In case you didn't read the description, this is a noncanonical companion book to my main Undertale trilogy. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you've read the first two books entirely, and No One is Happy with This at least to the 64th chapter, since that's where this starts, more or less.

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It's been a very long time.

I'm unsure how long, but, that's how it is when you fall nearly comatose due to Magic loss and sleep for an age for your wounds to heal.

And there aren't any clocks readily available.

Of course not; this is a cave. It would be silly if there were clocks.

Nonetheless, I am awake now. Thus, it is time for me to get up and leave this cave. All I've to do is push aside the boulder I sealed the cave off with.

Not particularly challenging... except that all my muscles are stiff from however long I slept.

But I've nothing else to do. So I continue to heave against the stone.

And the sunlight on my face, for the first time in Annoying Dog knows how long, feels amazing.

...

I can only hope my brethren still feel it too. I've slept for so long, I don't know how the war ended. Or if it even has ended. And if my b-

... my-...

Brother...?

But I do not have a brother. I am a bossmonster. I am an only child. Like all bossmonsters.

Nonetheless, I cannot shake the feeling of concern for a face I cannot place. The sense that I've abandoned someone important.

But I can't recall him. Just an idea on the fringe of a dream.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I had a dream. Wouldn't be too surprising, considering I've been asleep so long.

So, so long.

So long since I've felt the wind across my scales, so long since I've spread my wings, soaring through the sky...

The landscape below is beautiful. Forests spread across rolling hills, reaching towards an ocean shore. A city rises in the distance on the horizon, and the mountain in which I resided rests as the largest of a range, going off to the east.

At the foot of this mountain range rests a small village. A better place, I decide, to land than the city. I seek information on the outcome of the war, and, should it still be full swing, a city is more likely to be defended than an outlying town.

I've already suffered near grievous wounds once. I'd rather not do that again.

As I land in a clearing and make my way into the town, I am delighted to see it is populated not by humans, but by monsters. Perhaps we won the war, or at least a peaceable end came to it.

The faces I see are all unfamiliar. Monsters, yes, but none I recognize peer up at me. They are all curious, it would seem. I don't begrudge them this; bossmonsters are rare even among monsters, and I believe myself to be the last dragon.

I find myself in the middle of the town, a small gathering of monsters around me. They are all excited, curious, wondering.

And then, a familiar voice.

"Firhaur?"

I turn, grin. "Your highness."

It is Toriel, and she leads a human child by the hand. She seems older than when we last met.

"Firhaur, I thought you were-..."

"As did I. I only just managed to escape their assault, and have since been in hibernation, waiting to heal." I sit in the street, let my tail fold around my feet. "Tell me, though, what of the war? I see we are not all dead, and it would appear we are at peace. How did things end?"

It's a different voice that responds, quiet with disbelief. "Brother."

I turn my head and see a skeleton. Tall and thin, he wears a black lab coat. Scars mar his face, and a hole has been cut through the palm of either hand.

I cannot shake the feeling that I know this person. Like someone I met in a dream, but forgot upon waking.

"Brother," he repeats, stepping forward, "I saw you die."

I frown a little. "My apologies. Do I know you?"

The monster lets out a sad laugh, a hand rising to his head. "No. You would have forgotten me. But we were friends. Brothers."

I do not know this monster. His face, his voice, his words. I remember none of this. Yet there's an undeniable familiarity, twisting in my Soul.

"What is your name?"

The monster smiles at me. "Gaster. WD Gaster."

I see his hands moving in slight gestures, a long forgotten language. "WingDings Gaster. Your successor as Royal Scientist."

I know that skeletons typically are named after fonts. But this name feels so familiar to me.

"... And you say you are my brother?"

"Yes. I was erased, though. No one remembered me."

"Erased..?"

He nods. "... Yes. It's... complicated. A very long story."

"Perhaps you could tell me this story."

He nods a little. Then, "With food, maybe?" And he adds with small gestures in Hands, "This is not a story, I think, for everyone else. Not a story for the public."

So I agree. We walk away.

It feels so... right to have this monster at my side.

He leads me out of town, into the forest, and he tells me a story. How on that expedition into the mountains, I met him. Coaxed him into coming back to the Capitol City. How we bonded over two years as tensions between monsters and humans built up.

And the story sounds so real. The way he describes how I respond to nearly every situation is exactly how I would respond. From my frustration at the thievery of a scarf, to the care I responded with to his nightmares.

And as he goes on, I find fragments of memories surface. Just an image, here and there, to accompany his story. Images of a much younger skeleton in a blue jacket and red scarf, no scars on his face.

As he talks, so many more things of my past make sense; things I hadn't realized didn't make sense. Like where several of 'my' inventions came from. Or the particular assistant that King Relgore was always trying to get me to convince about becoming the Royal Physician.

And how I escaped the assault of humans to find my way to the cave.

Even that he describes with unfortunate accuracy. I shamefully remember all too well the rage that boiled up in me at the attack, and he puts it to words. Make them burn, Gaster. Make them burn!

By then, I fully believe his story, that he knew me. But he continues his story, with the explanation that it leads up to his erasure.

He tells of how he did his best to keep to what he thought to be my final words. He shows me the very weapon he crafted in my likeness. How his Lv rose and he slaughtered humans.

My Soul aches. I caused this. Made him fight. I never wanted that. Never wanted to hurt my brother.

He continues, tells how it wasn't enough. Monsters were sealed away Underground to rot.

But he still wanted to fight, he wanted to do badly. But Asgore wouldn't let him continue his experiments.

He shows me his hands, and lifts his shirt to show me his Soul. Explains how he used these to make clones to be his test subjects. How he almost killed them, and his Lv rose again. How they escaped, then turned to lean on him once more, and how he became a dad.

I'm proud of him. He seems to be an excellent, if a little wild, father.

He tells me how he left the weapons behind, instead merely focusing on escape.

How he bent time and space in the attempt, but fell out, and was erased. Forgotten by all but the very pieces of him that remained in reality.

He tells how he remained in black nothingness, the Void, watching as the seventh Soul fell. How they were an anomaly, could manipulate time. How they committed mass genocide, yet are considered a pacifist.

How they eventually freed all monsters with the dead prince's help, yet he was still stuck, unknown in darkness.

How eventually, that which he loathed, a human, the very seventh Soul, freed him.

And how he had once more made a name for himself here, on the surface, with his sons once more.

And then, Gaster, my brother, looks up at me and smiles. "And now, I guess this is where everything ends happily. Because you're back, and even if you don't remember me, I still love you. 'Cuz you're my brother."

I look at him, silently, for a long time.

Then I reach out, slip my hands under his arms, pull him close. I pull him to my chest, curling my neck around him, raising my wings to shelter us.

I hug my brother. I hug him tight, hold on to him. And he wraps his arms around my neck and clings to me. I just hold him tighter when I feel him start to shake, when I hear his soft sobs.

Because I love him. I want to take care of him.

Because he's my brother.

And we're family.

We're finally together again.

§

A/N

So there ya go! Alternate world where Firhaur escaped that final conflict, and survived!

From here on out, it'll mostly be short blurbs, not necessarily in chronological order, about the skelefam and Firhaur's adventures.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!