Under Lock & Key

notes: written for Soriel Week Day 1, for prompt "trust"! Huge thanks to Spaceman2797 for looking this over for me, and to everyone at the Soriel Discord server for informing me that Soriel Week is a thing, and for generally being awesome and inspiring. ily, SD-chan~ as always, would love to hear your thoughts on this thing, hope you guys enjoy and thank you for reading! :D

"Sorry about the mess."

It was a joke, Toriel realised, after Sans had unlocked the door and led her down the stairs to the basement; the room was, in fact, the tidiest she had ever known him to occupy for more than five minutes. Indeed, it was almost empty, with the exception of a few scattered blueprints on the counter and a large, rectangular contraption in the corner obscured by a sheet. Sans' usual chaos was conspicuous in its absence, illuminated now by glaring fluorescent lights, and it was clear from this alone that whatever this place was – or had once been – used for, it was of much more significance than he had always claimed.

"Well, I have certainly seen worse," she replied lightly, hovering at the foot of the stairs as she took in her surroundings. There were no chairs or comfortable surfaces, so she took her place beside Sans as he slouched against the wall opposite the workbench, acknowledging her with a shrug.

"Probably 'cause I haven't come down here in a while. Or shown anyone else this place...uh, for a long time. Possibly ever."

"Really? I am the first?" Toriel was unsurprised, but a little honoured all the same as her growing curiosity mingled with trepidation. "Goodness – this is certainly a privilege."

"Sure." Sans' tone was flat, almost detached as he offered her a smile that failed to reach his eyes. "Can't exactly turn down a visit from the queen, right?"

She knew it was another joke – albeit not a very funny one – but the offhand way he referred to her as the queen, as though that was all she was to him, still stung a little, making Toriel frown. It was, by far, her least favourite kind of joke: the kind Sans made when he was uncomfortable; when he avoided her gaze, staring straight ahead towards the workbench; when he was searching for anything at all to fill the silence, other than the truth.

Toriel cleared her throat. "Sans, I hope you do not think you are under any sort of obligation to..."

"No, I didn't mean – sorry, Tori, that was a dumb thing to say. I guess I'm just..." He let out a sigh, shuffling his feet and casting his sockets down to the floor as though hoping it would spontaneously swallow him up, where the lights of his eyes faded from view for a moment before managing to meet her eyes with a sheepish, but more sincere grin, "not really the greatest at this sorta thing. In case you hadn't noticed."

At that, Toriel could not help but smile too, bittersweet as the silence settled over them like a familiar but scratchy old blanket, the consternation of recent months lingering in the air. It was a time of transformation, of readjustment for everyone in the Underground. Toriel was working hard to rebuild her kingdom, trying her best to give her people hope even when everything was so different from how she had left it she wondered if it would ever truly feel like her kingdom again, just as the two of them were building a new life, together. There were days when her rule felt like a thankless task, but Sans made her happy – happier than she ever imagined she could, or deserved to be again – and naturally, all she wanted was for him to be happy too. But, increasingly, she recognised that something was weighing on his mind – something that kept startling them both awake in the night as he cried out desperate, impassioned nonsense before turning over and pretending to be asleep again before Toriel could comfort him, as though she had not seen him sleep enough times to know the difference. Perhaps even something that explained the strange things he said, sometimes – apparent non sequiturs that nonetheless unnerved her, not so much for what he said as how he said it, the way his sockets darkened and the carefully considered, eerily serious weight behind his words, as though every one was a decisive judgement. And then, as ever, when Toriel questioned what he meant he would shrug it off, cracking a joke to deflect attention while the light returned to his sockets, but the glow was always a little dimmer than it had been.

In truth, Toriel had been feeling her frustration simmer closer to the surface every time she pretended, for peace's sake, that she believed him. She, of all monsters, knew all too well how the past could cast a long shadow, but she still knew so little of Sans' – he rarely talked about his life before their fateful encounter at the door, and when he did it was almost always about Papyrus, never about himself. All she had managed to ascertain was that he had, for a time, had business at the lab over in Hotland – but he declined to enlighten her on what, or why he had stopped visiting there, which only fuelled her millennia-old reservations about the kind of research Asgore had supposedly been supervising. But, regardless of the cause, her heart ached to see one she cared for so deeply in pain, and even more so that he continued to push her away, insisting that his past was nothing interesting, everyone had nightmares, seriously, Tori, he was fine. Toriel longed for Sans to let her in, to let her at least try to be there for him, but the last thing she wanted was to become a nagging burden; she had learned from experience that the harder she pushed, the further Sans would retreat behind the cheerfully indifferent mask he presented to the rest of the world. So she kept biting her tongue before she could say anything she might regret, and resolved that she would let him open up in his own time. And if that time ended up being never...well, she would find a way to get them through it, pushing away the unhelpful thoughts that she might be doomed to repeat history, forever failing to save the one she loved from his own darkness.

And yet – today, when the house was quiet and Papyrus was busy dutifully attending to the castle gardens, Sans had been the one to show her here. Every other time she had enquired about the basement he had told her there was nothing much down there – which she saw now was almost, yet far from the truth – but today was different. Toriel did not know what had brought about this decision, but she knew that this place meant a lot to Sans, for better or worse, and it already meant the world to her to be allowed in, regardless of the nature of the skeletons in his closet (pun always intended, if not always appropriate).

"So this is your...research?" Toriel walked over to the desk to take a closer look at the blueprints – they depicted some kind of machine and were written in a language she did not recognise, a series of seemingly indecipherable symbols.

"Some of it. Most of the stuff's all back at the lab – I saved this place for some more, uh, personal projects." Sans glanced up, his sockets following Toriel's gaze from the prints to the mysterious machine in the corner. "That's just a prototype – didn't really work out in the end. You can look if you want."

Toriel made a polite yet noncommittal hmm noise, thinking better of it as she averted her eyes to the half-open desk drawer instead, which contained a small, leather-bound notebook. She picked it up and flicked through the pages, expecting to find more notes, but was greeted instead by several smiling Sanses – truly smiling, the corners of his mouth stretched just a little wider than the lazy resting grin he wore most of the time with the lights of his eyes illuminated from the flash of the camera. That smile was a precious commodity; she would have recognised it anywhere, although she did not recognise any of the monsters surrounding him, who all wore lab coats.

"Ah, how lovely," she said, smiling as she carried the album over to show him. "These are your colleagues, I assume? You never told me about them."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess they must've been." Sans' expression was a far cry from that of his former self – he almost looked like a different person entirely, face curiously, unsettlingly blank, with the barest flicker of recognition as she held the album in front of him. "There were a few of us. Thing is, uh...after the resets started, a lot of things got mixed up. Here, I'm not sure if we ever...I dunno. Guess I just don't remember these guys too well."

Toriel frowned. "You...do not remember them at all?" Resets – the word tickled at the back of her mind, familiar somehow in a way she could not put a name to, yet the knot in her stomach as she felt her magic wavering in anticipation reminded her she had yet to discover what it all truly meant, and that she was unlikely to like the answer. "But you all look so...Sans, how is that possible?"

Sans let out a long, slow exhale, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Yeah, that's..." She saw his jaw tighten, with the air of one instinctively biting back information he had held onto – and hoped never to share – for a long time. "Okay. So, when I started hanging out at the lab, we were looking into timelines – alternate dimensions, multiverse theory, that kinda thing. Pretty fascinating stuff, but after a while we started noticing...irregularities in the data. Small things at first, a few test results not matching up – but it got worse. Reports went missing, new ones started showing up out of nowhere, we couldn't keep any of it straight. We were losing – not only days, months' worth of research, but...but memories, too. One day to the next, I didn't know who was going to show up, how they were going to remember things. It wasn't easy, but eventually we figured out there had to be an anomaly. Something was messing with the timelines, something with the power to reset everything on a whim. Long story short: they could turn back time, as far as they liked – erase everything we'd lived through, and start over. Because after there'd been a reset, no one would remember before that – it'd be like none of it ever happened, if that's what the anomaly decided. Nothing we did ever mattered."

His words sent a tremor through Toriel's magic, a shiver like ice running down her back as she looked down at the photo album; all those smiling faces became tragic, almost sinister as she tried to process what Sans was telling her. To turn back time – how many times must she have wished for that power herself? But of course it was only ever a fantasy, because no one could...Imagining that there really there was something out there with that ability, that kind of control over their whole world made the fur on the back of her neck stand on end.

"So, when there is a reset," she repeated, brow furrowing as she chewed at her bottom lip, "just like that, everything that came after is...undone? And we all simply forget?" Infinite questions swirled around her mind, none of which she was sure she truly wanted to know the answer to. "But what kind of creature could possibly wield that kind of power?" Certainly no monster she had ever encountered, and Toriel had met many in her time. "Did you ever identify the – the anomaly?"

"First time, it was that flower," Sans answered, without hesitation. "I don't know what exactly what that thing was – but it sure couldn't've been any ordinary monster. No way a regular soul could handle that amount of determination...unless..."

He trailed off as hazy memories began to resurface – of course, that awful creature. From what little Toriel recalled among tangled, painful vines and desperate outreachings of magic, it had abilities like none she had ever seen before. "Had you encountered it before that time, with Frisk and the others?"

"It's possible." Sans could have been evading the question or genuinely unsure, but his thoughts seemed elsewhere as his sockets shifted slowly, almost guiltily back up to look at her, and Toriel closed the book. "But the thing is, uh...the flower wasn't the only one resetting, either."

"Oh...?" Tension mounted in her soul as Toriel clasped her paws together in a vain effort to settle the nervous energy thrumming through her magic, increasingly ominous scenarious gnawing at the corners of her mind. "There was...another?"

"Tori..." Sans shifted from one foot to the other, his eye lights darting somewhere over the top of Toriel's head, as if unable to fully meet her gaze. "I'm not sure if you really wanna –"

"Sans." She managed to speak quietly but firmly, only the slightest quaver in her voice betraying the hurricane of anxious butterflies in her stomach – but she was not about to get this far only to let him get away now. "Just tell me. Please," she added, more gently as she caught a similar glimmer of trepidation in his sockets and held his gaze for seconds that seemed like an eternity, until he blinked and nodded slowly.

"Judging by the timescale...I'm pretty sure it could only have been the kid."

"Frisk...?" Though half-anticipating the answer, she was unprepared for the emotion that pierced her soul – a nameless, sharp pang somewhere between confusion, sadness and a peculiar kind of relief, almost as though part of her had known all along. Toriel had felt an instant connection with the child – even more so than her natural desire to protect the innocent. Something in the way they looked up at her, how their little, fleshy hand gripped her paw as she led them through the Ruins...it had felt like they trusted her, almost as if – as if they knew her. And if they really had been doing – that... "But, I – I do not understand. Frisk wanted to go home, back to the surface. Why would they want to turn the timeline back? How...how could...?"

"Yup, that's what I was trying to figure out, too." Sans offered her what was probably intended as a sympathetic smile, although it came out more as a grimace. "I had, uh...a couple theories. One possibility's that somewhere along the line they died, and brought themselves back."

"They died?!" Toriel's voice rose several decibels higher than she intended, making Sans wince as her eyes widened in horror, then indignation. "When? How? Sans – you promised me..."

"I know." He didn't even attempt to deny it or defend himself, flimsy pretence of a smile fading as he slumped back against the wall, hunching his shoulders, and somehow Toriel could not bring herself to be angry at him, or even disappointed – just utterly, utterly lost, as unsteady as the light in Sans' sockets when he lifted his head, flickering like he was a lightbulb on the verge of burning out. "It sounds bad, but – the truth is, I was never in control of that. Whatever the kid decided, I couldn't...but, I mean, that's not the only reason they might've decided to go back. I think..." He paused; she could see the outline of his hands tightening into fists in his pockets. "Actually, I'm pretty sure that the other times, they did things differently. A lot differently."

That differently hung ominously in the air, settling like a lump of anxiety in the pit of Toriel's stomach. "Frisk passed through here before," she said, turning the information over in her mind like a puzzle, but not being able to make the pieces fit, "and...you remember those other times? How many times? What did...?" She could barely bring herself to ask, knowing differently had to mean that the child did something bad – bad enough that he had to hide it all this time, from her, from Papyrus, from everyone.

"Well, uh...no. Kind of? I mean, not exactly." Sans rubbed the back of his skull, as if trying to summon the memories back – or perhaps banish them even further. "I don't really remember much, either, but I kept notes. I tried to recognise the patterns. I could never predict when the next one was coming, but – some days, yeah, they sure started to feel familiar. But the details, those didn't start coming back until...well, until later."

Much later, Toriel realised, as she felt a few more of those puzzle pieces slide into place, as much as she did not like the image that was starting to form. For one who never had any trouble falling asleep in the middle of the day, or in the most peculiar positions, Sans woke her up often enough in the night thrashing crying out for something she could neither decipher not provide – and afterwards, of course, he would tell her either that he couldn't remember, or that it didn't matter. Toriel had spent enough nights herself tormented by the remnants of past regrets to sympathise, but she never could have imagined that of all the things, Frisk, the sweet, shy child who had been in her thoughts from the moment that old forest door closed behind them, might have been...

"And you never told anyone," she said softly, the thought of Sans carrying the weight of such knowledge on his fragile shoulders alone, and for who knows how long tugging at her soul, "what you knew, that you remembered the child. Not even Papyrus...?"

"Especially not Papyrus." The mention of his brother reignited the glow in Sans' sockets as though someone had lit a fuse, a cold blue flare of fierce, instinctive protectiveness. "You think I could do that to my baby bro? Actually finding a human was everything to him – he was so happy when the kid showed up, every time. No matter how much mercy they showed him, I knew he'd keep trying. Can you imagine what it'd do to him, if he ever found out that his cool new friend could – oh, wait." Sans cut himself off with a bitter, joyless chuckle. "Guess it wouldn't do much of anything, 'cause he won't remember any of it. Easy out, right? Means he'll never have to think about any of those times, when the kid turned around and..."

He didn't need to say it, and Toriel desperately didn't want to believe it, the horrible realisation like something squeezing tight around her soul; she felt quite ill, pressing a hand to her mouth for fear the magic churning inside of her might spew forth in the most unpleasant manner.

"No. Surely they would never..." Of all the unfailingly sweet, kind, innocent monsters in the Underground, Frisk had hurt Papyrus? The child she knew would never so much have said boo to a Froggit, let alone...But then, perhaps, she never really did know them at all; she had been clinging onto a fantasy, one she so desperately needed after decades of pitiful loneliness. And if they were capable of that, then who knew what else...

Sans merely shrugged in response, his sockets dimming again. "You don't have to believe me. I know it's hard to –"

"Of course I believe you." There was not even a shadow of a doubt – he may have kept things from her, but this, Sans would not lie about, or indeed have anything to gain from doing so. "I just – I had no – I never could have imagined that...oh, Sans." Blinking back the tears prickling behind her eyes, she closed the distance between them to embrace him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him tightly to her. "Sans, I am so sorry."

She felt him stiffen at first, not so much returning the hug as letting Toriel pull him in before taking his hands out of his pockets and clasping them around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder as the reply was muffled against her dress: "S'okay, Tori."

Toriel huffed a sigh, her frustration spiking with fresh guilt as she held him tighter. "No. I was the one who asked you to look out for the child. If I had any idea that they ever might have..."

"Tori, no – don't do that," Sans interrupted, lifting his head to look her in the eyes as he took hold of her hands, maneuvring them so they were clasped between her chest and his ribs. "That's not on you. You couldn't've known what Frisk was gonna do, or how many times they'd come back. Even if you did know – what could you really have done differently? Killed the kid on sight?" Toriel flinched, the bluntness of the words soothed by the conviction glowing steady in Sans' sockets as he looked up at her, squeezing their interlinked fingers. "You did the right thing – and, I mean, we're here, right? This time around, the kid made the right choice. Pap's fine, and – well, most of us are still here, at least. So maybe we're not free, but...y'know, I think this is the best we could've hoped for. Out of the other options, I know I'm pretty happy that this is the ending we got."

Toriel appreciated that he was trying to reassure her, and yet...that word did not sit right, ending. To her, it seemed nothing had ended; they were all still living their lives, the Underground and everyone in it was still growing and changing every day. What Frisk had left behind, they had to live with, and now that she knew... "But that does not erase what happened in the other timelines. Frisk still did those things – and you still remember them. Do you not?"

"I..." She felt Sans tense under her hands, his jaw working wordlessly for a moment before he sighed, and let his hands slip from Toriel's grasp to stuff them back in his pockets. "Some of them," he said quietly. "But, look, for whatever it's worth, I still don't think Frisk was – is a bad kid. You know, maybe they were just...curious. Can't really blame 'em, right, with that kind of power? To go back as many times as you like, see all the different paths you could've taken – and if you don't like where you end up, just start over, never have to deal with any consequences?" The question hovered unanswered in the air, and Toriel wondered if he was asking her or himself. "Who knows – maybe any one of us would've done the same, given the opportunity."

Toriel's fangs worried at her bottom lip, the sharp sting of pain as they dug too hard into tender flesh mingling with a familiar, righteous anger rising from her soul. "But there are consequences. Regardless of whether they remember, people were hurt. Things have been lost – valuable knowledge, memories, who knows what else. It is not right, for one to have such power over others." She could feel her magic stirring, her palms itching as though preparing a magical attack – but there was no target, no outlet for it, only useless emotion tearing at her, sorrow and anger and frustration as well as a peculiar kind of grief for the child, for the world she had once believed she understood so well.

"No, not really, but what can you do," Sans said dully, in the tone of one who had already pondered the matter countless times as he reached out for her again, bony fingers fumbling awkwardly around the sleeve before finding her hand. "I know it's hard, but...try not to be too mad at the kid, okay? I'm not." He stroked a thumb over the fur of her knuckles; she wondered if he could feel her heat, emotion bubbling under the surface. "Trust me, I spent a long time being mad at that little shi – uh, the first anomaly. Didn't help anyone, and it didn't get me any closer to figuring out what they were, what they wanted, what the point in even trying was if it was all just gonna be –" he cut himself off, timelines of unresolved frustrations escaping in a sharp exhale before continuing. "But, Frisk...they weren't like that, I could tell, after the first couple times. Whatever they did in the other timelines, they cared enough to come back and fix it. And they let us move on – maybe that's the best thing they could've done. I'm okay with that, you know? I got my bro, my friends, good food, bad laughs...and you." Sans squeezed her hand, the sharp, defensive smile softening as he looked up at her in that way that still made her soul somersault, like she was the stars. "I mean, how the hell I ended up with you, that's gotta be the biggest scientific breakthrough anyone's yet to make in any timeline, right?"

The corners of Toriel's mouth curled up into a smile as she felt some of the tension recede; not drained away completely, but enough to allow her to enjoy the moment. "Ah, you sweet talker," she teased. "Perhaps I should start calling you sugar skull."

"If you do, I take it all back."

She huffed in mock indignance, about to respond when her foot nudged against something, and she remembered the photo album; at some point it had slipped out of her hands, lying almost forgotten on the floor. Toriel stooped to pick it up and put it away safely, but as she did so a loose piece of paper fell from the pages and fluttered to the floor.

"Oh, what was...?" Toriel and Sans turned to look almost as one, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his sockets widen as the lights within shrunk to pinpricks. He moved uncharacteristically quickly to grab it, and she knew simultaneously that he had been about to say nothing and that it was most definitely something. But in the end he said nothing at all, clutching the piece of paper for a moment before handing it to her with the defeated aura of a condemned man.

Toriel took it, smoothing out the crumpled edges to reveal a crudely drawn image of three smiling figures. There was a short, round one in blue, which she guessed represented Sans; a longer, thinner, more proudly posed one in red that surely had to be Papyrus; and a taller one in black next to them. Scrawled underneath were two words: "don't forget".

"I was never an artist, in any of these timelines." Any attempt at humour fell flat as Sans regarded the drawing with the same detached air as the other photos, but just for an instant Toriel saw a profound sadness pass over his features, a sudden, raw emotion in the clench of his jaw and the crease of his sockets that it almost felt inappropriate to look upon.

"Sans," she said softly, averting her eyes back to the drawing and swallowing the lump in her throat as she looked on the three cheerful faces, their childlike simplicity incongruous next to the message beneath - a reminder, a plea, perhaps even a warning. There was not much detail, but the mysterious man - if, indeed, it was a man - in black appeared to have the same ambiguously skeletal features as the other two. "Is - is this...?"

"Our dad?" Sans finished the thought so she did not have to, not meeting her eyes but briefly laying a hand over hers on the paper, one finger skimming over the tallest figure's smiling skull. "I guess that's the logical conclusion. Could be our mom, for all I know - could be anybody. I just wish -" Sans' voice cracked, catching on years of repressed anger and guilt and grief before he let his hand slip, pinching the bridge of his nasal bone to compose himself. "Sorry. It just - would've been something, if I could have at least managed to keep that promise."

For as long as she had known them, neither Sans nor Papyrus had ever once mentioned their parents, or any other family; to hear them speak, it was as if they had simply materialised in Snowdin one day out of the blue. Toriel had wondered, naturally, but refrained from bringing up the subject - after all, countless monsters had lost their loved ones in the war, or in the traumatic events that followed. She knew all too well how it felt, trudging through life when hope seemed a thing of the past, when the most important, most precious, most irreplaceable piece of one's soul was gone forever - but even she could not imagine truly having nothing, not even her memories. To live in this perpetual cloud of uncertainty, the truth always just out of reach, perhaps to not even really know what one was grieving for...

"Well, they were certainly not just anyone," she stated. "Whoever they were, they mattered a great deal to the both of you, and you to them." It may have been a grand statement, when all she had to go on was this one...unique source, and yet the longer she looked, the stronger she felt it, the love contained in the crudely rendered image. Perhaps they would never know the true identity of this person, but they still meant something. "And they - they would understand, I am certain, that these are circumstances outside your control. They would not want you to feel bad. They would be proud of you."

"Proud of me...?" Sans shook his head, an incredulous splutter that did not quite manage to disguise itself as laughter escaping. "Tori, I haven't done anything. Everything I ever tried at, I failed. I gave up literally more times than I could count - and anything I figured out that might actually have been useful, I forgot. What's there to be proud of, especially if I can't even remember my own -"

"Now, I will not hear of such nonsense." Toriel's voice may have rung out a little louder and sterner than she intended in the small space, startling Sans into blinking up at her, but she could listen to such slander on the skeleton she loved no longer. "You have done plenty. You have held down a home - however messy - and kept your brother safe and happy all these years. You protected him...goodness knows how many times, no matter what the cost. And, lest we forget, I know a thing or two about giving up myself - although, now I consider it, I am not sure I believe you truly did." Sans frowned, looking for a moment as if he was about to object, but she silenced him by gently cupping his face in her hands, tilting his skull up to meet her eyes. "After all, you did keep that promise for me. You watched out for Frisk...well, maybe I do not know how many times, or how exactly each of those other times went. But here, at least, there is no doubt in my mind that the child truly appreciated it. They cared about you, and about Papyrus, and all the others." Even with all that had come to light, that had not changed - Toriel remembered the genuine affection she felt radiating from the child when she embraced them, their eyes wide and shining with tears and hope as they bid farewell to their friends. "And here...well, here is all that matters to me now. No matter how many times we have knocked on that door, I am grateful for every one of them. And I would happily do it all again, and again, for as long as you could stand to keep on listening to all my dreadful old jokes."

"Are you kidding? I pretty much lived for your dreadful old jokes - no bones about it." It was a well-worn pun, like a threadbare yet uniquely comforting old blanket as Sans initiated the hug this time, winding his arms around Toriel's waist and pressing his face into her neck. They clung together for a few quiet, precious moments as Toriel closed her eyes, nuzzling her cheek against the top of Sans' skull; he felt so small in her arms, so fragile, the firm lines of his ribs pressing into her - but the soul beating underneath was strong, had endured more than she ever could have imagined. Toriel did not need to know the details, until he wanted her to; this was enough, letting her hold him as she felt a soft exhale - a sigh, perhaps even a stifled sob - against her fur. Toriel could be strong, too; they would be stronger, she vowed, together.

"You know, every time I went to that door," Sans murmured into her neck, "I always wondered whether it'd be the same. Thought you might not remember me, or - or maybe one day you wouldn't even be there at all, if something ever - "

"Never," she interrupted fiercely, before he could voice the worst, hugging him even tighter and kissing the space between his eye sockets, just above his nasal cavity. "I could never forget. Do you know - do you have any idea how much it meant to me, just to have someone to talk to? Knowing that someone was there, someone with - yes, a wonderful sense of humour, but much more than that. Someone who reminded me that there was still good in the Underground. That, for the first time in...decades, timelines, any measure you care to mention, I was not alone. That was you, by the way," she added, risking a wink in an attempt to lighten the mood, "in case you needed reminding."

"Huh, really?" Sans' tone was doubtful, but his grin was slowly returning, alongside the light cerulean flush of pleasure mixed with embarrassment unfolding across his cheekbones that would forever remain one of Toriel's favourite things. "Doesn't sound much like me. Are you sure you weren't actually talking to Papyrus this whole time?"

Toriel snorted. "Hardly. As delightful as your brother is, I think we both know he wood not have found my jokes quite so endooring."

Sans laughed - the first genuine one she had heard all day, a sound so wonderful it made Toriel's soul sing out in joy, and she could not contain herself from sweeping him off his feet, lifting him the necessary few inches off the ground so they were eye-to-socket, grinning foolishly into each other's eyes with relief as much as anything; she just about managed to refrain from twirling him around in an elaborate ballroom dance.

"True, Paps can get pretty rattled when it comes to the subtle art of knock-knock jokes. Me, though, I'm a lot more open to such killer pickup lines."

"I am pleased to hear that. I would not want you to be bonely." She set him down again, her smile wavering at the edges. "I confess, I never was much of a scientist myself. But I have certainly seen many people come and go in my time, and...well, I believe there are some things one never truly forgets. Yes, our minds are imperfect; sometimes they slow down, or temporarily lose their way. But in here..." Slowly, she moved her hands over Sans' ribs, letting them settle just above his soul; though hidden by his shirt, she could feel it pulsing with nervous energy, with all the things he did not say out loud. "I do not believe we ever lose those that matter most. When you love someone, they become a part of you, and you of them. They are in our soul, our essence, the very core of our being, and - even when our minds deceive us -" Something shifted; she could almost feel her own soul reach out to envelop Sans' as he shivered, relaxing into her touch, and she felt a calmness descend, rolling over the both of them in slow, soothing waves, "in some way, they are never truly lost to us. Well, that is what I think - perhaps it sounds silly, but..."

"It's not silly," Sans interrupted, a rare, quiet urgency in his voice and his eye lights glowing soft with gratitude, affection and the beginnings of tears gathering in the bottom of his sockets. "Makes a lot of sense, actually. I, uh..." He faltered, blinking as a stray tear escaped as he blinked; he reached up to rub it away, but Toriel got there first, sweeping her thumb tenderly over the contour of his cheekbone as Sans leaned into the touch, wrapping both of his hands around her larger one and squeezing gratefully. "Thanks, Tori."

"You are most welcome any time, my dear." She pressed a last kiss to the top of his skull for good measure before they separated, but did not move far apart. "Thank you, for allowing me into your..." Toriel paused, searching for a suitable term, "inner sanctum. It really has been a most...enlightening experience."

"Yeah, that's sure one way of putting it, I guess," Sans said wryly, but there was a renewed relief to his smile, like a weight had been lifted as he glanced around their sparse surroundings. "Maybe bring a chair or two down here for next time, though. And some snacks. Mostly some snacks."

Toriel smiled, taking the hint, as she could not help but start to imagine all the different ways she might brighten the place up a little - a lick of paint here, a few frames on the walls, perhaps a cosy rug...One day, maybe, they could make it feel like part of the home again, instead of being hidden away like a shameful secret. But all that could wait for another day - they had time. "Yes, indeed - a snack or two does sound like a good idea right about now." She inclined her head invitingly in the direction of the stairs. "Shall we?"

Sans needed no further encouragement, waving an arm in the direction of the stairs as he lowered his head in a bow. "I'm in your thrall, Your Majesty."

"Oh, shush," she retorted, grinning as she tapped her claws playfully on the top of his skull before making her way back towards the stairs; a final thought, however, made her falter on the second step. "Sans?"

"Yeah?"

"I was just wondering if perhaps..." After a moment's hesitation, Toriel turned back and picked up the photo album from where it lay on the counter, clutching it tightly in her paw so the drawing did not slip out again, "we ought to take these with us? It does seem a shame to leave something so important down here, collecting dust. I think..." She was unsure for a moment whether to say it, how he would react, but it seemed only natural: "I think they would appreciate it, if they could find a place in your home again."

To one who did not know him, it would probably have seemed that Sans' expression did not change; Toriel saw a kaleidoscope of emotions, reluctance, nostalgia and melancholy all flickering over his features in that short pause before settling on something close to acceptance.

"Yeah, okay," he said, as casual as if he were accepting a second piece of pie, but it was enough; it meant everything, their fingers briefly brushing as he took the album from her and tucked it carefully under his arm. "I think I could probably find room in one of the junk piles."

Hand in hand, they ascended up the stairs back to the house, through another door that had served countless purposes. Most were - and should be - locked at some point, she reflected, a necessary barrier to protect the things that mattered most, to keep away all the real and perceived dangers outside. Yet, she understood now all too well, one could also grow stagnant. Toriel had concealed much herself behind that ancient door to the Ruins; closed off, she had allowed her worst fears about what was on the other side to take root and grow, looming over her and casting a shadow over the future she could not, would not see beyond.

And she had been wrong about so many things; she had been realising that from the moment she heard those first knocks, but somehow even with the life-changing ramifications of all she had just learned, she did not feel afraid. Because, in the end, a door could not contain one's whole world - people could only learn, and change, and grow by opening to new possibilities. In her heart, Toriel had always known that, even if she had not always practiced it.

They reached the top of the stairs, and as Sans locked the door once again - left, but not forgotten - with a soft click, a renewed hope in his smile when he caught her eye, Toriel felt the openings of something even better.