determinedest | ic inbox

[Dipper has his journal too, just in case they need extra reinforcement, though most of his notes are written very specifically so that if Dipper ever loses his memories, he'll be able to pick right back up where he left off. Still, it's a good resource, and it's easy enough to take with him.]

What if they're not home? Maybe we should have called ahead....

[Frisk isn't home. Well, they...they are, they just don't want to be. They're trying to hide under their covers and sleep and act like nothing's wrong. They got rid of the problem! It should - it should go away, shouldn't it? Why isn't it going away?

Go away, they keep telling the almost infinitesimal ache in their SOUL. Go away, please, please, please, please, please...

Then they hear the knock on the door.

No. No, no, no, that's not what's supposed to happen! People should just cut them up like Chara did! Get rid of them, just like Frisk got rid of the problem! Frisk covers their head in their hands when the knocking continues, persistent.

Persistent. Determined.

They're both so determined.

And Frisk isn't.

They move slowly, hesitant, by the time they open the door a slit and peer outside. They need to keep their expression - they need to not care. And they don't care. Their expression is blank and unfeeling, like they are. Like they have to be.]

What is it?

[Mabel holds up her letter in one hand, the other holding her scrapbook under her arm. her expression is hard, but also deeply pained. she believes so strongly this is going to work, but a part of her really does believe that not everything can be solved by scrapbooking.] You sent us these, right? Well, if you're family, then we're gonna do for you what we did for the last member of our family who forgot who they are.

And you do qualify as family. [Dipper smiles, leaning a hand on Mabel's shoulder.] So sit down. This is happening.

I'm not...I haven't forgotten anything.

[No, they've got...all their memories. Every timeline, every death, everything broken SOUL. They've got them all stashed away in their head.]

I'm just not determined anymore. That's it. I just wanted to - get rid of it. Get rid of them. [They can't meet Mabel's eyes, looking at their hands, their faltering grip on the door instead.] So I wouldn't have to look at them anymore.

[Mabel lowers her letter and sighs.] Frisk, if there's anything I learned from Weirdmageddon besides growing up is hard, but you can't avoid it, it's that you can't just run from your feelings either. They stink sometimes.

Just... Let us try to help you.

Worst case scenario, it doesn't work, right? Then you're no worse off than you were before. But maybe we can help. It's worth trying.

[A good kid...

A good kid...listens to people. Does what they ask. And, and they can do that. They can be good. They can be good and when it doesn't work, because it won't, then they can just go back to feeling nothing. Just like how they're feeling nothing right now, right?

Right.

Frisk steps back quietly and opens the door wider to allow them both inside.

Their room looks exactly the same as it always does, with the exception of Chara's side of it. Chara's side of the room is always blank, has always been empty, but now there's a fine, thin layer of dust coating everything.

Chara hasn't been here for a while now.]

[Mabel tries not to look at the dusty side of the room, but her best attempts aren't good enough as her eyes wander. They'll bring Frisk back to the way they were before, and Chara will come back. This she is sure of.

She moves over to Frisk's bed and settles down, opening up her scrapbook.] Okay, so the idea is to just show you all the good times we've had. Times that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been determined. Okay?

[Dipper settles down on the other side of Frisk, frowning over at the other side more openly. He has questions, but he doesn't ask them.]

It's not about the actual memories, more about how it makes you feel, you know?

[Frisk ends up between them, because they're coordinated, well-oiled and in tandem in the way that they and Chara no longer are. They stare down at the pages of the scrapbook with bland recognition.]

I don't feel anything, though.

You have to feel something. People who don't feel anything don't write letters like you did.

[she wraps an arm around them and points at things in the scrapbook. Candids. Stuff from around the mansion. A few here and there from events.] Look. Here's a group photo from before we went into those weird caves that one time.

[that ended up being a Bad Time, but at least it started out good.]

[A really bad time. But bad times are important too. They bring everyone closer together.]

The four of us make a good team. Even if none of you know how to pack properly for dungeon crawls.

I found them under the bed. Wrote them a long time ago, I guess.

[Photos of the weird caves. The time they...yeah. They remember that. They remember dying. Remember Papyrus wavering alongside them. It had hurt.

But that doesn't matter anymore. They look away again.]

But you still decided to send 'em to us now. You could've just left them, y'know? [Mabel will literally take any straw she can grab at this point.

she continues to flip through the pages.] These are just from around the mansion between events. Just kids being kids with none of that crazy stuff going on... Not that we mind the crazy stuff, but it's cool we get to play hide and seek in the hedge maze and play mini-golf on the checkerboard hills.

You have to be pretty determined to play Mabel in mini-golf. And keep playing as it becomes consistently obvious you can't beat her.

[They shift on the spot, but don't refute the statements. They just wanted the notes gone, and now they've looped back, like a boomerang whipping around to crack them across the skull with how little they can feel anything.]

I guess so.

[But the level of enthusiasm in their voice is still all but nil.]

[Mabel looks askance at Frisk, heart breaking with how little this is working. by now, Stan had started to remember things.] How's the sciencey cure coming?

[Dipper looks at Mabel, filled with pain because she can't help her friend, and looks at Frisk, who's listless and emotionless and not reacting at all to the scrapbook.

As much as Dipper loves science, he's... pretty sure that's not what's gonna help here. He pushes the scrapbook closed, looking over to meet Mabel's eyes.

She's all sunshine and sparkles and sometimes it's just the right thing to cheer someone up. But sometimes that's not helpful. Sometimes it drives Dipper crazy when he's in a bad mood and all she wants to do is act like everything's awesome all the time.

Maybe it's the same for Frisk.]

Do you... wanna talk about it? Not feeling anything? We can listen.

Not much to talk about. They say my determination just has to come back.

[They weren't sure they'd really been telling the truth there, or if they were just guessing. The human SOULs didn't need to be consoled after their extraction. No one knew that they were even still conscious, if only nominally.]

They had to extract it.

Wait. Rewind. [at least this development keeps her from feeling bad that she's pursuing this the entirely wrong way and doesn't know how else to pursue it.] You can remove determination? Like your tonsils?

That... [Would sound fake, except Dipper knows enough about determination in Frisk's world that he can believe it.] Okay. But it can come back, right? How can we help?

With the right blueprints.

[Someone sold something important to get it. They don't remember who or what. It's not important. They lack the ability to pursue that line of thought to its conclusion, so they simply advance beyond it.]

They say it'll come back on its own. Someday.

So we could... maybe bring it back faster with the scrapbooking? [she remains hopeful. it saved Stan. why can't it save Frisk too?]

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