet I could handle it! And then you wouldn’t have to keep doing this by yourself. The Great Papyrus could help.”

She thought long and hard about her choice then, all the while feeling Chara clawing at her insides, whispering dark thoughts. “He’s so soft. So weak. I’m tired of feeling like this. Just let me…”

Her lip quivered and she blinked back a blur of tears. Her voice wavered when she plucked up the courage to speak again. “Papyrus, I am afraid of what you would do if you knew the truth about me. You would have every right to treat me like everyone else does if you knew.” She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “God, if you knew- if you could remember the things I have done...” she sucked in a shaky breath and steeled herself. “But I guess you have as much right to know as the rest of them do. So, if you really want to know, then I will tell you. Because you are my only friend and you deserve at least that much. So if you ask me to… I will tell you the truth.”

He squeezed her hand and hugged her with his free arm. “Rain, please... tell me the truth.”

So she did. She told him. She told him everything.

She told him why everyone was so on edge. Why everyone seemed to be having strange episodes of de ja vu and phantom aches and pains. She told him about Chara and how she had killed everyone over and over again in multiple timelines. She even told him about how time was starting to fray.

She told him how angry she was that Sans had never committed to stopping her in Snowdin when he had the chance.

She told him things that Sans and Alphys didn’t know because they had never bothered to ask.

She talked about how she now had to live through a second abusive childhood because Chara’s dreams wouldn’t stop.

She talked about how she missed her friend who had climbed the mountain and never returned.

And worst of all she told him she was tired. She was just so, so scared and tired.

She finally admitted not only to him but to herself that this was her last run. It had to be. Because if time didn’t break and end it all for them anyway, she was going to have to give up. She had had her second wind. She had had her third wind. This was her last breath.

She waited for the moment when she would say something so dark, so terrifying or insane that he would let go of her and back out of the room. Because once she started talking she couldn’t stop. All her bottled up words came pouring out.

But he never let her go.

He trembled. He nodded his head and asked small questions in a quiet voice. She knew he was scared. Everything was being turned upside down for him. She was hurting him. She knew she was. But he could take it. He could take the truth. He deserved to know.

He never let go. He only held her tighter. He held her while she sobbed. He rocked her back and forth. And when she finally came to a stuttering, babbling, shaky stop and ran out of words to say, he told her she was still his friend and thanked her for telling him the truth when no one else would.

Then he asked if it would be ok if he saw her soul for himself. He wanted to see this darkness everyone was so afraid of.

She nodded in agreement and ever so carefully he pulled her soul from her chest, so that all the world could see her internal turmoil made manifest in a swirling mix of waning light and hungry, snapping shadows.

“That’s her.” She sniffed, pointing at the swirling veins of darkness that had coiled around and through the red light of her soul.

“So that darkness is the little girl?”

Hah. Little. Nothing about Chara was little anymore. “Yeah.”

He smiled, the kindness in his eyes soft and warm. “And all that light, that’s you?”

“Guess so.”

He nodded, relived. “Rain, everyone casts a shadow. Even down here where we don’t have a sun.” He was practically beaming at her. “But look at how much light you give off, too!” He released her soul and let it drift back into hiding. “Even if your shadows are more literal than the rest of ours, you have to remember that your shadow isn’t you! You are stronger than her! Maybe even strong enough to help her be good again too, just like you.” He hugged her again, letting her throw her arms around his neck as she closed her eyes and tried to relax. Her body had been wound tight with the tension of impending panic all through her confession. “ So… so even though everything you said is rather frightening, I still believe in you!”

In that moment, those words helped her to push aside Chara’s dark, clawing attempts at possession with an ease she had not felt since her first time in the Ruins. A resolve hardened within her that she had not had before.

She did not have much in this world. But she had a friend. And she was determined to protect him. She would protect him with everything she had left in her tattered little soul.

She was determined to be a source of light instead of shadow.