Writer's Notes: So this one went on and on (and on and on) so I've decided to cut it into two pieces. Now, onto the main points: This occurs after the TRUE PACIFIST ENDING, which means all the spoilers (including much from the Chara timeline that may or may not be accurate but which my mind pieced together and decided it worked, so...eheh?). Frisk is definitely a main character in this one, but what surprised me while writing this was two others: Asgore and Toriel. In fact, this ended up an entire fic about them, about their past, their present, and their future – especially involving Frisk. So if Asgore/Toriel isn't quite your thing, you should probably avoid this? Also, again, I must stress, PLAY THE GAME. PLAY THE GAME OVER AND OVER. PLAY IT SO MANY TIMES YOU HAVE IT MEMORISED. AND THEN GO TELL TOBY FOX HE IS AMAZING. THEN read this fic. Got it? Good! Here we go!

Things to remember: this fic takes place over a span of five to ten years, hence the integration of humans and monsters later on. So by the time the fic is over, I would estimate that Frisk would be about 12-14. I have chosen to keep Frisk AND Chara gender-neutral as in the game, but feel free to tack on whatever gender you wish, as it can go either way (isn't that the point of Frisk, anyway? ).

Learning Your Lessons

PART ONE

If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that she had just used ice magic on him. Why else would he be so frozen before her?

Toriel crossed her arms over her chest, her face falling into the usual scowl she seemed to always wear around Asgore. It used to hurt him a great deal when she looked at him like that; now he was glad to see it, as it was one of the very few things that were still personally his.

"Uh..." He forced a smile. "Howdy."

"Hello, Asgore," she replied calmly, eyes narrowed. She didn't move from the doorway to her house – her new house, rather, the one on the surface that she shared with Frisk. (Shortly after the barrier broke, when Toriel asked Frisk if they had anyone to go back to, Frisk suddenly became mute, refusing to answer. This was the only indication that Frisk was, perhaps, an orphan, and why it was so easy for them to now live with monsters.)

Speaking of which... "Frisk isn't here," she added, noticing his eyes flicking behind her. "They're still in human school."

"Uh." Asgore stared at her, looking as if she'd just flashed him. (She knew that look well.) She felt that tugging annoyance when she looked at him, coupled with longing guilt, and she looked away, frowning.

Asgore coughed a little, about to use the nickname he had always used for her. She used to love it, but now all it did was make her angry.

Frisk had explained it to him, more than once, what it was that made Toriel so angry. "Guilt," they said between sips of tea, their eyes wise but sparking a little. "Over you. Over Asriel."

Asgore winced upon hearing his son's name, but Frisk wasn't being mean; they were simply stating facts.

"Over... the other children," Asgore added hesitantly, sadly. "The ones I killed."

Frisk was silent, their eyes no longer holding that twinkle. They were dark, sombre. Lowering the mug from their face, Frisk paused, then said, looking down at the floor, "Yeah."

"She'll never forgive me."

Asgore thought he was stating fact, but Frisk frowned at him, their face pulling into a frustrated grimace. "King Asgore-,"

"Former King."

"You're still the King of Monsters!"

Asgore smiled, waving a hand to them in surrender. It was an old argument, but one that was already solved for him. Once the barrier had shattered, and once he had felt the true sun set on his shoulders, he felt the sun setting on his monarchy. Though Frisk constantly insisted that none of the monsters would ever accept his stepping-down, and that humans tended to respect others with flashy titles, still Asgore did not feel like a king any longer.

Asgore was tired of being king. When he felt real, true sunlight warm his entire body and snake into his old bones, he realised that, and had realised with it that he had felt that way for a very, very long time.

Ever since Asriel and Chara died, really.

Frisk was looking up at him. Beneath the table, their legs kicked rather jovially, one of the few times they ever really displayed their true youth. Really, it was very easy to forget that Frisk was barely out of their first decade. When he smiled at Frisk, he could see childish happiness there, but also strong, determined wisdom, something even adults could live their whole lives without ever gaining.

It was with this wisdom that Frisk said, very gently, "You'd be surprised, just how forgiving people can be."

Frisk sipped their tea again, which was good, because Asgore was struck speechless. When Frisk met his gaze and smiled, the gesture so bright and open, he was painfully reminded of another smile, another similarly innocent face, one that smiled almost as wide, and usually coupled it with a teasing, "Howdy, Mr Dad Guy!"

"Is it true...?" Asgore began carefully, before pushing on. "Is it true that you once asked Tori-Toriel if you could call her Mother...?"

Before he even finished, Frisk was blushing, trying to hide it from him by raising the mug in front of their face and looking down. Asgore chuckled. "And I bet she was happy with it, yes?" When Frisk nodded shyly, Asgore grinned. "That sounds like Tori."

"I call her Mama Tori, now," Frisk admitted, still trying to hide behind their cup. Asgore couldn't help it; he laughed. Frisk smiled, then giggled, unable to suppress it. Asgore had been told once he had that kind of laugh.

Then the smile turned mischievous. "Someday, if you want, I can call you Papa Gorey."

The grin was teasing, their eyes sparkling with mirth, and Asgore smiled back, but he found himself unable to say anything to this, simply because of one thing: he actually would have like it, very, very much.

Was it guilt, like Frisk said? He wondered this now. Frisk was incredibly intuitive when it came to the feelings of monsters, and their judgement very rarely fell through, so Asgore was inclined to trust their assessment of Toriel as well.

Toriel, however, was still silent, still looking away and keeping her arms crossed. She didn't know why Asgore was here, especially now that he knew for a fact that Frisk wasn't here.

Again, it was Frisk who had brought it up, once, after Asgore had left during one of his "surprise-check-on-Frisk" visits. Toriel, to make a point, had hidden in the kitchen the entire time, refusing to come out and making loud, excessive cooking noises the whole time, until he gave up and left.

Between bites of cinnamon pie, Frisk said, very casually (maybe too casually), "He still loves you, Mama Tori. You know that, don't you?"

Toriel jumped so high she dropped her fork, her heart racing. She stared at her adopted child in shock, before turning away and sniffing a little. "Frisk, you're still very young. Don't worry about us adults."

Frisk dropped their fork loudly onto the table, their eyes narrowed. Toriel looked over, about to lecture on the proper use of fork-dropping (completely missing that she had just done the same only moments ago), when she caught the expression on Frisk's face: insulted to the core.

"Worrying about you adults is my job." It was said calmly, but Frisk's eyes were practically opaque with hurt.

Toriel reached forward and covered one of Frisk's hands with her own. Frisk looked down, biting their lip a little. "You're right, my child," Toriel admitted gently. "And you're wonderful at it. Forgive me."

Frisk smiled, blushing shyly and nodding, giving Toriel's hand a squeeze before adding, "You and King Asgore need to talk about this. It's getting old."

Toriel sighed. "You need to stop hanging around Undyne."

"Still my job, Mama," Frisk replied cheerfully, their face now slightly dusted with cinnamon.

"Yes, well..." Toriel leaned in and gently brushed the spice off of those cheeks with a towel, causing Frisk to squirm a little in protest. "You keep bringing up Asgore. Why? What do you hope for?"

"Easy." The answer was quick, though muffled by more pie. "For the two of you to get back together again."

Toriel again was shocked. Frisk noticed, looked a little worried, then stuffed their face full of pie once more, preventing themself from having to elaborate.

It was easy for Frisk – and indeed, everyone else – to say such a thing so casually. Even sans had once said, out of nowhere, "knock knock?"

Always delighted by these, Toriel replied, "Who's there?"

"old lady."

"Old lady, who?"

"old lady needs to come to terms with her feelings for a certain hairy king."

To which she almost lit him on fire, and would have, if she had known it would have made a difference.

But it wasn't that easy. It hadn't been for many, many years.

Every time Toriel saw Asgore, she felt two major emotions: white-hot rage and crippling sadness. She was furious with his actions, enraged when he admitted, after all of this time, that she had been right all along. Whenever she looked into his eyes, she saw so much of her own agony and lonliness reflected there, and it only made her feel worse. She hated him for killing children. She loved him for how much she loved his people. She wished he would disappear. She yearned for his company.

She wanted to slap him. She wanted to embrace him.

But now, all she could do was simply glare, her emotions too complex, too contradictory, to even hope to explain. Some teacher she was.

Asgore was still standing there in the doorway, now shifting from foot to foot. He had started wearing casual clothes ever since the barrier broke, and found that he really loved brightly-coloured shirts and very floppy pants. Toriel had also given up her robes, for clothes that seemed invented just for her: long, button-up sweaters over ankle-length skirts, over what Frisk called "turtle-necks", and usually, now, her glasses. She had been spending much of her time outlining various lesson plans for Frisk, things about the Underground that Frisk seemed to love more than pie, and always asked for more and more. In fact, Asgore had shown up just when she was in the middle of an outline for the next day's plans – yet another reason to be annoyed with him.

Finally, when he showed absolutely no inclination of taking her up on her hints and just leave, she sighed and dropped her arms to her sides, her sigh so deep and defeated that it surprised Asgore; indeed, he looked at her rather hopefully. She rolled her eyes and opened the door fully, scowling, then waving him in, already striding away. Asgore had to stumble a bit to follow, not willing to let this opportunity slip past. He shut the door behind him – and paused. How had he not noticed before? Was it because he had had tunnel vision the last time he was here, just depserate to talk to Frisk, instead of taking his surroundings in? Or had his brain merely decided to protect him from what he saw?

Because now he saw what he had missed: the fact that this home, the home Toriel shared with Frisk, was as identical to the old Palace as any other place really could be. And in turn, it was also identical to the Palace that Asgore still haunted Underground. It was almost surreal.

"Would you like some tea?"

Asgore looked over at her in surprise, broken free from his reverie with her words. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, waiting for his answer, though her expression was still drawn. However, despite this, she didn't seem as... tense as before. Or maybe it was wishful thinking on his part. (It wasn't.)

He nodded. "Whatever you have will be lovely, Tori."

Toriel pursed her lips at that, but didn't say a word against it. She couldn't really think of what she could say to it; if anyone else, like sans or Frisk, used that name, she didn't feel strange, like she did now, when Asgore used it. It was completely different when it came from him, and it robbed her of any words she could even imagine saying. So, in response, she nodded, then turned back amd vanished into the kitchen.

Asgore slowly made his way into the sitting room, every hair on his arms and neck standing up as he did so, unable to shake the unreality of his surroundings. Really, how could he have been so blind?

Here and there, evidence of Frisk littered the home: a few errant socks, notepads half full, mountains of books, a few folded stripe shirts. Seeing each one brought a new kind of ache to his heart, and he realised that what he was feeling was jealousy, of Toriel and Frisk. Toriel was lucky; in the end, she had still managed to get her one and only wish: to protect a human child and treat them as one of her own. He yearned for that special kind of connection, yearned to see Frisk more than just a handful of times a month. He thought of how empty his home always was in comparison to this wonderful one, and he felt so lonely, his throat hurt.

In the kitchen, Toriel was hunched over the teapot, trying to keep herself calm. Why did she invite him in? Why was she making tea? What could possibly come of it, save more pain and confusion?

She boiled the water easily, then seemed to go on what Dr Alphys called "autopilot": she measured the tea automatically, pouring it out and then adding sugar to each one like she always used to, every morning, before everything went to hell. She hadn't even realised she had done it until she was placing the mugs on the tray. She not only remembered how he had taken his tea, but also how he liked to wait for it to cool a bit before he drank it. She hadn't even realised she still knew how to do this until the deed was done.

If he even still took it this way. Was she merely making a bigger fool out of herself?

What am I even doing?

When the human child who had become their second child suddenly became very, very sick, neither they nor Asriel would explain what happened. They had been raising Chara in their family for over five years by then, and thus both children were growing close to that temperamental young-adulthood. As such, neither of them were as open as they used to be. With Chara as sick as they were, and with only Asriel to explain what had happened, it seemed to be hopeless. Eventually, when Chara became too sick to speak, only Asriel could explain.

But he wouldn't. Instead, he sat at Chara's bedside as often as possible, one hand always clutching one of Chara's now-cold ones, the other holding the locket he wore around his neck. Though resting, as close to sleep as the sick can get, Chara sometimes squeezed his hand, their other hand also holding an identical locket, only the chain was wrapped around their wrist like a bracelet. Every tie Toriel tried to comfort her son, his face would crumple and he would start to cry, but he never spoke.

Asgore also stayed close to Chara. He looked so young at those times, either pacing just outside of the room or seating himself at the foot of the bed, sometimes trying to urge Chara awake, trying to encourage them to come back, because they were needed, they were the future.

Once, the last time Chara had been awake in front of the entire family, they spoke. They looked like every single word hurt and, as a result, it angered Chara, but there was also something new there: the dark, blank stare of someone who knows their time is almost up.

With a voice so low it was hard to hear, Chara asked, "What's going to happen to me?"

Toriel swooped in, leaning down and embracing her human child gently. Chara's eyes closed, though their face was still ashen. "You're going to be just fine, my child," Toriel whispered.

"Don't lie," sighed Chara.

Asriel bit his bottom lip, his eyes filling, when they met Chara's. He tried to speak, but instead grabbed Chara's locket-holding hand between his, trying to rub as much warmth in the cold fingers as he could.

"See? Asri is honest."

"Chara," Asgore broke in softly, as Toriel shut her eyes and looked away, hiding her face from not only Chara, but the rest of her family as well, holding Chara as close to her as possible. When those dim eyes met his, Asgore swallowed, hard. "We want to save you. Please, tell us what happened."

Chara looked away, to Asriel. Asriel shut his eyes, leaning his head to hide his own tears, resting his cheek on Chara's hand. He nodded slowly, but Chara shook their head.

"Please," Toriel whispered. Her voice was small, choked up, but she still hid her face from everyone, especially Chara. "Please. Please, my child, please..."

It was all she would say – all she could say – over and over, as she slowly rocked Chara, as if hoping the gentle movement would heal the sick child somehow.

If only.

"It's my fault," Asriel suddenly blurted out. "All of it. It's all my fault."

"Asri, you idiot, it was my idea and you know it!" Chara sighed and winced when they said this.

"No, you're wrong, if I hadn't of said anything—,"

"Asri, shut up!"

"But if I just-,"

"Idiot, shut up!"

"Enough," Asgore broke in sharply. Though his tone was enough to silence his children, inside, his heart was breaking, the pain physical. It was the final spear to his chest, listening to them bicker this way.

Toriel was openly weeping now, her shoulders shaking. Chara noticed, their face softening, a small yearning seen there. "Mami..."

"You'll be just fine, sweetie," Toriel sobbed. "I'll protect you. You'll be just fine."

"Stop lying, Mami."

Toriel, though, wasn't lying, not really. Rather, she was begging, though whom, she didn't know. All she knew was that all she could do was beg, and hope that whatever listened would grant her this small mercy, and let her human child live.

But it fell on deaf ears.

Chara died all the same.

It was Asriel's screams that brought them awake from their fitful doze, allowing themselves a small break when it looked like Chara was finally sleeping comfortably. At those screams, they realised their terrible mistake, a mistake that they would both share, and would both haunt them, for the rest of their days. That one moment of selfish repose had stripped them of their final moments with their dying child.

They found Asriel holding Chara to him, so closely it seemed like they were glued together. He was screaming, unable to stop, screaming for Chara, his beloved sibling, over and over again.

Toriel dropped to the ground like a stone the moment she understood. She felt numb, hot and cold, cold and hot, but her son's agony was too real to be a dream. She fell forward, hands over her face, and she cried, the broken tears of a heartbroken mother.

Asgore stood stricken in the doorway for a moment, his own eyes spilling over, before slowly making his way to his screaming son, as if not quite understanding what he was seeing – or perhaps hoping he was wrong.

But he wasn't.

When he reached Asriel's side, he fell to his knees beside him, his eyes on that pale, blank face, the face that was once so animate and happy and wonderful, now erased forever. He reached out, his hand shaking, and touched his human child's cold cheek. Then, his hand dropped, and he lowered his head to his chest.

And then... and then... the true nightmare began.

Spoons clattered to the ground, slipping from Toriel's grip, as the memory of that raw pain washed over her. Sighing, trying to regain her composure, she shut her eyes, stood up straighter, and adjusted the tea on the tray, before adding to the tray a plate of cookies. With a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, picked up the tray, and went to meet Asgore.

He was still standing, looking like a giant pink cloud in his shirt of choice. It made him look rather round, but oddly, Toriel found herself thinking that instead of looking tacky (like she used to), she actually found it kind of sweet; Asgore was that kind of monster, really. He was big, strong, and without question a peerless warrior, but he could also be, more often than not, incredibly goofy, awkward, and almost silly. If anything, these clothes he wore now seemed to call attention to those traits, rather than the traits he used to emphasise when Underground.

Asgore was staring at the pictures on the bookcase, three pictures that Toriel kept out at all times, now. One was the family portrait taken years ago, the one of Toriel, Asgore, Asriel, and Chara. He had a copy of the same picture, but found it too painful to keep out every day to see. Flanking the family portrait were two others that he had never seen before.

One was of Frisk, grinning wildly and ready to bounce, holding up a net and hovering over a bright purple butterfly. (Unfortunately, Frisk missed and ended up skinning their knees, but despite this, they were still thrilled with the results.) The other, the one he was staring at, now, was one that he had never seen before.

In it, Asgore stood beside Frisk, looking enormous in comparison. Frisk was holding an armful of golden flowers, grinning so widely their eyes vanished into crescents, holding them upwards towards him. Asgore stood looking at Frisk, his hand out to take the bouquet, his face and expression of both tenderness... and something haunted. But he was smiling gently as he leaned down to take the offering.

He remembered that day. But he didn't remember anyone taking a picture. It suddenly came clear to him that Toriel, though changed in many ways, was still quite happy taking pictures, and this had been one of her many secret attempts. Why? Only Toriel knew.

She watched him, still holding the tray, as he gently picked that photo up in one giant hand. The look on his face made her want to cry all of a sudden, though of course she did not. He was looking at the picture with such tenderness and love that it was almost too painful to see.

It was how he used to look at Asriel and Chara. And in that look alone, Toriel realised that Asgore considered Frisk one of his own.

Even after everything he had done – and not done – to Frisk, still he loved them. And Toriel already knew that Frisk felt the same way; that was obvious in the picture Asgore held, alone.

"The-the flowers," Asriel was sobbing, still holding Chara to him. "I-I need to go there, to the surface... To see the flowers in their village..."

Both parents were jolted into looking up at their son, both feeling the same dread. "What did you just say?" Toriel asked, her voice broken.

"Ch-Chara wanted to see the flowers one last time... s-so I have to... I have to..." Asriel shut his eyes tightly, sobbing aloud, before concluding: "I have to cross over. With Chara's soul."

"Asriel-!"

"Asriel, no!" Asgore rushed to his feet, reaching towards his son, as Toriel tried to do the same, tripping over her robes—

-but Asriel had already reached out with his power, the power every monster holds innate within them but usually would never be used: The power to absorb a human soul.

And with that, not even a parent, a royal parent, would stop him, though they tried, with everything they had. But Asriel had become too powerful, now. He slipped through the barrier, holding his dead sibling close, refusing to let go.

Even when dying.

Toriel moved from the doorway to the table and set the tray down loudly, causing Asgore to fumble with the photo before he replaced it. Embarrassed, he turned away quickly, though his eyes were wet and bright. He turned to Toriel and saw something he hadn't seen in years from her: Genuine, loving concern.

"Come sit with me," said Toriel gently, waving to the table as she did so. He obliged, wishing he could find a way to comment on the entire house, not just the photos. He wanted to ask her why she had made her home into a replica of the home they once shared, and if it meant what he had hoped.

Instead, he stayed quiet, as Toriel handed him his mug of tea and a small plate of cookies. Asgore stared at them both in surprise, as he had just been served his favourite tea and his favourite cookies.

"Don't read too much into it," she advised calmly, sipping her own tea between sentences. "Frisk loves both almost as much as you do, Dreemurr."

Which was true, but not entirely. While Undyne had been the one to introduce Frisk to golden flower tea, Toriel had been the one to give them the cookies, simply in hopes of getting rid of them. She sometimes found herself bringing them home from the supermarket, picking them up, again, on autopilot, only to realise her mistake once she got home. She usually ended up hiding the cookies deep in the pantry, where more often than not they got stale and thus inedible. When Frisk expressed their delight when eating the cookies, Toriel decided then to keep them in stock, to let herself automatically get them, only this time for someone new. Now, they never went stale, thanks to Frisk.

"Well," Asgore replied happily. "I'll take them all the same. I haven't had these in years!"

"You can buy them at any market, Asgore."

"But I don't!"

Toriel frowned, taking a cookie for herself, feeling confused. After what seemed like an eternal pause between them, filled with crunching and sipping, Toriel lost her temper and just said it, tired of the heavy air between them.

"Why are you here, Asgore? And don't pretend it's for Frisk. Why did you come here, now, at this time, today?"

Asgore winced, putting his half-eaten cookie down, before forcing a small smile. "You always know how to get to the point, Tori."

"And you always know how to dance around it, Dreemurr."

He didn't deny it, but also didn't continue. He wasn't even sure how to continue. How did one apologise for so much at once?

What he didn't know was that Toriel was wondering the exact same thing.

Once, shortly after the barrier had shattered, Frisk had gone back to the Ruins with Toriel, holding her hand the entire time. At this point, the still-queen knew she was being humoured – as by now, Frisk was practically a master at puzzles – but when it came from Frisk, it didn't matter. If humoured by anyone else, yes, she would have minded, but Frisk? Never.

About halfway to Toriel's house, Frisk stopped, forcing Toriel to stumble backwards. Frisk was looking upwards, their face amazed, and Toriel followed their glance.

"I fell from up there," said Frisk.

Toriel smiled, kneeling beside them and placing an arm around the slender shoulders. "You did."

"But I survived."

"You did," Toriel repeated, giving Frisk's shoulders a gentle squeeze. It did look like a long way to fall – especially for one so small.

"And then Flowey-,"

Toriel's expression darkened, her smile vanishing at once, silencing Frisk mid-sentence. Blushing, Frisk apologised, but Toriel shook her head. It wasn't Frisk's fault, how Toriel felt about that strange non-monster, Flowey. No one had seen Flowey since the barrier had shattered, and Frisk wasn't as forthcoming with the details as she'd hoped, though she didn't understand why. Flower had been something of a pest for many, many years, especially whenever a human fell. It seemed bizarre that, now that the barrier was gone, Flowey was nowhere to be seen, even when, eventually, years later, more humans would come Underground.

"Mama Tori?"

Toriel smiled, her heart blossoming within her breast upon hearing the name. It was a name that was a precious balm to any wound. "Yes, my child?"

"If you ever see Flowey again, please... spare him."

Toriel's smile faded. She looked at Frisk closely. "Why, Frisk?"

They were silent for a long time, so long that Toriel looked closer at them. They were looking down, playing with the hem of their shirt. "Because... because..." Frisk frowned, struggling to find the right words. "Because even the soulless were once just the same as us. Flowey is no different." They looked up at Toriel, a desperation there that Toriel had only seen a few times, and that was when they were struggling to survive, to solve the unsolvable.

Toriel eyed Frisk closely. Something in the back of her mind, memories long gone from the time the barrier shattered, in order to spare room for better, happier ones, seemed to make her nose itch a bit with confusion. What did Frisk know that she did not?

However, Toriel knew better than to disagree, or argue. She disliked and mistrusted Flowey, but did that warrant a death sentence? Of course not.

"Alright, Frisk, my dear," Toriel smiled in agreement, hugging them close and bringing giggles forth to erase the frowns, exactly her goal. "You have my word: I will always spare Flowey."

Why did she think of that now?

Asgore still hadn't answered her. In fact, he seemed to want to say anything but what she asked of him. To prove her right, he said, "You always made my tea the best. I'm surprised you remembered."

Toriel stared at him, actually having to stop herself from setting him on fire. That kind of loose grip on her temper had been happening more and more lately. She decided it was because she was socialising more, and had nothing to do with Asgore's verbal gymnastics. Of course not.

"Was I wrong?" she asked now, her voice as cold as Snowdin.

Asgore sighed, seeming to sigh with his entire body. "Of course not, Tori. You're not wrong on a many great many things. I'm just too stubborn to admit it." He looked up from his plate, his eyes on hers, and she was unable to look away. "Though lately, all I can see are my mistakes."

Toriel sipped her tea to keep herself from saying something caustic and likely regrettable. When she had been younger, her temper ruled far more than it did now. She was often like the fire she wielded, hot and sudden and full of chaos if let loose, but also manageable in the right hands, and capable of cooling to warm, soothing embers.

In fact, the first time she had met Asgore, it was in magic class.

"You? Fire?" was the first thing she said to him. Even back then, he had been large and strong, but known for just the opposite: sweet and a bit of a pushover, and with a touch of naivete.

He had looked up at her, staring at her in surprise, and something else, something she didn't recognise until much, much later: attraction, and tenderness. "Howdy," he replied. "And yes!"

"But... but you're such... a wimp!"

Asgore's smile flickered a bit at that, but he nodded. "You'd be surprised."

Without hesitation, Toriel sat down beside him, holding out her hand. "Prove it," she demanded. "I'm Toriel."

He took her hand with visible delight, shaking it enthusiastically. "Sure. I'm Asgore."

And he did prove it, more than once, and often to speechlessness, intriguing her even more.

But that had been during easier times, calmer times, times of peace and semi-balance. It had certainly been more peaceful then than it was later on.

"You're picturing me on fire."

Toriel choked on her tea in surprise, coughing and spluttering in the most unflattering, unqueenly manner. Asgore grinned brightly, his first real grin in a long, long time.

"Gorey, you little-," Toriel had started towards him with a sudden grin, her chin dripping with tea but her face beaming. Asgore stared, absolutely awestruck by this sudden lapse into the Tori he had known before. A moment later, moments before she could grab him, Toriel froze, her face falling so quickly it threatened to break his heart. She sat back down and looked away, wiping her face with her napkin in silence.

Asgore looked down into his mug, shutting his eyes and swallowing hard. Toriel kept her face away, but she said, very softly, "I'm sorry. That was inappropriate."

"On the contrary," Asgore replied, his voice strained. "It was wonderful."

Toriel's shoulders sagged, and she turned back to him slowly. Her face, clean of tea, was drawn, on the verge of either tears or yelling. Maybe both.

"Gorey," she whispered, her voice a plea. "What are you doing here?"

Asgore shut his eyes again, the name so dear to him coming from her. "Honestly, Tori?"

"Honestly, please."

"I came to ask for a job."

Toriel turned to him, her expression shifting from that sadness to something else, something between confusion and... sarcasm?

"You're the King of the Underground, you dumb billy-goat," she said flatly, so flat it threatened to make him laugh despite himself. "You have a job already."

"No, I have a title." Asgore said it, not meaning to sound as terse as he did, but unable to call it back anyway. "A title that once held a responsibility I proved, more than once, unworthy to have."

Toriel met his gaze, her face suddenly gentle. "Not completely true," she admonished, honestly. "Not always. Everyone adores you, Asgore. The humans like you, too, in their own way. For whatever horrible things you may have done..." She sighed deeply. "You do seem to want to make amends Even I can see that, and you know how biased I can be." She tried to ease the words with a soft smile, but it was still sad.

Asgore stared at her, his heart so loud within his ears that he was sure Toriel could hear it. (She could, but she would never tell him so.) Without even thinking ahead, he suddenly said, "Tori... I still... I still..."

"No, let me finish, Dreemurr," she snapped, holding up a hand and silencing him. "I'm still mad at you. I can't help that."

"I know," he agreed sadly.

"I'm not done yet, Dreemurr."

Asgore shut up.

"But... if you're serious about wanting a job..."

He looked up in hope, his neck cracking from the force of it. Toriel saw the expression, a happy, grinning kind of beaming, and she had to look away, to her surprise, finding herself smiling in response. She smothered it as quickly as she could, but Asgore had seen it, anyway.

"Frisk told me something the other day, about their lessons with me." She felt shy all of a sudden. "It's absurd, but... I really want to do it."

Asgore rubbed his beard slowly in thought. "Ah, an Aboveground school for monsters?"

Toriel paused, then casually leaned forward and cupped her hand around his mug of tea. She smiled, and with that smile, had Asgore's tea boiling. He remembered that quite well, but instead of anger, he grinned. This was the Tori he knew; the gentle, loving mother, but also the strong, temperamental queen.

"Yes, a school," she agreed finally, removing her hand calmly. "Frisk even managed to ask around, and they found an old schoolhouse, long abandoned for years, that the humans have agreed to give to us. They even offered to help rebuild it if we needed it."

"That's... quite generous, Tori," Asgore said in surprise.

Tori smiled, the edges slightly feral. "It's the very least they could do considering, don't you think?"

Asgore didn't deny that; it was true. "But is it enough?"

Toriel suddenly lit up. She leaned forward, hands on the table, her eyes shining so bright her whole face shone. "Frisk brought me to it the other day and... Gorey, it's perfect. It needs work – love, care, and patience, but, with that... with that... eventually, with the success of monster students..."

Asgore smiled back, her glee contagious. "Human students?"

Her eyes sparkled with this, her hands clasped before her, and in that moment, that single moment, Asgore realised with a wrench of his heart that he was hers, for life, no matter what.

"Yes," she agreed breathlessly. "More than anything, yes."

"Well, golly, Tori. Sounds like everything is just wonderful."

"But I'm not done," she replied. "You said you wanted a job?"

He nodded.

"How badly, Asgore? Enough to give up being King, like I have?" Her eyes stared into his, sharp and clear. "Enough to be humble, to be part of a team, instead of alone as a ruler, making your own rules?"

"Is that how you really see me, Tori?"

Toriel paused. Asgore looked hurt, now, when before he was one word away from floating into the clouds. He had always been that way, and she found herself remembering their old ways, their speech patterns and verbal dances. One such dance was this one, in which Asgore misunderstood something based on one single word in an entire sentence. She fell back into the dance so easily it almost hurt.

"Yes," she admitted, and his face instantly fell. "Or, I used to."

"What changed?"

Toriel paused, considering. What had changed? "You did, Gorey."

He blinked, his eyes going wide. He stared at her. "I did?"

"Yes." She rested her cheek on her hand, looking to the side and thinking deeply for a moment before going on. "You've changed, yes, but not in the ways you think."

"You always knew what I thought."

She looked at him sharply, expecting sarcasm, but she should have known better. It could have been a sarcastic comment if it had come from anyone else, but from him, it was anything but. He was looking down at his still-boiling tea with an affectionate smile, looking almost silly in the way he smiled. "Sometimes better than I know my own thoughts, really."

"Yes, yes, dear," she answered automatically, the gentle pet-name coming out so easily she didn't even pause. "But the day I stopped you from fighting Frisk... I could see it. You didn't want to kill them, even though you barely knew them at that point. Though you started to fight, when you saw me, you could have easily struck me down and attacked Frisk."

Asgore was horrified by this. "Tori! You really though I would hurt you, would kill you?!"

"Yes," she answered, her eyes sombre. "You've killed six human children, Asgore."

Shame lanced hot into his gut and throat, a pain that he regretted more and more every day. He lowered his head once more, again hiding his tears.

And to think, Tori thought he wouldn't hesitate to kill her, too.

Suddenly, he felt the touch he had missed for so long upon his forehead. He froze, holding his breath, afraid to move lest he spook her away.

Toriel was unspookable at this point. She hadn't hesitated to touch him, though now she wondered why not. However, instead of dwelling on it and pulling away with an apology, her fingers seemed to have minds of their own, surrendering to years-old patterns of touch and caress. Asgore's head seemed to lower more and more, until his shoulders shook and his head found rest upon the tabletop.

"Oh, Gorey," she whispered, feeling tenderness and longing surge through her like a tidal wave. "Don't weep, love, please, you don't need to. That was then. I know much better, now."

Asgore looked up, raising his head slowly, so that Toriel's hand stayed where it was. It didn't; instead, she slid it down to his cheek, cupping the furry skin and scratchy whiskers with a small, sad smile, her eyes full of tears.

"Tori..." he whispered, reaching up to cradle her spare hand between his. Her eyes spilled over and her smile vanished, their eyes meeting. Suddenly, it was as if the gulf of years that had always kept them separated closed. Toriel rose to her feet, bringing him to his, and they walked back to the hallway, hand-in-hand.

She stopped him in front of the room that was empty here as well as within Asgore's, and her old home, as well. They stood before the door that had once belonged to their son, in another house, in another time, always empty, those rooms in those houses, and in the places within their hearts.

They turned to each other, then, still holding hands. By now, both were crying, but neither said a word. Instead, as if pulled by strings, they closed the distance between them and embraced, clinging together as if for dear life, both overcome with the years-old grief that felt fresh and new and unbearable, the realisation that they would forever be haunted by dead children – human and monster alike.

There was nothing beyond this embrace, no kisses, to intimate touches, nothing of the sort. While both felt a kind of desperate yearning for the other, both were old enough and wise enough to not complicate things that much this soon.

However, at one point, Asgore choked out, "Tori, I still... I'm still—,"

"Don't," she pleaded, but he went on, his voice muffled by her shoulder. "Stop, Gorey. Don't."

"I never stopped loving you, Tori. I never will."

Toriel sobbed, once, then gritted her teeth and tried to calm down. She didn't want to know this, didn't want to realise that it was the very same for her, always had been, even when she was so sure that she hated him more than she could ever love him.

But that would be lying. And Toriel never lied.

"You stupid, stupid, stupid billy-goat," she answered, her voice a garbled mess of tears and anger, but he laughed tearfully all the same, hearing what wasn't said beneath those words.

A silence followed, one broken only by a few sniffles or gentle soothing words. For a long time, the former couple held each other, finally allowing years if pain and anger left unspoken bubble out and froth over. And with each spill came the clean up, which was exactly the right balm they both needed.

Once, when the Underground was still sealed and Frisk was still called Chara, Asgore had decided to call Alphys to get her opinion on them. He and Alphys had become friends over the time they had spent with determination research, and even after, Asgore often sought her advice for myriad reasons. This one, however, surprised her.

"The-the human, Asgore?" Alphys's voice was tense, and he could hear her typing something hurriedly into something else. Most of that kind of stuff he left to her; why else would he have a royal scientist, after all?

"Yes, Doctor," he agreed easily. "Obviously, the human is rather important to me, especially now, as I'm sure you're aware."

"Er."

The hesitation made Asgore uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Something wrong?"

"Er-no! No, sir, not at all!" Dr Alphys said hastily. "I'm so sorry, let me just..." More typing sounds. "Okay, I've got them on camera. They're just leaving the Ruins - oh." She paused.

"It's okay, Doctor," he said gently. Alphys was like that, always cautious of other people's sensitivities. In fact, she was one of the most sensitive people he knew, though she would go out of her way to deny it.

"Er. Well. Uh. The Queen is safe, but... I'm sorry, Asgore. But she sealed the Ruins. Forever."

Asgore was speechless at this.

"The human looks okay, and reports show that the Queen is also unhurt, so it's not... what we feared. This time. In fact, I don't think this human even attacked the practice dummy. They should be fine walking the Underground."

That was when Asgore knew for sure that, once again, he was going to have to murder an innocent child.

Alphys was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, gently, "Sir, what will you tell Undyne to do?"

"Her job."

Alphys inhaled sharply, then exhaled. "Yes, sir," she said quietly. She then made up some excuse to end the call, and did so, leaving Asgore feeling cold and dead inside.

What he didn't know was that Alphys immediately called Toriel the moment she had hung up. Toriel was surprised to hear from her, as she and the doctor hadn't been that close at that point, though still amicable.

"S-sorry to bother you, Queen T-Toriel, but..."

"Just Toriel is fine, Doctor."

"Er. Well. It's just... the human. Asgore... knows."

Toriel felt breathless, like she had just been punched in the stomach. "Dammit," she hissed.

"I'm s-so sorry, Your Majesty-,"

"Doctor, you did nothing wrong. Just..." And here Toriel hesitated, wondering if she were about to ask too much.

"Yes?"

"Watch over the human, yes, but... protect them."

A pause. "But, Lady Toriel, the King, he'll have Undyne after them soon, and I'll be powerless to stop her!"

"I know," Toriel shut her eyes tight. "But please, Doctor. Please, try. Do what you can, and try."

Another pause. Then, in a voice stronger than anyone, even Toriel, had ever heard before, Alphys said, "I will," before hanging up.

And she had. So well that Frisk had survived the Underground, and was now their ambassador, their bridge, their light in the dark. Even the other monsters, upon encountering Frisk, seemed to sense something different within them, finding it too difficult to attack or even cross paths with them aggressively, instead opting to play games, instead. Frisk was simply too sweet, too likeable, too selfless, even, to even think of hurting. Or if you did, it never lasted. (Undyne came to mind for the latter, who was quite determined to murder Frisk regardless of their "saccharine shtick", ended up being Frisk's ultimate champion.)

Thinking now, Asgore wondered if he truly had sought to kill Frisk, or had sought instead to be killed by Frisk. He knew that Toriel would have let herself be killed if Frisk had tried to kill her. Had he done the same?

Once they had both calmed down enough, Toriel led Asgore back to the table, sitting back down. Her eyes were puffy with tears, but there was also a calm glow there, as if she had finally gotten free of something. Asgore certainly felt that way.

"Asgore," she said softly, her eyes once more on his. He nodded, so she went on. "We can't do this... not yet." He nodded again, his shoulders drooping. "But..."

And here, she again touched his cheek, her face so open and kind that his throat hurt again.

"Don't... don't give up on me yet, okay?"

Asgore smiled. "I've never given up on you. I never will."

She smiled back. "I appreciate that, dear, but you may change your mind once I tell you what kind of job I have for you."

"Anything is manageable with you close by, Tori." He said this easily, simply because it was true

"Oh, yes?" she smiled wider, and it was the smile he knew very well but hadn't seen in years: mischievous. "Do keep that in mind, then."