Two Worlds, Two Souls

Chapter 29: Should We?

Angel's Point of View:

"Oh come on Sis! Let me have just one cookie!"

"Enough Frisk, you've already swiped about five of them and you will eat no more. It will spoil your dinner Papy is making right now."

"But Angel…"

"No buts, now sit and finish your homework."

"Meany…"

My sister was testing my patience for the umpteen time that day as I hurried around to finish packing the baked goods I was taking down to Bernie at the inn.

In the most recent days as we approached Christmas, I'd taken over some baked goods out the kindness of my soul for the bunny and her family. Apparently one of her guests though thought it was a new things Bernie had included in her fees for staying at the inn, loved it, and thus, Bernie had employed me to bake her goods every few days to give out to guests as snacks. It wasn't all that hard, and being in the Christmas spirit, it allowed me to decorate and give her lots of different kinds. Papyrus and Frisk loved to decorate what I made before taking them down, even if Frisk fought me every chance she could to keep those said cookies and eat them all herself…

I felt the vein pop on the top of my head. "I will ground you if you say one more thing or act out one more time, Frisk."

"Please Little Frisk, listen to your sister!" Papyrus commented carefully from where he was making a baked mac and cheese dish that night with the five different cheeses I gave him. "If she grounds you, then I can't play with you tonight."

"Fine…" Frisk pouted, but agreed none the less. She sat at the table and sulked while I finished to gather the treats on the counter to pack for Bernie.

She'd requested about five dozen of my ginger snaps, three dozen for her guests while the rest were for her army of children. They certainly used that sugar that they took in to help their mother. She'd even sent some of my baked goods off for her eldest son while he was in the guard. Apparently, he liked them and was eager to meet the baker.

Even if I was terrified.

Bernie and I had continued talking about the idea of letting Vinnie meet us when he came back for Christmas. Sans and I had spoken of it too. He was still very infuriated that Bernie had even suggested it and doesn't think I should do it just yet. However, after the last near two months to think, I think I was ready to come to terms with the idea I'd agreed to all that time ago.

Even if I knew Sans would be incredibly cross with me.

It needed to be done.

I'd rather know if Vinnie would be our enemy or friend sooner rather than later. It was something we would discuss with Bernie that night.

"Alright then, Papyrus, you're in charge while we're gone to deliver these. Please make sure that Frisk finishes her homework before she does anything else, and no more sweets. She's had too many today as it is."

"Yes, Miss Angel!" I was saluted by the taller skeleton quickly while my sister scowled at me.

"Good, we'll return hopefully within the hour."

Sans waited for me patiently by the front door while I gave out the final orders. It was a peaceful day in town. We planned to actually walk rather than teleport over, which Sans seemed to be doing more of then not during his days off. I was surprised by that notion. Sans was always, for the most part if it meant annoying his younger brother, lazy and lethargic. Though in recent weeks he had been getting more involved in little things, I noticed he was paying more attention when it came to what me and the other younger two were doing, or what we talked about in our daily lives.

I couldn't help but think it was due to Robert's influence that he was rather annoyed with that kept him paying more attention, but I wasn't entirely sure…

"You've been awful quiet," Sans turned to me with a calm expression, though I could see the underlying strain in the edges of his skull and feel the darker emotions emanating from his soul. "Is everything alright?"

He shrugged at me. "M'fine."

"You forget that I can feel your emotions if I focus hard enough, and you're not 'fine', your anxious." Pausing to think, I remembered where were going and it clicked. "You're worried about me meeting Vinnie at Christmas, aren't you?"

Sans groaned, hiding his eye sockets from me behind his arm that laid over them. "Angel, sometimes ya gotta let thin's go."

"You're too valuable a friend for me to do that Sans." I bumped his shoulder to get him to look at me. "I'm scared too, you know. I keep fretting that if we finally do this that Vinnie will tell the king of us, or he'd betray his mother and report every one of us. I know you and Papy stick out your necks for us a lot more then I'd like to admit."

Sans didn't respond then, but I knew he was listening to me. His eye lights followed me as I walked beside him.

"But Bernie seems like she has a good enough relationship with him and she's a tough lady, somewhat like you. Careful who she associates with and who she talks about. Tell me really Sans, would Bernie be as nice as she has been to me if she thought I was any kind of threat?"

He groaned. "Nah… she woulda reported ya ta the guard the first night ya arrived in town."

"I thought so, then we should have some faith in our friend, okay?" My hand landed on his shoulder, trying to give him any form of comfort. I was just as nervous, if not more so then he was. But we had to be brave, especially if we wanted to proceed anymore with making friends in the underground.

I was surprised when I felt Sans reach up to grip the same hand I set on him. He looked away from me, but his grip was strong. I was glad he could even somewhat confide in me, because I knew he'd never say anything to Papyrus or Frisk.

The rest of our walk was in silence as we both thought about how the meeting would go. I just hoped that Bernie was as good at keeping her son under control as she claimed…

Later That Day:

Within half an hour we'd managed to make it to Bernie's inn on the other side of town. Sans and I hadn't spoken since the end of our conversation. I was struggling to take on my own advice and keep calm. I hoped that Sans couldn't feel how stressed I truly was, especially since I knew Bernie would be bringing it up once more.

She always did, either to solidify our answer or remind us of how understanding her son could be.

The door chimed as we entered, the bell above our heads alerting any of the bunny family of our arrival. I was surprised not to see the eldest of the bunny family there but her triplets instead. They were the next eldest with Vinnie being the only other one older than them. Addie seemed to be running the front, her ears twitched and a bright smile reached her face when she saw us arrive with baked goods in hand. Second that I saw was Abe, who was looking over spreadsheets and had a calculator to his side. Bernie had mentioned once or twice that he handled all expenses and write ups for money, taking that stress off of Bernie, but also keeping that little sucker out of the hard work. Al was last and was bringing out a bundle of blankets to set behind the counter when he saw us.

All of them looked near identical with the same creamy colored fur, something that didn't match their mother and most likely came from their father. Abe was the only odd one out from them who had black tips of his ears and fingers, to make it so that the triplets couldn't fool anyone with "who's who"?

"Angel! Sans! Glad to see you two!"

"Those must be the cookies for Mom and the guests!"

"We'll take those from you-"

"Need to store them in the back room-"

"Thank you so much!"

And just like that, two of the triplets hounded me, took the cookies from my hands and were off and gone. Abe was the only one who remained, chuckling at the antics of his energetic other triplets while he remained.

The remaining triplet stood then and walked over to shake my hand. "Good morning, hope Addie and Al didn't hound you too much."

I sighed, stepping back from him. "No more than normal, Abe."

"Yeah, ya could say their more hopin' rather than houndin'."

I rolled my eyes at my roommate. "Okay, that was bad, even for you."

Sans shrugged at me. "Sorry Precious, couldn't resist."

"Hey, don't flirt while I'm trying to work." Abe quickly retreated from us and resumed working on his papers upon the counter. "I have to get these done before the end of the month and Christmas always makes it harder to keep up. God, I can't wait until January..."

I couldn't suppress the giggle. "It's not that much longer away. Give it another week and a half."

"Yeah, hopefully I don't turn as grey as my mother."

The loud smacking sound echoed in the air as I saw Bernie's hand crack down on the top of Abe's head. The young adult yelped in pain, ducking down as his mother loomed over him, a deadly glare coming from her eyes. Abe held the top of his head, trying desperately to protect from any more onslaught against him.

"I heard that you little shit." Bernie stepped around her front desk while her son milked away his headache, his other two triplets very craftily standing out of arm's reach from their mother almost ten feet away in the supposed break room behind the front desk. "You may handle my expenses, but don't you dare test my patience. I still am captain of this little ship and don't you fuckin' forget it."

"Damn it, Ma! That hurt!"

"Now get back to work, all of ya!" The other two triplet's squealed and jumped at her voice before moving back to what they were doing. Bernie seemed to be milking away a headache while she motioned us in the back room with her. "Sorry about them. They got too much energy like their Pa."

"You know, I've never heard you mention him before, Bernie." The darker look to her eyes told me all I needed to know that he was no longer with us. "What was he like?"

Bernie sighed then; I could see her fidgeting as she remembered her husband. It was unlike the proud bunny to do such a thing. Her husband must have been quite the sensitive subject.

"Energetic, he ran this inn with a much kinder attitude then I did." She finally spoke after a few minutes. Her eyes didn't hold the same fire in them as they normally did when she spoke. "I was the rule enforcer while he was the fun guy. The kids always got along better with him then me growin' up."

I felt my body slouch at her slightly depressed look. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Bernie waved me off. "It happened a long time ago, I should be over it by now."

"Losing your other half isn't just 'nothing', Bernie." I tried to suppress the sigh as she turned her back to me, filtering through the cookies I brought her. "That's the person you agreed to spend the rest of your life with, the person who you expected to spend the rest of your life with. It's not easy to move past that when you thought you had forever."

"Yeah, yeah." Bernie sat down at the table, carefully pulling out the pastries to set aside for her family before packaging up the rest in smaller boxes for her guests. "So, you still plannin' on meetin' Vinnie?"

"I sometimes wonder if you trying to talk me out of it with how often you ask me." Walking around the table to face her, I sat across while Sans pulled up a chair just a foot or two away from me. Within reaching distance if he had to teleport us. "That's the plan, unless you think otherwise."

"No, it will be good to do it together. I guess… I'm just nervous too." Bernie stopped for a moment to show me a haunted smile. "Can't lose my best baker here in town."

"Ya said yerself that as long as yer there she'll be safe." Sans butted in with his own sharp comeback, one of his eyes taking on a blue hue. "What's with the hesitation?"

"It's not that I don't have faith in myself, if that's what yer intendin'." The reply came back hot and aggressive from Bernie, who tried to hold back a snarl. Her ears pressed down against her head and I saw this was an argument soon to brew. "I just… realized how bad the consequences were if thin's don't go accordin' to plan. Angel… it feels like yer one of my kids half the time. I'm protectin' ya from others. I just… I can't lose anyone else I hold dear..."

My shoulders fell and I looked back at Sans who had turned away at the raw show of emotion that Bernie was allowing us to see. It wasn't like her to be so open with her emotions, so either she was too worn down to fight it, or she was too emotional to care.

I slipped my hands on top of hers. "Well then I guess we'll need to work extra hard to convince Vinnie not to capture or kill me, okay?"

Bernie's only response to me was to nod in agreement. A silence passed over us all then, still fairly worried about what would come to pass within just a short time span of a week or so…

Early Evening:

After speaking with Bernie for a little while longer, Sans and I decided to take the long walk around Snowdin to get home. We needed more time to think before we got back to the younger ones who would be demanding attention. Papyrus with his up and coming act for the talent show he worked on daily and Frisk being his biggest cheerleader. The two of them were currently trying to rope Sans into the mix as well, trying to make him sing with Papyrus with his much lower voice giving off an incredible contrast. I thought it would be a good idea, but Sans wasn't sold on the idea just yet.

Papyrus was begging him every night to agree.

It was about all we could do to prepare besides setting up for the party we planned to host in a weeks' time when Christmas got there. Christmas eve we would be hosting a near twenty or so people in the house. Papyrus was thrilled with all the prospects of others being in his home and perhaps some new friends to make.

I always seemed to notice that Papyrus got along best with those that weren't his own age. Was that just me noticing that? Perhaps I should consult Sans about that at one point or another.

The house came into sight after our silent walk around the edge of town. Once the Christmas lights came into view, I sped up my pace a bit to get back where I was warm. I careful tuck of my head to block an incoming wind forced me to look back and see that Sans wasn't following me.

"I'm gonna stay out here a bit longer, kay?"

"Sans?" I turned back, even as a harsh wind tried to cut us apart. "Why? The little ones are waiting for us."

"I… uh… need a bit longer before I head back."

I hated to press him, but I was worried. It was unlike to take off that like suddenly, at least, not unless we were all safely inside the house or Sans knew where we were. Today hasn't been a good day today, and with even Bernie showing us how fearful she was for us to be taken, it could seen it was putting Sans on edge.

Fighting against the wind, I stepped back toward Sans. I saw him step back as if to teleport away, but once my hand latched onto him, he stopped. He was no longer hiding his tired looking face and irritation was starting to show. I knew he didn't want me to see that.

"Sans… are you mad at me? For agreeing to this?"

Even if I already knew the answer to that question…

"I ain't mad at ya. Just… the situation."

"Do you think it's too soon?"

"I don't think ya should be doin' this, no."

"You didn't answer my question." Sans sighed while I prodded him further. "You'd rather I didn't do this at all, wouldn't you?"

"Angel, yer only safe here. Snowdin's the only place where no one's out ta kill ya."

"Sans, I have to try. I can't hide away here or I might as well have never left Tori in the ruins."

"At least ya were safe up there."

"But what is being safe if it means my freedom? Or Frisk's?" I dared not to let him go, knowing he'd teleport away the second I did. "She can't go to school like other children. She still isn't having any sort of a normal upbringing. My goal had always been to head to other locations… I was hoping that with our cover story I could go with you to some of these other places and meet other people down here and introduce myself as Ravie. Perhaps even make lasting friendships with them so that when I do one day reveal myself, they'll realize that humans aren't all that bad. They've known one for x amount of time."

"And who says that they'll do that?" The steam that came from Sans' skull made me a bit nervous. The lights faded from his sockets and single blue eye appeared, filled to the brim with magic that he tried to keep himself from lashing out with. I felt it so as his arms trembled beneath his jacket. "Angel, yer a human. I don't need ta remind ya they only need one more human soul to break the barrier. And no matter how 'buddy-buddy' ya get with some of these monsters, they will never accept you."

I straightened my back at bit at the tense atmosphere, the wind not helping. "I know that. But I still have to take the risk. I did with you and look how it turned out."

"I'm not like other monsters."

"I never said you were." God, why couldn't I get through to him? "Sans, if I never tried like you want me to. I'd never had met you, or Pap. I never would have met all the amazing friends I now have in this tiny little town! Grillby, Sara, Maria, Bernie and all the little ones. And many more don't even pay me any mind as I walk the streets! They see I'm no threat and walk beside me like we're the same! Who's to say other places won't be like that too?"

He gave me an emotionless face of displeasure. "The king will kill ya."

"Then I'll just have to befriend him and show him otherwise."

"Yer insane…" The groan that came from him behind his fingers didn't surprise me, though the blue glow seemed to fade. He was calming down, or giving in. "…Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yeah. If yer so dead set on headin' out into the rest of the underground, I guess I gotta stop actin' like a sad sack of bones and help ya out. However, it's on my terms, got it?"

I breathed easier than, slacking some of my grip on his jacket. "I never wanted to go out on my own, I know it's safer with you there to teleport and fill in the blanks, Sans. I'm okay with that."

"Good, then ya have to wait until after the New Year."

"Another three weeks?" I blinked at him. "Why?"

"Because Christmas makes everybody weird, after the holidays everything will go back to normal and everyone won't act so crazy. Royal guard patterns will start back up I don't have ta worry about the possibility the king might show up."

I didn't even think of that possibility…

"Of course. It's a deal then."

And that was part of the other reason I relied on Sans so much besides his charm and jokes. His quick-thinking mind and his ability to think of all that doesn't come to mind. Being a resident of the underground for so many years allowed him all this knowledge that he could utilize in our favor. I never even dreamed that a king would come to a small festival on the edge of his kingdom.

But if Sans thought it was a possibility and we should worry, then worry we will. We would prepare for it.

I just hoped that it actually wouldn't happen... I didn't think I was ready to face the king of the underground just yet...

Witch's Note:

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late chapter. I hated that it was posted a bit late but I had a medical thing come up again that prevented me from doing so. But! I'll be going in for surgery next Wednesday and hopefully this will never happen again! I am so excited to get this over with and not have to worry about eating foods that will hurt me.

Anyway, what an emotional chapter! We see the worried signs of Sans and Bernie here as they get ready to reveal Angel and Frisk to a royal guard! Oh my goodness! Who would have guessed? And Sans is going to take Angel to Waterfall after the new year! I guess you all know what that means!

We're finally going to be meeting a favorite little fish lady that I'm sure plenty of you wanted to see!

But we still have issues with Robert and the fair going on! How long until that idiot comes to his senses or will his fair be ruined? Who knows? You'll just have to wait and see!

Now onto our reviews!

ShunGod: Mystic Girl appreciates the praise…. (a slam off in the distance catches my attention while writing this) Oh my God! Mystic Girl I told you get away from that bunker! Don't you dare!

RoseCentury: Don't worry about if your bored or not! I thought it bear-tastic! See ya soon!

Love you all and see you next Saturday with my new self! I'm so ready to get this surgery over with… Please don't forget to send in reviews and comments!

Halloween Witch