Toby Fox owns Undertale and all associated characters..

Sans stood outside Toriel's house. He'd been here for almost five minutes now, debating whether or not he should knock.

No, that wasn't entirely true. He knew he had to. Some part of him had always known that this day would come. He was just delaying the inevitable.

He sighed, rubbing the front of his skull with his hand. This was bad. According to Undyne, Chara had barely said a word since she got back, and had spent the entire week he'd been out of commission by Kid's bedside. He'd talked to Alphys… there was nothing they could do for now except wait and hope he woke up. If he didn't…

Sans had seen the anger and grief on Chara's face as she held Kid close to her. If he died, there was no doubt in his mind that she would kill again, and that would destroy everything they'd worked so hard towards in the past few years.

And now, the others were back from Paris. Apparently, at least the meeting itself had gone fairly smoothly. Which Sans appreciated. Chara was bad enough, he didn't want to have to fight a war on two fronts.

Maybe… maybe it was for the best that Toriel wanted him to spill the beans. If she knew everything, maybe she'd be able to help him salvage something from this disaster. He was so tired of dealing with all of this alone...

Ah well. Might as well get it over with. He took the last step forwards and rapped his knuckles sharply on the wooden door. After a few moments it opened to reveal Toriel, dressed in her old faded blue robe. She looked down at him for a moment before opening the door wide enough to allow the skeleton passage.

She didn't say anything, so Sans didn't either. Once he was inside, he followed her to the living room to find that she had set up the two reading chairs across from each other. She took a seat in one, and gestured to the other.

As Sans settled himself in, Toriel spoke.

"Frisk and Asgore are not here. I believe it is best that I hear what you have to say alone. You may begin whenever you're ready."

Sans sighed and folded his hands together in his lap as he watched the former queen.

"Alright, but on one condition. There's a lot of things to be said, and I have had very good reason for not telling anyone before now. So I want you to wait until I finish before you say anything. After that…" He shrugged. "Well, I guess we'll see."

Toriel stared at him for a moment, before inclining her head in acquiescence. The skeleton leaned back and closed his sockets.

"Everything, huh? Where do I even begin…" He chuckled. "The beginning, I guess. But where even is the beginning in this whole mess? Complicated beginnings… let's start with that.

"When you met Frisk, you felt like you had seen him before. You knew he liked butterscotch more than cinnamon, and when you tried to stop him from leaving, you had the uncomfortable feeling that he had seen you die before. Sound about right?"

He cracked open a socket, and Toriel's shocked expression told him everything he needed to know.

"You felt that way because it was true. You had seen him before, and he had seen you die. Because Frisk… and Chara, had the power to manipulate time.

"I still don't have much more than theories on how it all works, though when that Defiler guy showed up, it filled in some of the blanks. While we were in the Underground, Frisk and Chara had the power to Save certain moments in time, allowing them to go back to them anytime they wished. This even prevented them from dying, since they could go back to their last Save at the moment of death and try again, with no one being the wiser.

"I'm pretty sure the power stemmed from Chara, but it was Frisk's Determination that amplified it to the point where it was as powerful as it was. So they needed each other to keep that power, even though they spent the entire time fighting for control.

"You remember how when Chara revealed herself, she said she had been angry? Well, that was a bit of an understatement. Frisk wanted… well, you've seen what he wanted. That's what he did this time around. Befriend everyone. Help everyone. Bring us up to the surface and out of the darkness below. But Chara…

"Whenever she took control, she would kill. It didn't matter who they were, she didn't care. She just wanted to destroy everything. And she almost did. For a while, Frisk was able to fight her on equal terms. She'd take control for a while, but Frisk would eventually come out on top again, and restart the timeline all the way back to just before he met you. But eventually, Chara overpowered him.

"That was the timeline just before this one. She took control from the start and held it all the way through.

"Tori, I watched her. She killed everyone. Papyrus, Mettaton, Undyne, Muffet, everyone she came across. Even you. By the end of it, only me, Asgore and Alphys were left, along with whoever Alphys managed to get away from Chara's knife. That would have been the end of it but… I stopped her in Judgement hall. I stalled her long enough for Frisk to take back control and restart everything.

"After that, she didn't seem to be a problem anymore. She rarely took control, and when she did, she never hurt anyone. When we got to the surface, Frisk took me to the side and told me everything. I'd already pieced together some of it myself, but he filled in most of the blanks. For whatever reason, I'm more aware of the timelines than other people. Still not sure why, but it made for an… interesting experience back in the Underground.

"Since we left though, there hasn't been any messing with the timelines at all. And now that Chara and Frisk are separated, I don't think either of them can manipulate time anymore."

He opened his sockets and leaned forward, looking straight at Toriel, whose head was lowered, her body visibly trembling.

"But that's not the problem. Chara has changed a lot since then. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually like the kid now. But she still has the capacity to kill. She has done it before and she can do it again. She's angry and hurting right now. If we're not careful, she may be reminding us of that truth sooner rather than later."

He finally fell silent, keeping his eyes trained on the Boss Monster before him. He'd just dumped a lot of information on her. He expected her to lash out, to deny everything that he'd just said, especially the idea that her daughter was a killer.

He did not expect her to whisper; "I'm sorry."

He blinked in confusion.

"Tori… It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with this."

She shook her head slowly, then raised it, looking at Sans with sorrow in her eyes.

"Not that… I am sorry you had to carry this burden alone. I have been such a fool not to have seen this sooner. You are the Judge, aren't you?"

Sans stiffened.

"You… know about that?"

Toriel gestured to where the kingdom's symbol was woven into her robe, three triangles beneath a winged circle.

"Do you know what this signifies?"

"Yeah… the triangles are us Monsters, and the circle represents the Angel." He shrugged. "Or the Humans, depends on who you ask. Why, is it important?"

"That is what it came to mean," Toriel said quietly. "But this symbol existed long before the prophecy, long before we were sealed Underground. And back then, it had a different meaning."

She pointed to the triangles. "These symbolized three Monsters, each given great power, enough to rival and surpass Boss Monsters. They acted as advisors and people of great influence under the Boss Monster clans, symbolized by the winged circle here." She gave a grim smile. "Or under the ruling family, after most of the clans were decimated.

"The Judge was one of these three roles, but they were never meant to exist in a vacuum. You were supposed to be supported by your brethren, instead of being forced to deal with your situation alone.

"The Judge I knew died not long before I left Asgore. I had not thought he would continue appointing them in my absence. He never fully understood their roles… or their power."

Sans was silent. He probably couldn't speak even if he'd wanted to. He'd known that the role of Judge was an important one, and he'd even known that at least a part of his power stemmed from it somehow. But he had never guessed at anything like this.

"The Judge was the voice of justice." Toriel continued. "And his was the final say among the three. The next role, was the voice of the people. The Jury. That was my role." She gave a bitter laugh. "Is my role. Even though I left Asgore and abandoned my duties, I never stopped being the Jury. And because of that, a new one could not be appointed to support you."

Sans finally found his voice hiding somewhere under his chair.

"And the third?" He managed.

"The third could not be appointed like the others. It was not a role to give, but one you were born with. The last of them perished near the beginning of the war, when Humans turned on us. The third is the one Monster who possesses Determination. The Executioner."

"That sounds uh… A little ominous."

"The Executioner's role was mostly to carry out the decisions agreed upon by the Judge and Jury. That rarely entailed actually hurting anyone but..."

Toriel's voice trailed off and she sighed.

"I was the first Boss Monster to be appointed to one of these roles. Now… I think I understand why they were meant for regular Monsters."

The two fell silent, each pondering what the other had told them. After several minutes, Toriel spoke up again.

"About Chara… Are you certain?"

"Yeah." Sans replied. "We might want to get Undyne in on this too… She's the Executioner isn't she?"

Toriel winced. "Yes… I suppose so."

"Well, between the three of us, maybe we can figure something out. We need to keep Chara from hurting anyone.

"Including herself."

Author's note, Response to Orange-is-love: Some very interesting ideas you put in your review there! I think most of them have at least been somewhat answered in this chapter... though your ideas on how Chara might try to use her own soul to save Kid were intriguing. The obvious solution would, of course, be to just allow him to absorb her soul, but in his current state he's too weaka to accomplish that. We know that when Monsters absorb souls, both parties have somewhat control over the body, though the Monster seems to be able to overpower the other if necessary. As for resorting to trying to save him with DT... we'll just have to see how desperate she gets.