(This was written as a remix of "An Unobstructed View" by AstroGirl, which can be found on Ao3, as a part of Remix Revival 2018.)
Toriel wakes suddenly, a single blink between the soundness of sleep and complete awareness, and she instantly knows why when she feels the emptiness beside her. How strange that after so very many years on her own, it has taken only a few short months for her to again become so used to someone sleeping beside her. How silly and wonderful.
With a smile tugging at her muzzle, she sits up and carefully lays the sheets back, rising from the bed to seek out her missing companion. She is fairly sure of where to find him. For someone so lazy, these midnight wanderings have become surprisingly common.
She stops at the other bedroom doors along the hall as she walks slowly and quietly through the house, pressing her ear to each one. She hears a soft snore from Frisk's room, Papyrus's nonsensical sleepy ramblings, and she is pleased. Her family truly is safe up here. Never again will she wake up to an empty home and an empty pit of grief. They are safe.
Sighing in contentment, she pulls herself onward, out through the back door and into the crisp night air.
The porch light is on, but none of the scattered chairs there are occupied. Toriel looks up, into the beautifully clear night sky, then down to the top of the small hill behind the house, where a familiar silhouette is blacking out a patch of starlight. She smiles and continues onward.
"Sans, dear," she says as she crests the hill, "it is very late."
He turns, and his usual grin grows even wider at the sight of her. "tori, hey," he says, stepping back from his telescope and turning to face her. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "you should come and take a look at this."
Toriel eyes the telescope warily, then puts a hand on her hip and feigns a stern look. "Sans, if there is ink again on the eyepiece…"
He begins to laugh before she can even finish, a low snigger unsuccessfully muffled by his bony fingers.
"That did not wash out of my fur for days!"
"sorry, sorry," he manages, waving a hand, "but i thought you were just embarrassed. you know, all red in the face like that."
She cannot even try to keep up her serious expression after that. A giggle slips out, and then she dissolves swiftly into full-on laughter right along with Sans. She pauses long enough to put a finger to her lips in a futile shushing gesture, but that only seems makes them laugh louder and longer, joyfully howling out into the quiet, empty night.
"no ink," Sans promises when he finally gets ahold of himself again. He puts his hand gently on the side of the telescope, careful not to nudge it from its position. "just the stars."
Toriel shares a smile with him, then comes closer to crouch down and look through the eyepiece.
He has the lens pointed at a particular bright arrangement of stars for her. She can see there is meant to be a pattern to them, but it is not one she can put a familiar name to – not from old monster astronomy books thumbed through on lonely evenings nor from far distant childhood memories of gazing up at sky instead of rock.
"They are quite lovely," she says, lifting her head just enough to glance over at Sans. "What do the humans call these ones?"
"capricornus, the sea goat," he says, "but i like to call her the big boss monster in the sky."
She looks again and claps her hands together in delight. "Oh! Yes, I can see the horns now!"
"pretty clear, huh? don't know what they were seeing when they gave 'em that first name. i'm thinking about petitioning them to change it."
Toriel laughs again, softly this time, as she carefully tilts the telescope to see every part of the constellation. "I believe that may be a little harder to do than you think."
"yeah, you're right. probably too much work." He shrugs. "maybe i'll get papyrus to write a strongly worded letter. he likes those."
She just smiles at that and lets silence settle into the natural lull that follows. She spends a few more moments peering at the stars through the telescope, then steps back to look up at the sky as a whole once more. It is a lovely clear night, deep and dark out here on the edge of town where their little house sits. It still astounds her how much she can see up there, stars and planets and distant moons, an entire universe out here beyond the Underground.
"I did appreciate the bright crystals we had down below. They were very pretty and strange and pleasant to read by." She used to keep a basket of them on her table and would sometimes sit up late after all the other lights had been dimmed. "But it is so good to see real stars again, to look up and find only the sky."
Sans lets out a brief sigh, the corners of his ever-grinning mouth seeming to grow somehow softer as he follows her gaze. "yeah," he says quietly. "i hear ya."
Toriel tilts her head and, not for the first time on nights like this, gives him a sidelong, wondering look. She is one of the few who can remember, however vaguely and distantly, a life before their exile to the Underground. She can remember sky and stars and the scent of fresh air, can remember standing on soft grass and looking up to a view much like this one.
Sometimes Sans speaks as though he can remember too, though she knows that is impossible.
When he turns and catches her staring, he gives her the same grin as always, any strange wistfulness gone, and she can only smile back. "We should return to bed," she says, holding out her hand to him. "It is very late now, and the stars will still be there tomorrow night."
"i guess they will be, huh?" He puts his hand in hers, cold and smooth digits grasped firmly around her warm palm. "well, you don't have to talk me into more sleep."
"Apparently I do," she says teasingly.
"all right, all right." He stares upwards as they walk back down the hill, and she can't quite tell if the fondness in his expression is meant for her or the sky. "say, did i ever tell you why saturn is my favorite planet?"
Beneath the stars, Toriel begins to laugh.