The best thing that never should have happened

...

A/N: Even though this story is part of the Happy Family universe, I have to warn readers that have come over from that fic that this is not fluff like Happy Family is. I like to think that it still ends well in its own way, but this has a higher rating for a reason.

*Very long ago

The air was thick with smoke. Choking, eye-watering, stinking smoke that proved beyond a doubt that every house touched by the fire would be absolutely beyond saving. The monsters feared the fire, but they were thankful for the smoke. It gave them cover as they fled into the woods and fields around them, away from their homes.

"Come on," a trembling voice urged in the grey morning light. "You can go faster than that, can't you? I've seen you run a lot faster!"

Four figures were hurrying away from the fire and screaming voices as quickly and quietly as they could.

"Oh, you bet," the tallest figure said with forced cheerfulness. "Sans could outrun any of us, can't you, Sans?"

Sans was running. He was running as fast as his short legs could carry him. His mother's skeletal hand was clasped firmly around his own. In his father's arms Papyrus was whimpering and shaking uncontrollably.

"Ma…" Sans gulped. His eye sockets were wide with fear.

"It's going to be alright, darling," his mother whispered. "I promise."

"Stop!" his father hissed suddenly.

They all froze, standing very still between the shadowy trees. Even Papyrus didn't make a sound. Humans were shouting somewhere in the forest.

"We should have known the demons would hide in the dark," a harsh voice said.

"Then you should have listened to me and attacked during the day!" came a scornful reply.

There was an angry rabble of unintelligible voices until someone roared for them to be quiet.

"Line up," the same voice ordered. "We'll sweep the woods. There's more than enough of us. You see anything that moves: kill it."

Sans felt his family shake beside him and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Less than an hour ago, they had all still been safely asleep in their beds. At least they had thought they were safe. The humans had arrived in near complete silence. They had been no thumping of boots or clanging of weapons to wake them. The first sounds only came when the first house went up in flames.

"Let's just burn the forest down!" a loud voice rasped. "Send the devils back to the fire!"

Sans felt his aunt's hand on his shoulder. She squeezed him hard. It hurt, but it was comforting all the same. He understood her. It was important he didn't make a sound now, that he didn't move a bone, but as soon as she gave him the sign, he needed to use every ounce of strength he had to run.

The humans were arguing again.

"You set fire to this wood and we all burn!" the authoritative voice barked. "We'll do it like I said. Shoulder to shoulder! Now start walking!"

Sans' mother moved very fast. She grabbed Sans and shoved him towards his father.

"Raavi," she whispered, her eye sockets frantically wide. "Take Sans and Papyrus and run."

"No," her husband hissed. "We're not splitting up."

"You're faster than us," she insisted. "Calisto and I will hold them off; you get our boys to safety."

"Verdana!" he protested, his voice breaking with sorrow.

"Come on, Sans," Verdana whispered, ignoring tears leaking down her cheekbones. "Want a ride on your father's back?"

"Ma," Papyrus wailed and his mother quieted him with a stroke of his skull as she helped Sans onto his father's back.

"I'll go ahead," Raavi decided. "But only if you promise you'll be right behind me." He looked from his wife to his sister. "Promise me, Cal."

"Verdana and I will be right behind you," Calisto replied with a brave smile.

But soon the humans would be right behind them too… Footsteps seemed to be closing in from every side. For a moment, the three adult skeletons and the two children stood very still again. They looked at each other, unable to utter a word. Then, very quickly, they touched their bone foreheads together in a hasty moment of profound affection. For that one moment, everything was tranquil and perfect and, as soon as it passed, Raavi ran.

His arms were wrapped around his youngest son just as tightly as Sans' arms were wrapped around his own neck. He didn't look back at his wife or sister, he didn't speak, he didn't cry, he carried his two children and ran.

...

*The year 202X

River's cloak of shadows swirled and billowed wildly, like it always did when ze was discontented.

"You shouldn't be doing this," ze said angrily.

"You have voiced your concerns many times over," Gaster said calmly. "But you forfeited your right to influence my experiments when you refused to be a part of them."

"You're abusing shadow magic!" River snapped. "I'm a part of it whether I like it or not!"

Gaster looked into zir face. The fact ze even had a face at present was a testament to how angry ze was. River hardly ever bothered with full physical manifestation, but right now zir anger was enough to keep zir mind and body firmly in the here and now. Gaster met their angry eyes and sighed.

"I am not abusing anything," he said, his patience wearing thin. "I am amplifying my own powers. I have the fullest right to do so."

"You don't even know what you're doing!" River hissed. "You're messing with fluid reality!"

"I am manipulating space and time," Gaster said sternly. "In a controlled, scientific environment."

"Scientific," River said scornfully and Gaster felt a stab of anger.

"We need science, River," he snapped. "We need answers, solutions, hope. Something better than superstition and fear!"

River took a step back. Gaster never lost his temper.

"Our population is growing," Gaster declared, trying to regain his composure. "The underground cannot sustain us if we keep going like this."

"That is no reason to start blurring dimensions!" River protested. "We are the only type of monster that can manipulate space and time. It is like that for a reason. It's shadow magic and it should stay in the shadows."

"All the more reason for us to try and help the others," Gaster said accusingly.

"Not like this!" River cried.

"Then how?" Gaster snapped. He had had enough of River's endless scruples. "If I can amplify my powers and project them outside of myself, I may be able to access other spaces, other dimensions… It might give us a way out."

"At what cost?" River said coldly.

"At whatever cost," Gaster replied curtly. "I am willing to pay it."

River opened zir mouth, but Gaster interrupted zir:

"We need new solutions, River. The monsters need hope. We need…we need an alternative to breaking the barrier. Asgore needs an alternative to breaking the barrier."

River fell silent. Ze and Gaster stared at each other and Gaster wondered whether they would ever get past this disagreement. As he looked at River, he could see zir mind starting to wander. Zir shadowy hood sank further and further across their face until it was lost in darkness.

"Are you the king's friend…" ze said softly , a melodic quality replacing the anger in zir voice. "…or the royal scientist?"

"I would hope I am both," Gaster said stiffly.

There was a long silence and Gaster was sure he could hear River hum softly to zirself. Eventually ze said:

"We are the only ones left… We are the Twisting River and the Winding Thing."

Gaster watched River turn away from him, zir speech pattern returning to the cryptic string of words he had come to expect from zem.

"We're only shadows," ze muttered on the way out the door. "Only shadows…lala…tra…la…"

Gaster waited until River's melancholy singing had truly faded away. Then he paced to the door of his lab, closed it and locked it. What he was about to do was dangerous and he didn't want anybody coming near him and his invention. Not to stop him. Not to help him. This was his choice and his responsibility.

Gaster took hold of the two crystal receptors that were supposed to amplify his magic. He hesitated. Of course River's opinion mattered to him. Ze was his only living family. But he could not afford to doubt himself right now. The monsters needed a way out of the Underground. A way that would keep his broken, mourning friend from resorting to murder.

This thought brought all Gaster's resolution back to him and he emptied his mind of everything else. With one decisive movement, he pulled the receptors into their activating position and let go of his physical form.

Everything but his white hands dissolved into shadow and the machine began to buzz and whirr as Gaster called forth every ounce of reality blurring magic he had.

...

Sans buried his face in his father's shoulder and tried not to make a sound. His arms were clamped around his neck, his legs wrapped fast around his waist. It had been a long time since he had been able to hear his mother or aunt Calisto behind them and his father hadn't looked back or slowed down once.

Suddenly Sans felt something tug at his arm. He lifted his head and saw Papyrus' small, white hand trying to grasp his. Silently Sans shifted the strength of his grip to his right arm and reached for Papyrus' hand with the other. They did not look at each other. Papyrus had his face pressed against their father's chest, but his little hand squeezed Sans' as hard as he could and Sans squeezed back.

"Are you okay back there?" Sans heard the rumble of his father's voice.

"Yes," he answered bravely.

"Good," his father breathed. "What about you, babybones?"

"Nyemph," Papyrus muttered, his voice muffled in his father's shawl.

"There's my brave boys," their father said, sounding almost cheerful. "You know, the tighter you hold me, the faster I run! I'm sure we are almost flying by now!"

They both did their best to hold on even tighter and their father almost managed a genuine laugh.

"Nyeh-he!" he laughed, taking larger and larger leaping bounds. "That's the ticket! Now you shall see how we will fly. No one will even be able t-"

The harsh jolt with which his father stopped moving shook Sans' bones and made Papyrus cry out in fear. Confused, Sans raised his skull and looked over his father's shoulder. He stared straight into a human face. They had run towards a human village, there were houses visible in the distance.

Sans froze. Time could have stood still and he wouldn't have noticed. His father didn't move, didn't speak. He just stared at the man and woman in front of them and held his youngest son as tight as he could.

The two humans stared at them, their sunburnt faces strangely pale. Sans saw the weapons in their hands and he was terrified. His mother might have fought, but his father never fought.

The humans stood side by side, neither of them was attacking. They just looked, standing just as frozen as the tall skeleton in front of them. The man looked from the pleading expression on the skull face to the little child clasped in his arms and the young face peeking out from behind his right shoulder. The knife in the woman's right hand had begun to tremble.

Suddenly a loud voice called from the direction of the houses: "Found anything?"

The humans tensed up, a frantic expression flashing across their faces. The woman opened her mouth to reply, but before she could make a sound, Sans heard his father's voice break the silence:

"Please…"

That one word was the beginning of a host of sentences and the man and woman in front of them heard them all.

Please, do not hurt us.

Please, look at my children.

Please, let us go.

Please, I know you're good people

Please, use some mercy

Please, let us live

Please, we are not your enemies.

Please…

"No!" the man suddenly called back. "Nothing here!"

Sans felt his father's shoulders sag with relief.

The woman didn't say a word, but she glanced around nervously before gesturing urgently towards a path that slowed downward, away from the houses.

With only a nod as a reply, Raavi turned and ran down the path, as silently as he could. Sans looked back at the humans and he saw the woman's shoulders were shaking. The man was covering his face with his hand, but they both seemed to be watching them go, as if they wanted to be sure they were gone before returning to their fellows.

Sans put his chin on his father's shoulder again, still holding on to Pap's hand. Those people had looked scared, he thought. Almost as scared as he felt. His mother had told him that the humans attacked monsters because they were scared. But that didn't make any sense. They were the ones with the weapons. Sans looked back one more time. He couldn't see them anymore. Maybe those people hadn't been scared of them, but of something else. Perhaps that was why they had let them go...

Sans closed his eyes for a moment. He was too tired to think about all this. His father was running as fast as he could without making too much noise and Sans could tell he was looking all around while he ran, like he was scared. Sans hoped that wherever his mother and aunt Cal were, that they weren't scared. But he was sure they wouldn't be. His mother had never been scared of anything and she never would be.

...

With a groan of frustration, Gaster let go and returned to his solid form. He had lost his concentration.

"Pull yourself together," he muttered at himself and then a smile passed across his face because of the irony. "Alright then," he said, taking a deep breath. "Once more."

The crystals glowed in Gaster's hands and the edges of his being began to unravel. Time and space rippled around him and he faded into it. Dark and light tumbled around him, taking up more and more space in his wandering mind. All space and all time were inextricably connected. The only thing binding one to the here and now was physicality. He could let go of that. He could reach out across space. Reach all the way into other places. He could-

With an angry whirr, the machine jerked Gaster forward and he let go. Reality snapped back into place and time and space crashed into him with angry triumph. In an instant, liquid shadow tightened into a pair of stumbling feet and he fell backward.

The quiet lab filled with the rare sound of Gaster's swearing.

"I will do this," he grunted, getting back to his feet and marching up to the machine as if it had personally offended him.

The truth was that this would have been much easier with River's help. Strange as it seemed, with them seeming hardly able to keep mind and body together, they were much better at crossing the boundaries of reality. Still, Gaster could feel his machine was working. The receptors were responding to his magic. If he could hold on a little longer, the amplification process might have a chance to build some momentum.

...

"Pa," Sans murmured. "Pa… Don't you need to rest?"

His father had stopped running a long time ago and now he had begun to walk slower and slower. Sans could feel the fatigue coming off him in waves.

"No, no," Raavi whispered. "We better keep moving."

Papyrus was asleep in his arms, too exhausted for even the fear to keep him awake.

"I can walk myself for a bit," Sans offered.

His father sighed and held still. "Alright," he relented. "But only until I've rested."

Sans slid off his father's back and stretched his arms and legs. He was short for his age, but strong. Lifting his skull and straightening his back to show his father that he was very capable of walking, he trotted along beside him. His father smiled down at him, but didn't say anything. Sans looked straight ahead and kept walking bravely. He didn't ask where Ma and Aunt Cal were, he knew his father didn't know either, it would do no good to ask.

His father walked slower and slower. The sun shone brightly overhead by now, but they were surrounded by trees that cast shade all around them. It was quiet here, the wood seemed to be empty. No monsters, no humans, no animals.

Sans watched his father with growing concern until he finally held still.

"You're right, Sans, I should rest," he said with a heavy sigh. "We'll sit down here for a while, alright?"

Nodding silently, Sans watched his father choose a spot where there was a small hollow in the ground. Slowly he lowered himself down, cradling Papyrus in his arms. Sans sat down beside him, as close as he could. His father put an arm around him.

"Just for a little while," he sighed and he closed his eyes.

In the silence of the forest, Sans suddenly felt tired too. It really was very quiet. He looked at his father and baby brother. Papyrus was sleeping soundly, but his father's face looked sad and still with the eye sockets closed. Sans shifted his weight a little and rested his skull against his father's side. He felt his father's arm draw a little closer around him and, for a moment, Sans felt safe enough to close his eyes.

...

"There," Gaster muttered, sliding a glass panel on the machine back in place. "If this doesn't make the difference, I'll have to go back to small-scale tests."

His hands hovered over the receptors for a moment and he stared at his invention with a far-off look on his face. It was waiting patiently for him to begin. With a sigh, Gaster grabbed the crystals and let his mind spill out of his body.

As he left the stability of solid life behind, the possibilities of the universe expanded all around him. Time and space were mere concepts. The laws of the physical world simply laughable attempts to shackle narrow-minded souls.

He could feel the plurality of existence in that moment. There was not just one space. Not just one time. Not just one way in and one way out. The world was so much more.

But all these possibilities, they were still just out of reach. He could feel them, he could sense them, but he could not reach them yet. His machine was working though, he could feel it. Never before had he felt so far away from his own existence. The shadows of his being were spread out further than he had ever been able to let them wander. If he could only go a little further… Just. A little. Further.

...

Sans did not know what had woken him, but as soon as he opened his eyes, he knew that whatever it had been, it had scared him. Fear tasted metallic at the back of his mouth and made the light in his eyes shrink to pinpricks. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his father's arm suddenly clamped across his stomach, preventing him.

"What-" Sans began, but then he saw his father's face. He looked grey with dread.

Then he heard it again, the sound that had woken him: voices. Human voices. And they were close. Rough shouts were shaking the silence from the trees and heavy footsteps were trampling brushwood and anything else in their path. The menacing rhythm of their movement, the edge to their voices, they sounded exactly like the other humans. They were making this forest into the other forest, the forest where they had left his mother and aunt behind.

The fear in Sans' bones turned to panic and, in a sudden impulse, he grabbed his father and tried to pull him to his feet.

"Pa!" he hissed. "Pa, we have to run!"

His father got to his feet, glancing around. The sounds seemed to come from all directions at once.

"Come on, Pa," Sans begged, but his father was looking at him with a strange, hollow expression on his face. His movements were slow and trance-like and he was holding Papyrus in a strange, cramped way.

"Please," Sans pleaded. "We have to go!"

"Yes," his father breathed and suddenly he kneeled down, looking Sans straight in the eyes. He smiled, the lights in his eye sockets as gentle as ever. "Sans," he said softly. "You know that clever trick of yours that no one else can do? The trick that your ma and I told you to never let anyone know about?"

"Yeah…" Sans whispered.

"We always told you to be really careful with it, didn't we?" his father said, a strange, strained expression on his face. "Told you never to go too far and only ever use it to go places you knew very well."

Sans nodded silently. The way the light in his father's eye sockets suddenly seemed to be dimming scared him.

"Sans," his father said solemnly. "Listen to me now. I want you to take Papyrus and get away from here. Give it everything you've got, son. Go away as far as you can and don't come back. You get yourself and your brother to a safe place and you take care of each other, alright?"

"No…" Sans whimpered. "Not without you!"

"Shhh," his father hushed. "Look at me, Sans. You've got to get your baby brother out of here. You hear me?"

Tears leaked from the corners of Sans' eyes. He didn't want to leave, not without his father, not without-

"We all love you both so much," his father said, leaning his forehead against his, still holding the sleeping Papyrus in his arms. "You remember that, alright?"

"Y-yes…" Sans sniffed.

"Good," his father said. "I know you will take excellent care of Papyrus, you always have. Go on, you take him."

Helplessly Sans allowed his father to put Papyrus into his arms.

"There you go," he whispered and Sans swallowed in an attempt to keep himself from crying.

His father gently stroked Papyrus' face for a moment, but Papyrus didn't wake. Silently Raavi took off his shawl and wrapped it around Sans' neck. The noises were getting louder: thumping boots, breaking branches, and the menacing rattle of metal.

"Pa…" Sans whimpered. "What are you-"

"Don't you worry about me," his father said quietly. "You see that path between the trees right there?"

Sans nodded.

"You use that path to get a running start and you make sure that you and Papyrus get as far away as possible from any of this, you hear me? You make sure you two are safe. That is all that matters, Sans. You two safe and happy."

"I-" Sans began, but then he looked into his father's face and he swallowed his words. "Yes, Pa," he whispered.

"That's my brilliant boy," his father smiled. "Now run, darling, and don't look back."

Before Sans could stop him, his father raised himself up to his full height and raised his arms. A wall of bones rose up in front of him and a chorus of roaring voices rose up from between the trees.

Sans ran. With all his might he tried not to listen for the scraping clang of metal or the crack of shattering bones. Blindly he ran through the forest, faster and faster, his father's shawl billowing behind him. Not once did he look back. He simply clutched the now wailing Papyrus and ran for his life. Tears streaked across his face and for a moment he squeezed his eyes shut as his running steps turned to leaps. In the darkness, he ran away from his home, away from his family, away from everything he had ever known. Then suddenly, without hesitation, he opened his eyes wide and let the blue flash of his magic split a hole into the everything of existence.

...

Gaster did not know metal animated by electricity could scream, but it did. The sound ripped through Gaster's fluid being and, if his body had been solid at this moment, he would have felt the melting metal scald his hands. For a moment of freezing terror, he was blind, but then a flash of violent blue light stung his eyes and the pain drove his mind back into his body.

The lights in the lab flickered violently, but managed to stay on. In a writhing mess of solidifying shadows, Gaster scrambled across the tile floor to get away from his machine. The whole thing was coming apart, circuits shorting, crystals shattering, metal melting in some place and tearing in others, and it was screaming. Screaming like a child in-

With a cry of utter horror, Gaster leapt to his feet. Various parts of his body turned to wisps of shadow shying away from the sharp shards and scalding metal as he frantically pulled two children from the wreckage that had once been his invention. They were both screaming and as he tried to pull them to safety, the biggest of the two kicked him.

"It's alright!" Gaster cried, crouching down to make himself less intimidating. "Let me help you! Let me help!"

The child stopped struggling for a moment and Gaster was shocked to see that the child was a young skeleton. He was clutching a second skeleton that was no more than a toddler. Skeleton monsters. In his centuries long life, Gaster had never met a skeleton monster.

"Where are we?" the boy asked frantically. "Who are you?" He was hugging the crying toddler, who Gaster presumed was his sibling.

"You're in my la- workshop," Gaster said, deciding laboratory would probably sound too frightening. "You're safe, in the Underground."

The skeleton boy blinked his eye sockets. "Underground?" he echoed in confusion.

"Yes…" Gaster said slowly, looking at both children with a worried expression.

The small skeleton had stopped crying and was now peeking fearfully at him from between his brother's arms.

"Are there humans here?" the boy asked, eyes darting to the sides.

Gaster stared at him. "No," he replied when he remembered to answer. "There are only monsters here."

Both children relaxed visibly at that statement. Gaster got to his feet and the boy followed his example. He allowed his little brother (at least Gaster guessed they were both boys) to turn around in his arms, but he didn't let go of him.

"You didn't say who you were," the boy said warily, wrapping one end of a large shawl around his brother.

"Forgive me," Gaster said, trying to steady his voice and sound calm and friendly. "My name is Wingdings Gaster."

"Wingdings?" the boy repeated.

Gaster saw the expression change on both the children's faces. Something about his name struck a chord with them.

"Yes," he smiled. "Wingdings, but most people call me Gaster."

"My…my name is Sans," the boy said. He gave Gaster a cautious look and added: "This is my brother Papyrus."

Gaster smiled at them both, glancing quickly at the ruined machine behind them. It didn't seem to be a source of immediate danger; the heap of twisted metal and shattered glass and crystal was silent and unmoving. He cleared his throat.

"Well, Sans, Papyrus," he said. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

Sans glanced around the room and took in the strangely shaped furniture and the various objects tucked away in the corners, but Papyrus' eyes were still fixed anxiously on Gaster. As far as Gaster could see, neither of them was hurt, incredible considering where they had just come from. Come to think of it, where had they come from?

"Sans," Gaster said gently. "How did you get here?"

Sans looked up at the tall shadow monster and hesitated. His parents had always told him never to tell anyone about his shortcuts. But...they had also told him never to use his power to go far away.

"I…" he muttered. "I had to keep Papyrus safe."

"I see," Gaster nodded. "I'd say you did a very good job." His mind was racing a mile a minute. The only vaguely logical explanation was that this boy, this child who could hardly be older than nine or ten years old, was capable of bending time and space himself. Their magic must have collided somehow. Gaster had meant to open a passage out of his reality, but apparently he had opened up a way in.

"Sans?" Papyrus whimpered and Gaster was roused from his thoughts.

"It's okay, Pap," Sans said bravely.

Gaster felt his soul twist inside of him and before he could stop himself, he heard himself ask:

"What happened to you? Where did you come from?"

"Skeleton Village," Sans muttered, staring at his feet.

"Ah," Gaster said, his face expressionless. There was no such place. He was sure of it.

There had never been enough skeleton monsters in the Underground to form their own community. They had been one of the monster types that had been almost completely wiped out by humans during…during the war. Gaster stared at the two small skeletons in front of him. They were both barefoot and dressed in dark clothes. The only piece of real colour about them was the red shawl wrapped around Sans' shoulders, the ends of which were now tucked around Papyrus' waist.

"You did not mean to come here, didn't you?" he said. "You simply needed to be gone from where you were."

Sans looked up at him and slowly shook his head. "I…I was looking for somewhere safe," he whispered. "Pa said…" His voice trailed off into nothing and Papyrus buried his face into the shawl and Sans' chest at the same time.

Once again Gaster's soul twisted with feeling and he felt an anger towards the humans that he had never really felt before.

"This is somewhere safe," he said decidedly. He crouched down so he could look into Sans and Papyrus' faces more easily. "Right now we are at my work place, but if you want to, I will bring you to my house and you can stay there for as long as you like."

Sans shuffled his feet instead of responding, but Papyrus carefully reached out a small white hand and touched Gaster's coat. It was soft and dense. Gaster smiled. The twisting in his soul hadn't stopped, but now it was more like a rhythmic swirl. He looked at Sans.

"I'd like to help, Sans," he said. "I'm not really sure what happened, but you two happened to find me and as long as you want me to, I will take care of you."

He sounded solemn and sincere. Sans looked into his face. It was smooth and white, not unlike his father's. Slowly Gaster stood up again. He was tall, as tall as Aunt Cal, Sans thought. His shoulders sagged a little. He was tired. Papyrus squirmed in his grip and silently Sans lifted him down and let him stand on his own two feet.

"Sans?" Papyrus asked in a small voice. "Is here safe?"

Sans looked from Papyrus' little face to Gaster's worried smile. Slowly he took hold of the red shawl and he unwound it from his shoulders. With great care, he wrapped it around Papyrus, winding it round and round until his brother was properly wrapped up. He didn't want to wear it; it was Papyrus' now.

"Yes, Pap," he said. "Mister Gaster says we'll be safe here, right?"

His eyes were fixed intently on Gaster and Gaster knew that all the importance of the world weighed on the truth of his words now.

"Yes," he said firmly and he held out a hand.

Sans was already holding onto Papyrus' hand and, after a moment's hesitation, he reached out with the other to take hold of Gaster's. The rhythm in Gaster's soul slowed down to a steady hum and part of him was suddenly very sure that this humming would never leave him again. He took a deep breath, squeezed Sans' hand, smiled down at Papyrus, and said:

"Come on, I'll show you my home. Then you can tell me if it's good enough for two fine young men such as yourselves."

He led the children out of the lab, their skeleton feet making soft clicking sounds on the floor. Papyrus looked up at him with such a hopeful, trusting face that Gaster hardly knew how to be comforting and kind enough. Sans was quiet and sober, but Gaster didn't press him to talk.

Sans was grateful for the kind way Gaster spoke to them, but everything he saw around them was so strange and foreign that he could not be at ease. Gaster's house was big and full of light and nothing looked like things had looked back home. But it was warm and clean and there was a soft place to sit and as soon as they had sat down, Gaster made them both a bowl of hot soup full of strength and healing. He drank it slowly and watched Papyrus as Gaster tried to feed him.

"I do it," Papyrus protested and he wrestled with Gaster for the spoon. "I can!"

"I believe you," Gaster said. "But I also believe you were just trying to swallow the spoon."

Sans didn't smile, but he felt like he could have smiled. He took another sip of soup. Mister Gaster seemed nice and Wingdings was a good name. His mother had wanted them to run, his father had told them never to come back.

"Sans, look!" Papyrus cried and he stuck the spoon through the hole in Gaster's hand.

This time Sans did smile.

"Heh, careful, Pap," he said. "That's a hole lot of soup you could spill."

"Nyeh!" Papyrus cried and he tried to stick the spoon through Gaster's other hand.

"Come on, little one," Gaster laughed. "Give me that, before things get out of hand."

He winked at Sans when he said that and Sans felt a grin flicker on his face. Just the thought of happiness made tears well up in the corners of his eyes, but he fought them and quickly wiped his face when Papyrus wasn't looking. His father had told him to take care of Papyrus and that was what he'd do.

"Would you like some more soup, Sans?" Gaster asked, looking at his empty bowl.

Sans nodded gratefully and Gaster smiled at him and took his bowl to the kitchen to fill it again.

"More," Papyrus declared and he offered Sans his spoon.

Gaster heard them mutter to each other from the kitchen and decided to take his time with the soup. When he came back, however, he found them both fast asleep on his couch. Papyrus' bowl still had a couple of spoonfuls of soup left in it. Sans had put it on the floor and he and Papyrus were cuddled close together, feet drawn up under them and Papyrus with his face snuggled against Sans' chest.

With an expression caught somewhere between affection and worry, Gaster looked at them both. He did not know what to feel, but luckily his opinion wasn't needed. He had absolutely no say in the matter. His soul had already decided for him. These were his children now and he was going to take care of them and keep them safe no matter what.

No matter what.

A/N: I am not in the habit of writing sadness and I made myself cry twice while writing this. I hope the ending was uplifting enough to justify the heartbreak.

To me, it always made sense that the "poorly drawn picture of three smiling people" that can be found in Sans' workshop is of three people that are completely unknown to Frisk. If Sans or Papyrus were in the picture, surely Frisk would have recognized them, even if the drawing was bad. So in my headcanon, the drawing has always been of three skeleton family members that Papyrus doesn't remember anymore, but Sans does.

So there we go; in my mind, Sans and Papyrus came from the past! This was a bit of an experiment for me, so if you have the time please tell me what you think!