When Sans’ monitoring alarm went off about an hour later, he woke up instantly. He hadn’t slept well, for obvious reasons. He looked at his phone and saw that a human had emerged from the Ruins. He felt a twisting in his gut. This was probably the event that made the time traveller go nuts with their power. And, of course, it meant his promise was in play…

He didn’t look closely at the video - better to see them in person. He wasted no time, tossing on his jacket and teleporting to Snowdin forest.

He watched them walking along the path, and teleported behind them, to follow. He kept his distance, ready to teleport away if they turned around.

Short - he’d guess right at five feet, so probably a kid. Baggy clothes that were kinda shoddy. Either they didn’t care about their appearance, or possibly poor, or worse.

But humans were generally pretty okay. Probably would have problems with monsters, but Sans could handle anything they could throw at him. Best to mess with them a bit… they’d be familiar with monsters from their time in the Ruins, so it’d give him a sense of who they were. Nothing quite like putting pressure on things to learn about them, but he didn’t want just hostile pressure.

Some hostile pressure was fine - he used some gravity magic to smash a stick on the path behind them, to see how they'd react. They turned and smiled, then resumed walking, unconcerned. Huh. They seemed chill, which was nice.

Regardless, his promise kind of bound his actions here. His hand clenched as his thoughts drifted to how things might have gone if it weren’t for his promise. He might’ve been careful because of the whole surge of timelines thing this morning, but other than that complication, he’d have killed them for their soul, just so Papyrus could see the sun again.

Even though they were just a kid. As his gaze rested on their walking figure, he couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t let himself think about it, really, since humans came down here so rarely. He hadn’t really expected it, despite literally being paid to be a sentry. But seeing them… it’d been a while since he saw a human, and a lot of old memories tore at him.

Yeah. He’d murder a kid for their soul. His hand clenched again, but the promise took away that whole problem. No guilt, no worries, no… no regrets, even if this could make Papyrus’s life so much better, the promise was made and that was all there was to it.

And besides, there wasn’t much point if they were all going to reset to eight months ago, when the next timeline layer started. Or this morning? He wasn't sure, but either way.

Hopefully he could figure out what the anomaly wanted. Once they had it, surely they’d stop all this, right? Maybe some good food, some bad laughs, some nice friends… he’d been more hostile to the idea of them months ago, but now he just wanted them to stop making new timelines.

He was really damned tired of feeling like anything and everything he did was pointless and going to be erased. Even Papyrus was starting to notice his dour mood.

While the human was really not likely to be the anomaly, they seemed connected to the recent event. He should try to befriend them, too. Plus the whole promise thing. And, if they made it to Asgore, he'd judge the EXP and LOVE they'd gained along the way, of which they'd doubtlessly get some.

Even though, with the whole situation in the underground, with Asgore's orders… there was no way this was going to end well.

But at least he could try to be friendly and stuff in the meantime.

For that, there was something he needed to grab. He had to teleport home real fast to get it, but he knew exactly where he kept them all. When he came back, he let his feet crunch loudly into the snow as he walked up to the human. They paused at the little bridge over the ravine as he approached.

“human,” he said in a cold tone.

They turned around as he started to reach out his hand. They immediately took his hand…

A hilarious noise filled the air as he grinned at them until the whoopie cushion he’d hidden in his grasp had run its course.

The human was grinning right back at him. They had an odd look on their face for a moment, but it was lost to their giggles. They started laughing harder and harder, like this joke was desperately relieving for some reason.

Uh, okay, but hey, this was a good sign. He loved a responsive audience and the kid clearly had good taste in jokes.

Though maybe not a kid after all. He’d actually put their age in the upper teens, a full adult even. Eh, still young enough to call them a kid.

Their laughter grew to the point of tears, and it was too much. He had solid composure himself - it was necessary to pull off deadpan humor, after all - but their mirth was so rich it was contagious. He fell to the temptation and laughed along, tickled pink at their reaction.

After a moment of that, they sighed happily and grinned at him.

He was taken aback by what he saw in their gaze. He’d long since mastered studying expressions, human expressions especially, and he couldn’t make any sense of this.

There was a blazing intensity to their gaze as they looked at him that looked like… fanaticism, maybe? There was a softness, a gentleness, that looked like… a depth of care? Like he was a best friend, or something? There was also a shitload of pain in their gaze, like they’d been deeply traumatized by something.

What the hell? This couldn’t be the anomaly, could it? That didn’t make any sense. If they were attached to him, why would they do something so blatant now, and meticulously derail his investigations earlier? How would they have been messing with his plans if they were in the Ruins this whole time? Why wouldn’t his knock knock buddy have said something? What was going on?

Yeah, he had no clue what to make of this.

He introduced himself to them, probably sounding a little awkward as he tried to cover up his confusion at seeing their expression. But he saw Papyrus making his rounds in the distance and grinned. Perfect timing.

As Papyrus showed up, Sans hid the kid behind a conveniently shaped lamp and played out a gag with Papyrus. Paps showed his usual observation levels by utterly failing to notice the muffled giggling behind the lamp. It was so adorable Sans was trying not to break out laughing himself.

After that, he warned the kid about heading off, saying if they didn’t, they’d have to stay and listen to more bad jokes. It looked like they were extremely tempted to do just that, but they shyly nodded, not saying a word, and started to head off.

Pretending it was an afterthought, as they were about to leave, he asked them to play along with Papyrus. They nodded more seriously at that, something intense blazing in their eyes, before moving on their way.

Weird.

And he wondered why they weren’t saying anything.

He spied on them as they went along, and ran a few more playful gags with Papyrus. They consistently said nothing, but their face said everything. He was missing so much context, though, that he had absolutely no clue what to make of it all.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

One interesting thing that especially caught his eye - they were bizarrely good at combat. Defensive combat, anyway.

He knew damned well how good humans were at combat, in general. The teens in this forest were kinda self-centered assholes, who probably didn’t realize that their shoddy self control with their magical auras wasn’t merely rude, it was actively harmful to humans. A human could take a lot and kill monsters damned easily, of course, but still, if a human were trying to be nice, hurting them was a dick move. And just because it was a way to communicate between monsters didn’t make it okay, either, due to how aggressive they were with it.

If the human really fell just this morning, and had never seen these monsters before, then their movements didn’t make an ounce of sense.

Not a single hint of damage took them, as they gracefully wove body and soul alike around the idiotic bursts of power around the teens. They moved, in fact, with so much grace and delicate precision that it looked effortless, and almost like it was a complete accident that they happened to have been standing in a place, or holding themself just right, to have taken no harm.

Yeah, that wasn’t an accident.

It didn’t make sense that they were the anomaly, though. The timing just didn’t add up. What the hell was he missing?

On the bright side, they seemed gentler than any human he’d so much as heard of, let alone met. They had a stick and fiddled with it on occasion, but would toss it aside, never so much as touching it when a monster was nearby. They were patient and playful with literally everyone. They gave Lesser Dog so many pets that the poor thing practically lost his head, and giggled at Snowdrake’s awful puns. Even Jerry got nothing more than a bemused grin. Everyone hated Jerry.

He continued to watch and occasionally interact with them. They stayed quiet, but always responsive to anything he said. The look on their face whenever they met his eyes was… it was downright unsettling.

His mind kept coming up with really stupid explanations for their expressions. Like, “fanatical devotion, as though he were their god.” Or, “someone caught in the depths of intense emotional attachment - the face of someone in love.” Or, “someone who desperately wants to tell him something, but is terrified of speaking.”

None of that made any goddamned sense.

The conclusion that they’d been deeply traumatized by something - that, at least, made some level of sense. Guilt, pain, emotional devastation - those conclusions he was pretty confident in.

He did finally hear their voice when they faced his epic puzzle of otherworldly impossibility - a word search he’d grabbed randomly. They’d grinned at Papyrus’s reaction and made a big deal about pausing and looking at the word search with an exaggerated look of focus on their face, but they were clearly on the edge of laughing. After a bit, they put it down and walked over, almost shyly.

He and Paps had played around a bit with them, and that’s when he finally heard them speak - when Papyrus asked them to “solve this dispute,” between Junior Jumble and crosswords. They glanced at Sans with an amused look, like they were sharing an inside joke, as they softly said that they thought crosswords were harder. Paps was, naturally, hilarious about that, and once he'd left, Sans joked with the human about Papyrus finding difficulty in odd places.

They’d gone back to responsive silence. He supposed they’d only speak if directly asked to, for some reason? He was a little wary of pushing, though.

They continued to be weird and weirdly skilled as they went on their way. The dog couple was actually reasonably tough and should have posed them at least a smidgeon of trouble - it wasn’t random fluctuations of power, like the dumb teenagers - but the kid again moved with prescient grace, rolling in the dirt and confusing the pair of dogs into thinking they were a puppy, without even taking a glancing hit.

Weird.

He wasn’t the only one they were extra weird with, though. The fond, guilty, near-adoration on their face as they looked at Papyrus was interesting, too.

Like, when Papyrus had screwed around with his little X and O puzzle, trying to make it in the shape of his face, the kid had pretended to look at the puzzle thoughtfully from beside Papyrus. They shuffled back a little till they were outside of Papyrus’s view, and then just stared at him.

It’d been their first opportunity to openly stare at Papyrus without him looking at them, without anyone seeing them - well, as far as they knew - and he figured that was why they hadn’t done it earlier.

They’d actually started crying as they stared. A huge grin, what looked like desperate joy and relief, as tears poured down their cheeks. Sans would have placed a bet that they really wanted to give Papyrus a hug, too. It took them a minute to regain their composure and, after wiping their cheeks, they effortlessly solved the puzzle. They pretended to think about it, but it was clearly pretense. Papyrus was hugely impressed and praised them, and they giggled.

After Papyrus went on his way, he decided to call them out on things a little. Carefully, of course.

“… you must be really good at puzzles, huh?” he asked, feigning casualness. “i mean. it’s impossible for you to have seen this one before.”

They looked like he’d slapped them.

“I… I mean…” they stammered and looked away, their expression torn.

Yeah, they definitely had seen it before. They had to be the anomaly… even though it didn’t make any goddamned sense.

They glanced between Sans and where Papyrus was up ahead, back and forth, wringing their hands anxiously.

They wanted to tell Sans something, but not Papyrus. Didn’t want to risk him hearing anything. But they were also afraid of saying it. They were trying to be brave.

At least, that’s what he thought was happening with their face, but this was really weird.

He shrugged, artfully casual, and made his way ahead. He pulled out his phone as he did, going to the feed that watched this area. They were staring at him, a conflicted expression on their face, as he walked away. Just standing there, unmoving, until he was out of sight.

And then they collapsed to their knees, arms tightly holding their torso like they were trying to hold themself together, their shoulders shaking. Sobbing, probably?

Just what the hell was going on…?

Should he push them harder? Outright ask? Maybe he should still play it safe for a bit - just gentle goofing around, playfully messing with them. Questions couldn’t be unasked, not of a time traveller.

Yeah. He’d just watch, listen, and play for a bit. He was confused, but this was working. He was getting a lot to work with.

—

Frisk had tried so hard to do this right, to fix everything, but they couldn’t keep pretending.

The memories wouldn’t stop. The choice that Frisk had made, the follow-through, the dust… they were trying to fix it, to make it right, they were trying, but…

Sans’ face beamed at them as he toyed with their perceptions, subtly teleporting around again. Playing at the cliff, just like the first time, taunting them by seeming to be in two places at once, for laughs.

Sans’ face full of solemn determination, as he broke his oath to save the world. His pleading sorrow, as he begged them to make it right. The resigned finality on his face as he slowly collapsed in exhaustion. Raising the knife…

They choked and stumbled. They couldn’t breathe. They hadn’t killed him in the end, he won, and everyone else… they were alive, Toriel was alive and hugged them goodbye; Papyrus was alive and playing with his puzzles, and…

Sans’s face, a glimmer of deep concern in his eyes, behind his jovial mask.

“hey kid,” he said, sauntering over with his hands in his jacket pockets. “you look like you’re having a bad time.”

A strangled laugh emerged from them, and they collapsed to the ground, rolling onto their back. Snow fell slowly onto their face.

Sans was visible within the periphery. It was silent and alone in this place beside the cliff, so near to Snowdin.

Snowdin, full of Christmas cheer, of cinnamon buns and laughter and music.

Snowdin, full of dust. Of pleas to spare their family, of theft and echoing emptiness.

“I am,” Frisk admitted after a long moment, tears in their eyes. “Sans… I…”

They swallowed and he gave them a curious look. They couldn’t do this, they couldn’t hide this from him. It might wreck everything, but Frisk belonged to Sans now, and so they had to confess everything. They had to. Something settled in their soul as that decision was made.

“It’s my fault,” they said, their eyes closed. “I mean, some of it isn’t, it’s complicated. But the reports. The timelines, stopping and starting. All of you coming back with no memories. It’s… it’s my fault, and I... I… I can’t… I have to… I… I’m sor…”

Their voice broke on the last word, as they looked at him. They mouthed it, but it didn’t come out. Seeing his face as they tried to face what they’d done… they couldn’t breathe, they couldn’t speak.

But they’d do anything for him. They couldn’t speak, but they knew, if he asked, they would answer. And just that knowledge brought a strange stability to their shattered soul.