A week in, and the King's plan makes no progress. The human, instead of bonding more with her guardians, fantasizes about escaping. One evening during dinner, she wipes down her metal fork with a napkin and silently slips it into her inventory.
Hours tick on that night, tossing and turning in bed until finally, she works up the courage to break the fork. Using the pieces, she coerces the lock of her cell door to open.
Life returns to her face as she steps out of her cell. Bravely, she steals one, two, three steps down the hall. No alarms, no one here to see her transgression. She allows herself a small, relieved smile, training her eyes on the small, glowing lights by the cell block gate.
With the lights dim, the once-familiar hallway is shrouded by yawning darkness. Frisk's breath catches and she stares. She saw something move. A shadow. Blinking hard, she squints to see it again, but can only pick out the edges of the neighbouring cells.
Holding her breath, straining her ears for any sound, she inches toward the cell block gate.
"ya lost, kiddo?"
Frisk yelps, spinning around to see Sans a breath behind her, hands in his pockets and head tilted to the side. He has a crooked smile on his face.
Frisk falters, "Sans- I-I can explain..."
Sans chuckles. "don't worry, kid. i won't tell undyne…" he eyes her knowingly, "if you tell me how you got out."
She stammers, stumbling back. "Uh, well… P-p-papyrus forgot to lock my cell door… aa-a-and I just wanted to stretch my l-legs a...a…"
Sans's smile is pulled into a flat line as he steps forward. "kid… i may be a bit of a bonehead, but let's not kid ourselves."
The warmth rushes from the room as his voice drops to a dangerous note.
"why don't ya try again."
Frisk's clammy, shaking hands betray her, and she drops the broken fork. The pieces echo like glass shattering on the floor, and her face flushes.
Sans cooly clicks on a flashlight, pointing it at the ground. "oh, whaddya know. an old-fashioned lock-pick. i read about these once, a good prison break tool."
Frisk's heart painfully skips a beat, and she buries her face in her hands. Meaningless words burn on her tongue, but she knows it's not enough. Not for the Judge.
She can feel his cold stare, "pick them up. they're yours, aren't they?"
Tears pricking her eyes, she scrapes the metal bits off the floor.
Sans holds out his hand. "give them to me."
She stares at the freedom in her hand, and slowly, hands her freedom over. Maybe he'd forgive her.
He gives the pick a small toss in the air, then pockets them.
"now you can relax, kiddo. hard part's over."
"You're… not angry?"
"judging by how you look, i don't need to give you a bad time." he says, "besides, the first is free."
Frisk's eyes widen. "You won't tell anyone?"
"i won't, so long as we don't have a conversation like this again. capisce?"
"...yeah."
"good. now, off to bed with ya." Sans nods down the hall.
He walks back with her, opening the cell door expectantly. She stares warily at the door before walking in, not bearing to watch it swing shut behind her. The click of the lock dashes the last of her hope.
"goodnight, kid." Sans says.
"...Goodnight."
Frisk waits for Sans' soft footfalls to fade away before she lets her emotions fall as silent tears, rolling down her cheeks.
"Sans!"
The door smashes open as Undyne marches into the security room, her mouth pulled into an angry line. She folds her arms at the sleeping skeleton, head resting in the crook of his elbow at the desk.
"Sans, wake up!"
The eye lights return to his sockets as he raises his head, "mm... hey. what's up?"
"Don't 'what's up' me, Sans. I've been trying to get a hold of you on your walkie for the past five minutes. It's my turn to take a shift, but on my way, I saw the logs. The human's cell opened 46 minutes ago."
She looks up at the screens covering the wall, finding the one with the feed from the cell block. Frisk can be seen in one of the cells, wrapped up in a blanket, innocently asleep.
Her eyes narrow at him, "You know anything about that?"
Sans spins his chair to face Undyne, leaning back with a thoughtful expression, "hmm… nope."
"You were the only guard on duty, how could you miss something like that?"
"dunno, maybe i was just bone-tired."
Undyne slaps a hand to her forehead. "Sans, you can't be missing stuff like this. It's important," she says, "don't let me catch you asleep at your post again."
"roger that, bass."
Undyne gives an irritated look before flipping out her phone. "Get outta here, I gotta make a phone call."
"to who? ain't alphys sleepin'?"
"No Sans, to those humans. I'm upgrading Frisk's security to make sure what happened earlier, doesn't happen again."
Sans closes his eyes and shrugs, "heh, okay."
Undyne fiddles with her phone, raising it to her ear before glancing at Sans. "Hey, are you su-"
She's alone in the room.
Her face flips back and forth before she shakes her head, muttering, "I could have sworn he was just here. I just… that bag of bones is hiding something, I know it."