Sans didn't know what to think as he looked at one of the toughest monsters he ever knew lying on a slab, dying. "Ma?" Wing had already passed out, trying to save her, and failing miserably, managing to crack his skull in the process.

"Hey, Sanshine… sorry baby bones, mommy's not feeling good so I can't train with you right now." She coughed weakly as her pupils went from red to blue, her original eye color.

Sans' soul hurt as though it was being squeezed. He could barely handle seeing this, but… he didn't want her to die alone… she deserved far better. "That's fine, Ma. I just wanna talk." The four year old sat himself on the bed next to his mother, taking a hand in his own.

"Sans… I don't…"

"I'm not leaving, Ma. You don't deserve to die alone…" Sans tried to hold his tears back, knowing that other monsters would see it as a sign of weakness, and the little brother of the Great and Terrible Papyrus could ill afford to be seen weaker than he already was. In his mind, countless ideas came forth as he concentrated. "I'm going to fix this…"

"Fix what?"

Sans opened his sockets to look at his mother with a weakened grin. "I know how to bring you back… how to bring all the humans back… I just need time…"

"Sans the barrier…"

"I'll wait till it's gone before I start. The king shouldn't be upset with that if it means I might be able to bring his own adopted human child back, will he?"

"No, but Sans… no one can bring back the dead."

"Dying in here as a human, the soul stays strong and persists even after death." Sans went into his lecture mode, a rare occasion to be sure. "Humans' souls tend to stay even after death. Unless the body is completely destroyed, as was found out." Arial gave a weak nod, wondering where this was going. "The five souls that were collected were all from humans that had died of some sort of natural cause, or their body hadn't been utterly destroyed. This could mean that the soul is still very much alive, and that the human is just separated from it. If this is the case, then repairing the body and easing the soul back into its original vessel should allow a 'Dead' human to wake up as though they were just in a coma."

Arial's weakened mind tried to process this, and she felt her form shift out of her control as this happened. Sans noticed this and kept a neutral gaze as he looked at the pale skinned human with rich dark brown hair. She hadn't expected this from her four year old. She hadn't expected him to piece together she had once been human.

"Ma, when we get to the surface, I'm going to do everything I can to bring you back. I know you prefer using perseverance magic, but do me a favor… just be Patient with me, and I'll have you back with us before ya know it." Ariel cried as she hugged her baby. He didn't hate her for being a human. He didn't care!

"I love you boys… remember that…" With that, Ariel Hope Serif-Gaster breathed her last, her form falling back onto the bed.

Sans gritted his teeth more than usual as he saw her soul rise out of her; a purple heart that had turned into its upright position. It was at this point that Papyrus came in. "SANS, DON'T TOUCH THAT! IT'S HIGHLY DANGEROUS TO TOUCH A HUMAN SOUL, YOU COULD END UP ABSORBING IT BY ACCIDENT!"

Sans looked to his elder brother and then to the soul. "Sorry, big brother," Papyrus paled, if a skeleton monster could get any paler. Sans only ever called him by that if he had to disobey him for some reason. "But I need to get her to the king." Sans touched the soul and the room was enveloped in a bright white light that was tinged purple.

When the light had faded, a tall young human, definitely older than Sans, was standing in the room, wearing Sans' clothes only with a shiny aspect to it, as though made of pure magic. The human had white hair that was spiked forward like a rebel, had red eyes that were tinged with light blue, and he was standing at about the same height as Papyrus!

"Huh… welp, I guess that's the problem with being a baby boned genius, you got too much control over yourself and when you absorb a human soul, you tend to look like a human rather than a super cool monster. Eh, whateves." Sans picked up the body of his mother and then turned to Papyrus. "I'll be back, Boss, unless you want to come in and take credit for capturing a human?"

Papyrus, though disgusted with the notion, walked up to his… baby brother… and glared at him. "The only reason I'm going with you is so that you don't get attacked by the others when you break into the castle looking like that." His voice was quiet, cold, and harsh, more so than both their parents combined. Sans nodded.

"Let's take a shortcut." Sans grabbed Papyrus hand after slinging his mother over his shoulder and took a step forward, the three of them disappearing in a flash of crimson light. Papyrus was shocked to find themselves in the castle throne room. The king noticed them instantly, as did some of the guards. Sans sighed as he removed the soul from his own, and fell back into his monster form, though tired from the use of magic.

"What just…?" The king, Asgore, had never seen anything like it before.

Sans passed out into his older brother's grasp, who was now the taller once more. "MY APOLOGIES, MY KING, BUT MY BROTHER HAS AN ABILITY THAT HE BELIEVED WOULD BE STRONG ENOUGH TO GET US HERE IF HE ABSORBED THE HUMAN'S SOUL. HE OVERESTIMATED HOW DRAINING IT WOULD BE TO HIMSELF. HE IS ONLY FOUR AFTER ALL..." Papyrus had on his most solemn face as he held his brother. The purple soul floated near the two, but didn't seem afraid, at least not of them. "WE FOUND THIS HUMAN IN WATERFALL ON OUR WAY TO TRAINING WITH THE CAPTAIN. SHE WAS DYING OF NO WOUND OR INJURY, AND SHE POSSESSED NO DUST ON HER HANDS. I BELIEVE THAT THIS HUMAN HAD FALLEN DOWN HERE TO SIMPLY JUST DIE." Papyrus explained as carefully as he could, not sure how the king would react to finding out that one of the royal scientists had been a human.

"How come her soul does not flee from you two?"

Papyrus wished he could roll his eye lights at that, but knew better. "NYEH, I MAY BE TEN, BUT I AM STILL COUNTED AS A CHILD IN SOME PLACES AND BY SOME PEOPLE. MY BROTHER ISN'T EVEN OLD ENOUGH TO GO TO SCHOOL YET. HUMANS ARE WEAK AGAINST CHILDREN AND FIND THEM LESS THREATENING IF MY RESEARCH IN HISTORY BOOKS HAS TAUGHT ME ANYTHING."

"Why would you research such a thing?"

"ISN'T THAT WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO IF I WANT TO BECOME A TACTITION FOR THE ROYAL GUARD?"

Asgore nodded, his magic summoning up a container for the soul. It was simple and would protect it. "This human did no harm?"

"NYEH, NONE WHATSOEVER, YOUR MAJESTY." Papyrus' gaze never wavered as the soul willingly entered the container.

"We'll place the body in a casket then. Humans may prefer to be buried in the ground, but the rare good few humans who come down here deserve to be buried not so far under the ground." Papyrus did a quick soul check on the king. He wasn't as corrupted as some of the other monsters, and still had his good points. Thankfully, no one noticed the young skeleton doing this. Papyrus simply nodded and shifted his hold on his sleeping brother so that it was easier. "You have done well… you two may leave."

"THANK YOU, YOUR MAJESTY…" Papyrus takes one more quick glance at his mother's human body, sighs softly, and then leaves the old fashioned way with his brother in his arms.

The two of them were almost to Snowdin when their father met them in the snowy forest just before the town. Wing looked relieved to find them both alright. Much to his shock though, Papyrus took a glance at him and started crying, crimson tears started to fall from the skeleton child as he held his little brother tightly and made his way over to his father. Sans had woken up sometime in Waterfall and had started to cry softly. Wing ran the rest of the way to his children and knelt down to hug them both. He also started to cry at the loss of his wife, their mother.

After crying for a good five minutes, a snowstorm had started to blow around the trio. Wing picked up both of his boys, effectively clearing his expression of his moment of weakness, as did Papyrus, but he soon fell asleep. Sans however was in need of his mustard bottle, so he pulled it out and started sucking on it like a baby bones still. He had a plan. He just had to be… PATIENT…