I awoke suddenly, not by dream or noise though. There hadn't been a sliver of a dream, but something tugged me to consciousness, like launching me in a sling shot. My body lurched into a sitting position and my heart was pounding.

I surveyed the room with my mismatched orbs in confusion. The bed itself was a race car and the room was neat and orderly, quite the contrast to waking in a room with at least some thrown around clutter.

My headache had disappeared but I was dizzy. I put a hand out to study myself in the dim light, yelping when I made contact with bone. Suddenly the lights were on and I had a certain skeleton swinging me in the air. "NYEH HEH HEH! CHERRY HAS AWOKEN!" Papyrus cheered, hugging me tightly.

"Hey Paps, gentle please. Still dizzy." I croaked with a rough voice.

Footsteps reached the door and it swung open. Frisk's face peered into the room and lit up. "Cherry! You're awake."

Papyrus out me down on the bed slowly and Frisk jumped on to my lap, hugging my midsection. "Hey Li'l' Nugget." I smiled politely.

The last one to appear was Sans, suddenly teleporting next to me. I jumped as he appeared, covering my mouth so I didn't yelp. "How long was I out?" I asked.

"Only three hours, but before that you were missing an hour." Frisk informed me.

"An hour? But it only felt like ten minutes..." I said, resting my chin on the top of Frisk's head.

Papyrus frowned at me with sad eyes. "You meant to leave?" He asked glumly.

"What?! No no no... You misunderstand." I quickly recovered. "I-"

"Papyrus, I need to talk to Cherry a moment." Sans cut in.

"BUT BROTHER-"

"It'll only be a moment. I would say don't sweat it, but you're a skeleton."

Frisk snickered and took Papyrus' hand. "Come on Papyrus, let's go watch MTT."

"WOWIE! OKAY!"

They closed the door behind them and Sans sat beside me. There was silence until I broke the silence. "So, this is Papyrus' room?" I asked.

Sans didn't respond. Another minute of quiet. I was staring at my hands, not sure what to say. Suddenly two arms clasped around me tightly and I almost fell over. Sans was hugging me. The action surprised me, but I hugged back. "It's okay Sans, I'm okay." I reassured.

"Don't give me that shit." Sans growled, sitting up. "Do you even remember what happened when you came back?"

I nodded and looked away sheepishly. "I remember most of it."

Sans sighed and put a hand over mine, like he had on Mettaton's show. "Please, tell me what happened." He asked, quietly.

I didn't look at him, but I recited what had happened, breaking once I got to Gaster's solution. "S-Sans, so far... there's only one solution..." My voice cracked as I spoke.

My hands were curled into fists and tears reappeared on my face. I couldn't help it, I've been crying a lot more since I came to the Underground. "Sans, if I want to get rid of Chara, for good so no one else has to suffer their control, I have two destroy the things that link them to this world."

"What are those?" He asked, oblivious to my tear's hints.

"I have to destroy the object and the vessel." I said quietly. "The object they held most dearly, Chara's blade, and the vessel that houses their spirit.... me."

Sans froze and looked at my shaking form. The thought terrified me, of dying or killing my friend. A phrase came to mind and I laughed weakly, looking at Sans. "Flowey was right Sans, it's either kill or be killed. Or at least for me it is. There hasn't been another solution found in all this time to get rid of Chara."

I stood up and walked around the room, my arms wrapped around me like I was hugging myself. My hands shook as I accepted the fate I faced.

"After I got out of the void, back from Gaster, Chara attacked my mind and body. She spoke to me in my head. She's almost gotten to me Sans. Gaster's warning put my guard up and one final wall between Chara and her goal. I'm not going to last much longer at all."

My lips quivered and sobs wracked my body. My knees touched the ground as my legs lost enough steel to remain on their own. I was afraid of dying, but it seemed it'd be coming sooner than later.

Sans stood up abruptly and dropped on to a knee in front of me. His bony fingers lifted my chin so I looked at him. His one eye was glowing vibrantly, but it didn't seem threatening as it usually would. It seemed... protective.

"Stop it with the dead talk, Cherry. I'm not letting you die because some kid's ghost holds a grudge over anything that breathes. You remember your plan right? The whole thing about getting married and family and stuff. You can't give up on that." Sans snapped.

"I didn't give up on those Sans. I accepted what I have. You, all of you guys, are my family. Frisk, he can carry on my 'tradition.' You guys can pass on memories of me to future generations as the 'aunt' they never met, or the close 'family friend.' And as for love, I still lack that. If I was to get married or have a family, I'd have to love first. And besides, what kinda wife wouldn't love their husband or their kid. Right now I could marry anyone that makes me smile, and that'd be as close as I can get." The thoughts helped ease my tears.

"Cherry you deserve a fate better than that. Just hold out until we can find another solution."

I shook my head. "I've already thought it through. The only other choice is passing on both the knife and Chara to another person. I'm not doing that. And even if we could exorcise Chara from me and destroy the knife, Chara's still gonna leave residue in me. I can't fully get rid of that bastard. And that's the problem."

"Cherry we-"

"Sans, please don't say things like 'we can help you' or 'hold on a little longer.' False hope isn't worth anything."

The color drained from around me and my heart started pounding. Everything around me was in black and white and fear crippled me. "What're you-"

"We're not gonna fight." Sans said. "I needed to see your hope, or HP."

He pointed at the space in front of me and a board appeared. Four options: Fight, Act, Item and Mercy appeared. Below them I saw a bar displaying LV and a fraction displaying my HP. I looked at it and my breathing stopped. Though I had no soul to harm in battle, anyone could still attack my physical person. Looking at my HP, I was scared.

"San, I-"

"You've let yourself lose to much hope Cherry."

The numbers haunted my eyes. 1/5

"I know you still have hope. I mean, I was in a pretty similar situation once too. It wasn't until a friend pulled me out of that situation that I finally got it back."

The black and white faded away and my body had stilled from shock. "If someone was to hit you right now, with any attack, you would accept the attack and die then because you've lost hope."

His hand appeared before my eyes and I looked up. "I'm going to help you out of this. We aren't losing you again."

I took his hand slowly and he pulled me into a standing position. As soon as I was on my feet, I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him into a hug. He was shorter than me, so it was a tad awkward, but Sans didn't take long to hug me back.

"We're in this together."
_________________________________________________________________________________
-2 months later- (Ooo... Didn't expect that did ya)

I growled in frustration and threw my glass across the room, it shattered and set stains on the wall. Frustration fueled every atom of my being as I screamed. The experiment didn't work. It never works. "Why is it so goddamn impossible to find a fucking solution to this mother-fucking problem?! I'm almost out of time!"

Objects in the room around me floated a few feet from the ground, a black haze surrounding them. Geeby whimpered away from me, then Jinkies jumped at my arm. Jinkies clamped a jaw into my arm, and I came back to reality and everything dropped. My mismatched eyes returned to normal and my head pounded. Jinkies didn't release his bite until I patted him twice on the head, the way I had trained him.

I looked at him apologetically and petted him, switching to Geeby soon after. The sweet thing was almost too sweet to be a Gaster Blaster. I looked at the camera and signed I'm sorry Alphys, it's been getting harder.

The door unlocked and Sans walked in with an ibuprofen and a bottle of water. He tosses the bottle, which I caught easily and handed me the pills. "This one's gonna hurt like a motherfucker." I grumbled, downing the pills with a gulp of water.

"That's not sanitary." Sans joked, giving me an expression, mocking disgust.

"Pervert." I rolled my eyes and put a hand against my forehead. "But I can't say it's a lie."

Sans chuckled and kneeled down to pet the still shaking Geeby. "You really scared him this time."

I nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I don't know why he even follows me in here anymore. I mean, I know why Jinkies is here but Geeby always gets scared."

A sigh fell over my lips. "What's wrong kid? You upset you scared Geeby?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry for scaring Geeby but that's not it." I took a breath and turned around to start picking up things. "I'm losing it too easily. It keeps happening more and more."

Sans shrugged. "Hey, that's why I'm on the other side of the door. In case it goes too far."

I snorted. "As comforting as that is, I don't think you'd be able to stop me if I went COMPLETELY all out crazy. I feel like pushing it down is just gonna make the 'coming out' even worse."

As I leaned down for another item, a blue haze picked it up and lifted it from my reach. My eyes darted towards Sans and I grinned. "Thanks."

The door opened and Alphys darted in, taking my bitten arm in hand. She squinted as she looked at it, then grimaced. "Jinkies keeps having to bite deeper and deeper to stop you." She muttered, jotting down notes.

The mini Dino looked at me apologetically. "I'm really sorry this one didn't work. I really thought it would."

I waved it off and put a hand on Alphys' shoulder. "It's fine Alphys, we can try again next time."

She frowned at me but didn't say anything as she left. My heart sank. "That's one of her tells." I said quietly, looking at the ground and letting my hair cover my face.

"One of her tells?" Sans asked.

I nodded and turned towards Jinkies, patting his head gently and running my hand on his spine. "We haven't made any progress, have we?" I asked, looking at Sans.

"What?! No, we've made progress." Sans shrugged at the end of his sentence and I laughed softly.

"That was your tell Sans." I responded, finding more interest in my dog than the blue skeleton. "You shrug when you're lying or nervous. We really haven't made ANY progress. Even Gaster hasn't found another solution." I muttered.

Sans sighed and lifted me to my feet from my crouching position. "We'll get there Cherry. I promise."

I forced a smile and motioned for Geeby and Jinkies to follow me. "We're gonna go ahead to Toriel's for a bit. Frisk has a play tonight and I don't wanna miss it. Are you going?"

Sans shrugged. "Yeah, I think I will."

I laughed. "You won't, you'll be here with Alphys working, won't you?"

Sans didn't make eye contact and I nodded, reassured of my assessment. "I'll tell Frisk you couldn't come."

Sans handed me a bouquet of echo flowers and I gave him a questioning look. "Aw, Sans, it's a kind gesture but-"

"There for the play bone-head."

I snickered and gave Sans a quick hug. "I'm off. Don't stay here too late. I don't wanna have to pick you up again."

"Hey! I'm being worked to the bone! It's no wonder I'm bone tired."

I grinned at the stupid puns and released Sans from the hug. "Bye Sans."

"Bye Cherry."

With a snap of my fingers, I was gone. My two dogs at my side, I reappeared in front of Toriel's surface house. I plastered a fake smile on my face, like we'd made progress, and knocked on the door.