Undertale - Reprise Part 7

Turns out, having your Soul absorbed and then flung across someone else’s timeline was hard work.

The Dreemurrs were reunited as a family, their differences set aside for a moment as all three of them huddled together in the afternoon sun. Toriel was quiet, hugging her long lost son tightly. Asriel was smiling, blushing, wriggling slightly in his mother’s vice-like grip. Asgore was a mess, laughing and crying, holding the two people he loved most, the ones he had been sure he’d never hold again. He was a sight to behold, a gigantic monster with gigantic emotions.

Frisk smiled, lay back on the flowers, and closed their eyes.

White sheets. Beige roof. Disinfectant smell.

A hospital?

Frisk stirred, sitting up in the bed and stretching. Something tugged at Frisk’s arm. Eugh, an IV drip. Frisk didn’t particularly enjoy needles, even at the best of times. Frisk glanced away from the tube in their arm, looking around the room. Toriel was asleep in a chair by the door, with Asriel reading some kind of book quietly on the floor by her feet, leaning against his mother’s legs. There was a second chair, obviously for Asgore, given the way it looked as though it had been slightly crushed, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. One of the tables in the corner was groaning under the weight of assorted flowers, cards, balloons, and at least a dozen plates of spaghetti.

Asriel jumped slightly at the sound of Frisk’s exhausted chuckle. He almost dropped the book, fumbling with it and looking up at Frisk with excitement.

“Ah! Fr-!” He stopped short, glancing back at his mother, then placing a finger over his maw, miming to be quiet. He eased himself gently off of her leg, being careful not to disturb her, and then stood, dusting himself off and tucking the book under one arm, creeping over to the bed. “Hey.” He whispered conspiratorially. “Welcome back!”

Frisk relaxed back onto the bed, smiling at Asriel and his shenanigans. “Hey yourself. Is Mum, uh, T-Toriel ok?” Frisk could barely raise their own voice above a whisper, it felt like their throat was stuffed with sandpaper.

“Oh, she’s fine. It’s kinda funny really. You’ve been asleep and she stayed up worrying. She only dozed off a little while ago, so we should let her rest.”

“Oh, ok. How long was I out? I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

Asriel blinked in incomprehension. “A what?”

“You know, a tr… N-nevermind. I’m really sore, is my point.”

“No wonder, you’ve been asleep for like two whole days.”

“Huh. Go figure.” Frisk would have to process that one and possibly freak out about it in a little while. “And you guys were all here, waiting for me to wake up? Along with most of the underground, it looks like. Which is weird, because…” Frisk sat up in bed, eyes wide. “Uh oh. I’m supposed to go establish first contact like… yesterday! I gotta get outta here, there’s a bunch of stuff I have to- Ah!” Frisk flailed weakly at Asriel as he pushed them back down onto the bed, shushing them gently.

“You need to keep resting, that’s all.”

“No, really! Like, monsters don’t even get basic hospital visitation rights for months after the barrier breaks. How did you guys even get in here?” Frisk begrudgingly settled back onto the bed, wincing as the IV shifted in their arm.

Asriel grinned mischievously. “Well, they couldn’t keep mum out. She broke a door on her way up here, just to prove a point. As for dad… well, he just kinda seemed to know what to say. Like he’d been practicing. He had to go, actually, they needed him for like, signing some things? He said to say hi for him when you woke up, though.”

That was… well. Asgore had remembered some things, and Toriel as well. Maybe they also remembered some of the treaties and agreements that had been brokered between humans and monsters, way back in the… next ten years or so?

Time travel was hard enough to keep straight when everything was on a fixed rail. But now, things were rapidly diverging from the established norm, and all Frisk could do, was…

Well, relax. Live a normal life, maybe.

“Frisk?”

“Huh?” Frisk snapped out of their musings. Asriel had sat down on the edge of the bed without them noticing. It was incredible how tired Frisk was, even with two days of sleep.

“What do we do now, Frisk?”

“Well… I guess, first of all, I get better. I mean, you did kinda stab me.”

“Heh… S-sorry.” At least Asriel had the decency to look embarrassed.

“But, after that? I guess, I don’t really know. Everything’s different now, it looks like. It’s almost nice, to not know exactly what’s coming.”

Asriel nodded, looking down at his hands in his lap. “Is… is that what you wanted?”

“All I wanted was for you to have a happy ending along with the rest of us.”

He smiled, rubbing one of his arms awkwardly. “Sheesh… You’ve done so much for me, for all of us, Frisk. But… we’ve barely met. I feel like we’re just strangers, still. I don’t even know how to thank you…”

“Asriel.” Frisk was as firm as they could be, causing the goat to look up at them. “You’re the only other one who knows what it’s like. You’re the first person I met in the underground, even if I didn’t know it was you. Every time I succeeded, every time I failed, and all the moments in between, you were always right there, taunting or encouraging. Even between resets, when everything else fell away, you still knew, you still saw.”

Frisk looked down, gripping the thin bedsheet in both hands. “You… you told me so many things. Secrets, encouragement, threats. Don’t kill, and don’t be killed. And all the time, you looked so sad, and hurt, but you never asked for help. And I knew, that was because… you were the one who needed it most. I needed to do this. I had to save you. For me, and because… You deserved better. You being ok now, that’s all the thanks I need.”

“Oh, child…” Frisk jumped a little as Toriel sat down on the side of the bed as well, looking very tired as she rubbed the top of their head. Had she snuck up on them, or was Frisk just that out of it?

“You’ve come a very long way, haven’t you?”

“M-mum… I…”

“You’ve given me another chance to have a family, and from what I’ve seen, from the echos that I remember, you’ve come from another world to do it. I wanted to be here when you woke up, so that I could say thank you.” She smiled at Frisk, taking one of their hands in her own.

“It, uh, it was the least I could do.” Frisk blushed a little, unused to such behaviour.

“Wait. That’s twice you’ve called her Mum.” Asriel peeked around Toriel’s side. “Does that mean that we’re a family, now?”

Toriel smiled down at her son and put an arm around him. “Of course. That is, if Frisk wants it to be.”

They both smiled at Frisk.

The timeline was drifting. Different, now. Everything was changing. There was no plan, no impossible goal to overcome. Frisk was adrift in a sea of possibilities.

Somewhere along the line, Frisk had lost track of the subjective years they had lived. But, chronologically, they had to be around 200 years old at this point. And Asriel? Maybe hundreds of years older than that.

Asriel had absorbed Frisk’s soul, and then released it for a single moment, decades ago. Frisk had held Asriel’s soul inside themselves for a few moments, and then given it back. Both of them had been touched by a red stain, the soul of another human from long ago, and Frisk suspected that neither of them had heard the last of that.

Somewhere out there, Asgore was being King, forging a new path. There was work to be done, old differences to be put aside, new lives to be made for humans and monsters.

An uncertain future loomed over Frisk for the first time in decades.

Frisk smiled back at his new family. A whole family. They would have to go make that future for themselves, together.