Sans woke up suddenly, with a clarity in his mind that kind of surprised him.

Still, something was horribly wrong, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He crawled out of bed, Papyrus's bed, he realized, and staggered to the door. He could distantly hear voices, Papyrus's and Gaster's it sounded like, coming from the kitchen. Distinctly aware of the fact that the only thing he was wearing was, quite literally, bandages (and there were a lot of them,) he stumbled down the hallway, wincing with every step.

He made it to the kitchen, still with a feeling of dark foreshadowing. Gaster and Papyrus had their backs to him, at the stove, presumably cooking something.

Sans stumbled and almost fell entering the kitchen, but just caught himself on the doorframe. He did, however, make enough noise to alert his family to his presence.

They both rushed over to him. He was pretty certain they were speaking to him, but, even though he heard them, they weren't making sense. Just gibberish. He started to tell them so, and that he would really appreciate it if they would speak a language he knew, when...

He paused, one hand raised slightly, blinking.

Ah. So that was what was wrong.

Then, he hugged his arms around his ribcage, leaned over, and heaved.

For a moment, his entire world consisted of only the rippling nausea that spread quickly through him, and the burning pain in about where his throat would be if he had a throat. Wether he was actually puking or just dry heaving, he couldn't have said, but it still hurt.

But then he was done, and the sense of impending doom was gone. That was all it had been.

That wasn't so bad. He mused, as his clarity of mind began to slip, too.

Gaster grabbed Sans under the arms and lifted him up. Sans obediently wrapped his arms around Gaster's neck and snuggled his head down on Gaster's shoulder. Distantly, he heard Gaster say something about bed and supposed to still be asleep, but that didn't make sense, because he already was asleep...

~o0o~

And then it hurt.

Sans howled. Or, he tried to. All that came out of his mouth was a moan, and a quiet one at that. Still, he could writhe in pain, and he did. He clawed at his ribs, not totally aware that that was only making it hurt more, instead somehow half-consciously believing that pain could just be pulled away.

He still didn't understand why it was only hurting more.

But it did hurt more. He cried and moaned, wordlessly begging someone, anyone for help.

Lucky for him, help came. Papyrus was at his side, pulling his hands away from his chest. He was speaking, too, but his voice was muffled and distant, just a dull, comforting hum.

But still, it hurt. Sans moaned, and tried to pull his hands out of Papyrus's grip. It hurt!

Help, Papyrus. It hurts.

Then there was another voice, a deeper one. Gaster's voice. For a moment, Gaster and Papyrus spoke, thought about what, Sans couldn't tell.

And then Gaster was carefully lifting Sans's skull, and pouring a thick, warm liquid into his mouth.

Sans gagged and choked, and again tried to pull his hands free from Papyrus's grasp.

But he still swallowed a bit the liquid, and found it to be soothing. The pain in his chest was dulled just a little, and a strange, comforting warmth spread through him.

He let out a sort of hopeful whine, trying to ask for more. Gaster seemed to understand, and slowly, carefully complied. This time, Sans managed to not choke or gag. With every gulp of the warm concoction, Sans felt just a little warmer, a little less in pain.

And Sans drifted back off to sleep.

~o0o~

The next time Sans woke up wasn't nearly so horrible. Sure, everything ached, but it wasn't so bad that he couldn't just let it be.

Gradually, he became aware that he was sitting up. Or, rather, that he was being held up, by a pair of hands on his shoulders. As he slowly woke a bit more, he realized that the strange feeling around his ribs was a bandage being wound around his chest.

Eventually, he opened his eyes, just as Gaster was finishing with the bandage.

Not yet realizing Sans was kind of awake, Gaster dismissed the extra pair of hands he had summoned, and carefully settled Sans back down on the mattress. Then he gently lifted Sans' left arm, and began unwinding the bandages wrapped around the bones of his arm. Once he had the bandage off, he picked up a damp washcloth from somewhere Sans couldn't see, probably the nightstand beside the bed, and started wiping away the dried Magic that had seeped out of the cracks still in Sans' bones.

Sans let out a small happy murmur. That felt good. He hadn't even realized that the dried flakes of Magic had been itchy, but now that it had been brought to his attention, it itched pretty badly. But Gaster was methodically working his way down Sans' arm, cleaning out every small crack and crevice there might be any of the offending materiel.

Eventually, once he reached, Sans' shoulder, Gaster happened to glance at Sans' face and see him awake, eyes half open, watching Gaster.

"Well. Good morning." Gaster smiled at Sans.

Sans tried to respond, and ended up with a relatively happy, optimistic sounding noise.

Gaster's smile widened. "Comfortable?"

Sans bobbed his head slightly.

"Good." Gaster picked up a clean bandage and started wrapping it around Sans' arm. "Just let me finish up here, and get your other arm, and I can go get Papyrus, if you'd like."

Sans nodded and grinned.

"Alright." Gaster reached for Sans' right arm. "Can you move much, without hurting yourself?"

Sans struggled a bit to lift his hand, then gave up.

"Ah well. That's okay. You used up a ton of Magic, and then you've pretty steadily been throwing up the rest of it over the last two weeks." Gaster started unwinding the bandage around Sans' right arm. "Do you remember what happened?"

Sans closed his eyes and thought about it.

He could remember fighting the clone. He could remember being stabbed through the chest. He could remember falling...

And then after that, all he got was a vague sense of a reckless power, a wild, fierce Magic at his fingertips, and the fiery drive to accomplish... something big.

He looked at Gaster, who was just finishing pulling the old bandage off Sans' arm, and shook his head.

Gaster started to speak, thought better of it, stopped, then started again. "It was... Do you remember when you got stabbed?"

Sans nodded.

"Well. After that, you stood up. And you fought. Using your Corrupt Magic with Pure attacks."

Sans frowned. That didn't seem quite right; he thought that was supposed to be impossible.

Gaster saw his frown and chuckled as he began to clean off Sans' arm. "Yeah. Somehow, you managed to mix the Pure and Corrupt sections of your Soul, forcing it to allow for the... Corrupt Pure attacks. But, the Magic in your Soul didn't just separate back out quickly, so even after you finished fighting, so your Soul kept on producing the mixed Magic, but the mixed Magic doesn't want to be mixed, and... Well, it's been wreaking havoc on your system, that's for sure. There was a little while in the beginning where I weren't even sure if your body would be able to stand it; you were turning to dust just as fast as you were healing."

Sans just blinked. He was tired, and didn't understand. This was more information than he was able to absorb in his current state.

Almost finished with Sans' arm, Gaster noticed Sans' confusion. "It's alright. Just rest for now. It'll make more sense when you're better."

Sans just nodded and closed his eyes.

After a couple minutes, Gaster finished bandaging Sans' arm back up. "Alright, do you still want me to go get Papyrus? You look pretty tired."

At the thought of missing seeing his younger brother, Sans' eyes snapped open, and he struggled to sit up, hissing with every stab of pain that tore through his body.

Almost in a worried panic, Gaster quickly grabbed Sans' shoulders and forced him to lie down. "I was only kidding, Sans! Calm down, I was just kidding!"

Sans settled back down, shaking a little from the pain.

Once he was sure Sans wasn't trying to get up anymore, Gaster let go of Sans' shoulders. "Okay. Just stay calm. I was only kidding. I'll go get Papyrus, just don't move. Okay? Don't try to get up. Stay still, I'm going to get Papyrus."

Sans just nodded slightly, and took a few deep breaths to steady his shaking.

Gaster left the room.

Sans didn't move.

Gaster came back, Papyrus following behind him.

When Papyrus saw Sans was awake, he let out a happy "NYEH HEH HEH!!" that would have made Sans cringe if it hadn't been Papyrus.

In an instant, Papyrus was sitting on the bed beside Sans, carefully helping him to sit up a little so Sans could lean against him. He was also talking, a lot, but Sans could only catch a word or two here and there, since Papyrus was talking so excitedly fast.

Sans didn't mind, though. He was just content to lean against Papyrus, head on his shoulder, and hear his voice, however little sense it made. Content to hear him happy and safe.

He must have dozed off at some point, because he suddenly became aware that he was lying down again, his head resting on Papyrus's chest, and Papyrus's arms around his shoulders. He could hear Papyrus's pulse, slow and steady, and that, combined with the gentle rise and fall of his chest, told him Papyrus was asleep. Somewhere nearby, he could hear Gaster humming softly, as he occasionally did when working on something that didn't require his utmost attention.

Sans was warm, comfortable, and safe. He saw no reason as to why he shouldn't close his eyes again, and let the beat of Papyrus's Soul and Gaster's humming lull him to sleep.

So he did.

~o0o~

A few days later, Sans found that he could speak easily and clearly again, as well as move around comfortably. Gaster still had him confined to bed, as he still had a multitude of wounds that weren't quite healed, but Sans really didn't mind. He was Sans, after all; he took pride in doing nothing.

Gaster, for his part, was rather contented. Sure, his son was horribly wounded, but not only was Sans quickly recovering, but he was letting Gaster take care of him. That not only gave him an excuse to skip work that not even Papyrus could dispute, but it also was the one thing he really wanted to be able to do as a father, and Sans was letting him do it.

And Papyrus was happy because everyone was going to be just fine, and getting along together.

~o0o~

It was Thursday afternoon. This was Papyrus's first day back at school, as Gaster had finally deemed him fully recovered from his stay in the Corrupt base. Without him around, the house seemed strangely quiet.

Gaster and Sans were sitting together on the bed, Sans with his back to Gaster, as Gaster rubbed at some of the few remaining cracks in Sans' left shoulder blade from "the clone war" as they had dubbed it. Sans had, at one point, made a remark that subtly implied that whatever Gaster was doing to clean out his wounds felt really good, so Gaster had no qualms about taking much longer than necessary to complete this task.

Sans was in complete bliss. As far as he was concerned, this was just about as close as he was ever going to get to a back massage, as skeletons have no muscles to massage.

They were both quite happy.

And then Sans shuddered. Over the past few weeks, both of the skeletons had gotten fairly accurate as to interpreting the meaning of this.

"dad." Sans moaned slightly. "help."

But he needn't have worried. Gaster was already reaching for the bucket on the nightstand that was there specifically for use in these such events. Gaster shoved the bucket in front of Sans just as his body spasmed out of his control and he started retching.

These incidents had become much less frequent over the past few weeks as Sans' Soul had finally begun to sort itself out, but it still payed to be prepared. Luckily, as Sans got stronger, not only did they get farther apart, but also didn't last as long either. So it was only a few seconds before Sans groaned and flopped backwards against Gaster.

As Gaster pulled the bucket away and set it on the floor to be dealt with later, something occurred to him.

"Sans." He looked down at Sans, who was currently sprawled across Gaster's lap.

"nnngh?" Sans groaned without moving, or even opening his eyes.

"Sans, you-... You called me Dad."

Sans had not done that since becoming Corrupt, more than a year and a half ago by now.

Sans opened his eyes and looked up at Gaster. He smiled. "... yeah. i guess i did."

Lost for words, Gaster just swept Sans up in a hug. Sans grunted slightly as he was wrapped tightly in Gaster's arms, as he was still pretty sore, but didn't really mind much.

After a moment, when Gaster just about started sobbing with joy, Sans elbowed him. "hey. stop it. you're gonna make me cry, and as a corrupter, i'm not allowed to do that." There was a note of humor in his voice though.

"But you're not Corrupt." Gaster laughed and cried at the same time. "Not fully."

Sans just sighed happily, and relented to the argument.

When Papyrus got home a couple minutes later, he found them sitting in a sort of odd position. Sans was sitting in Gaster's lap, and it looked like Gaster was hugging Sans from behind. Sans, meanwhile had let his skull fall backwards to rest on Gaster's shoulder.

They both looked happy, and Gaster was on the verge of tears, the only other time in Papyrus's life having seen his father so emotional being when they had first thought Sans dead.

He didn't know what was going on, but they both looked happy, so he climbed up onto the bed, and joined in on the hug.

§

A/N

... So who's ready for the next story arc⁉ :D

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Remember, comments and votes are not only always welcome, but always appreciated, too!