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Toriel murmured in her sleep, rolling on something soft. She blinked, lying in a cramped, awkward position with her face down on the cushion of a sofa. She briefly entertained the notion of simply shrugging off the pounding headache in favor of the somewhat pleasant, if slightly disturbing dream that she had been having. It had all started with something extremely unsettling, though she couldn't necessarily pin down what, exactly.
"Mom...?"
"Yes Frisk?" she muttered without opening her eyes, slowly rolling to sit up.
"Um... a-actually, it's-it's me."
Toriel forced her bloodshot eyes open, realizing that she was not, in fact, at home having fallen asleep on the couch with the familiar ticking of their grandfather clock but instead in Alphys's living room. And standing directly before her, draped in a much too large lab coat with a belt tied around the middle, was the impossible.
"... Asriel?" her voice cracked and she held a hand to the side of her head to keep from reeling.
"It's... it's me, mom!" he threw his arms wide, lab coat flapping as he did so. "I'm finally home."
Toriel struggled to speak, a lump forming in her throat. She finally managed to stand and kneel before him so that they were the same height and she could look directly into his violet eyes.
He hadn't aged a single day.
Toriel at last released the clenched sob that had been building in her throat, pulling her lost son to her chest in a tight hug.
"My-my baby..." she wept openly, not daring to let go for even an instant should he turn to dust. "Please, please oh god don't let this be another nightmare please-"
"Mom," Asriel's muffled voice came from her bosom. "It's really me; Alphys saved me!"
The memory of what had happened flooded back, cluttered with her rampaging thoughts and wild emotions making processing it all quickly a challenge. In the doorway and attempting to hide (very poorly) was Frisk, just peeking out with Sans standing a little taller behind her, with Alphys poking her nose out above his and Papyrus wide eyed behind them all beside a tense Undyne.
"... You guys can come in now," Asriel grinned, waving at them. "Mom is okay."
"Mom is okay," Toriel repeated, tears streaming down her cheeks, trying not to let her voice crack again. "You're okay, you're-you're okay, my baby boy is alive!"
"Thank doctor Alphys," Sans folded away a pair of square glasses. "She's the hero here."
"I-wha-me?" she spluttered, red creeping into her cheeks. "Oh-oh, no no no, I-I'm not a hero-"
"I beg to differ," Undyne's hand made its way to her shoulder, somehow making her blush even harder. "Bringing a lost child back to his mother. Seems pretty damned heroic if you ask me. Sexy, even."
Alphys had to excuse herself to stem the sudden nosebleed.
"This-this is what they've been working on, Mom," the former flower held out his arms, the sleeves draped far too long over his hands. "Doctor Alphys and Sans have been working so hard on a way to bring me back... and they did! I'm finally home, Mom!"
Throughout Asriel's speech, Toriel remained utterly silent, quietly weeping with one hand gripping her mouth tightly, her eyes focusing on something far in the distance.
"... Mom?" Asriel asked, worried. "Is-is it something I said? Mom?"
"I never thought I'd hear your voice again." she blinked through the tears, slowly pulling her hand from her mouth to embrace him. "My little prince. I made peace with never seeing you again. I-I spread you ashes..."
"It's okay, Mom," Asriel struggled to keep her from looking down, using two fingers to prod her head back up to look at him, even though her eyes were still downcast. "I'm back. You don't have to worry anymore! I'm-I'm home. I can explain everything-"
"There will be time for that later," she shook her head in a bit of a daze, eyes still slightly unfocused. "Just come here, Asriel. If this really is a dream I want it to last just a little bit longer. Please."
The watching group let the mother and son have their moment of silence, wordlessly embracing and listening to the sound of half giddy laughter and half heart wracking sobs.
"Whelp," Sans spun his slippers on the cool linoleum, clapping his hands together. "I think the guests have overstayed their welcome, let's give 'em some space, ey?"
Sans didn't make it a meter away before a floating blazing white hot magical arrow descended upon him from behind, jabbing him back toward the living room. He shot Undyne a look, but she only shrugged. Sans blinked, taking the hint and slowly shuffling in where Toriel sat with Asriel tucked up close to her, arm wrapped tight around him with a large smile on his face.
Toriel, unfortunately, had a pretty good poker face.
"Asriel tells me that Alphys and you are responsible for returning my son from beyond the grave," she asked conversationally, as if talking about the weather.
"That's pretty much the gist of it," he shrugged without taking his hands out of his pockets. He fumbled to keep a grip on the pair of square spectacles, suddenly feeling an odd pang of guilt which he was quick to bury.
"I-I wanted to thank you," she said softly, standing to again kneel, this time before Sans with a gentle look in her eyes. It made him want to cover his cheeks from the look she was giving him; he wasn't entirely sure if skeletons could blush, but he might have been doing so.
"Hey, think nothin' of it, your majesty," he shrugged once again. "Can't have the house getting too quiet, can we?"
"Sans."
"Y-yeah your majesty."
"You can still call me Tori, I'm not mad," she grinned at him with a slow half sad half cheerful smile.
"It wasn't his idea to keep it a secret!" Asriel interjected, flopping around on the couch to look at them. "I mean, if that was what you were gonna say. I-I asked them not to tell anybody about the whole 'being a flower' thing. I-I just... I couldn't stand breaking your heart all over again."
Sans and Toriel stared at him before slowly looking back to each other.
She leaned downward, arms on his shoulders before kissing him, leaving his mind shocked and dull. He suddenly felt gravity obeying its own laws and wasn't sure which way to fall from sheer surprise, but some small part of his brain urged him onward to lean into the kiss, the furious glowing blue blush now much more apparent.
"Ew, gross!" Asriel wailed from the sofa, covering his eyes with the too long arm of his lab coat. "Come on, man! That's my mom you're sticking your nasty lips on! Blech!"
Toriel and Sans broke away with awkward chortles, eyes locking for just a few bare moments that said just as much as the short kiss did. Sans's dopey grin matched her own as she stood and readjusted her dress, her smile lighting up the dark room.
"Thank you, Sans," she put a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks to you and the good doctor Alphys, I've been given a second chance to be a better mother; you gave my baby boy a second chance at life."
"Sorry about keeping you in the dark for so long," Sans struggled to brush that little bit under the rug. "We just, uh... really didn't want to wind up getting you excited for something that might have been a dead end."
"I'm glad things worked out the way that they did," she picked up Asriel in one arm effortlessly, her child laughing as she did so. "You have no idea what this means to me," her voice wavered. "My-my life is different now."
"In a good way?" he asked hopefully.
"In a good way," she laughed, putting her spare hand on his head. "You are one of the best things in my life, Sans."
Still just a friend after all. Always just a friend.
"Am I at least number two?" Asriel turned to her and asked.
"Hey, nothing wrong with bronze medal," she chuckled, earning an offended look from the kid.
"There's TONS of things wrong with that!"
Toriel couldn't hear him over Sans's relieved laughter. She was quick to join him, and for a brief moment the exhaustion from days of no sleep, the constant worry lines, the aches from awkwardly waiting for what might be a hopeless situation all disappeared, just for a little while, in their laughter. Undyne wanted to join them, she really did, but she felt her place was better next to Alphys until everyone calmed down and the situation defused a bit more.
Papyrus hardly noticed Frisk hiding behind his leg, chewing uncomfortably on one finger.
"What's the matter, little one?" Papyrus leaned down and asked in his quietest voice, which unfortunately wasn't very quiet at all. "Is something the matter?"
"No, no," she lied. "... Well, yes. It's just, um..."
"Yes...?" Papyrus motioned for her to continue while the others were still distracted with the rejoicing family.
"... It's nothing," she shook her head as Toriel beckoned her over for a hug, nearly sprinting the short distance. "Thanks for listening to me, Papy."
"No worries, tiny human! The Great Papyrus is always here to help!"
Although what I helped with I have absolutely no idea. How peculiar.
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He could no longer hear the chirrup of birdsong this early in the morning, or perhaps it was just because there were no windows this deep down.
Sans stood in the basement of Alphys's home, her messy laboratory feeling vast around him as he stared with empty eye sockets directly at the wide screen. It was the same thing every time he ran the program, the same variables and same outcomes. His eyes drifted from the terminated program before starting the rerun, hands deep in his pockets and clenched to ward off the cold that he didn't feel.
Time and time again he watched Alphys's monitor display the exact same thing, over and over and over again, and each time he still couldn't believe it.
The cool bottle in his hand was over half empty, and he finished off the remainder of the amber liquid to drown the roller coaster in his heart and numbly focus on the graphs. The charts wouldn't, couldn't lie. The system was built off of Gaster's very own quantum timeline observation device. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough, and that just made the numbness creeping in a little bit worse. It made him want to just give in to the hopelessness that maybe it really was impossible, staring up at the unchanging graphs. He finished off the bottle with a quick swig, letting it burn his throat until it set fire to the sadness that ran through him.
No changes whatsoever in the timeline. No little hiccups. No tears or significant branching iterations. No cataclysmic events that could rupture the entire timeline into shreds and destroy the universe from the inside out.
Until today.
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A/N
Hey there, readers! Hope you enjoyed the story so far, please let me know if you did! I'm always looking to improve in any way that I can, so also please lemme know if I missed any spelling errors or typos, 'cause, y'know, I'm not exactly perfect. See you in the next chapter, errbody.