Chapter Text
No matter how many times she told herself that it would all be fine, part of her still refused to believe it.
She set the date for the trip far later than she had originally intended, wanting to give Papyrus—and, to a lesser extent, Sans—plenty of time to get used to the idea of being by themselves for a couple of days. Wanting to make sure Papyrus had completely recovered from the accident in the kitchen, and wasn’t going to break down as soon as she stepped out the door. But as the date grew closer, two weeks away, one week, three days, two, one—
Part of her still screamed that she was making the wrong decision.
But … she didn’t have a choice, did she? This was the only way to get Papyrus glasses. And he needed glasses—his weak vision was making his life more difficult in so many ways, and it was so easy to fix, if she could just find the right pair. And there had been plenty of glasses tossed out in the dump, last time she checked. It wouldn’t be hard to find them. She would only be gone for two days. Just two days, and Papyrus’s vision problems would be fixed for good. Or … at least for a long time.
Not all of his problems, of course. She knew there were plenty of underlying ones, problems that had blown this vision issue into something far greater than it would have been otherwise. She knew that she would have to work with him, help him, build up his confidence so that he wasn’t so easily shattered. But … this would help. She was sure it would help.
It had to help.
But as she stood over her bed, her bag already packed and sitting at her feet, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from running wild. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about everything that could go wrong while she was away. Papyrus could have another meltdown. Sans could have a meltdown, even if that seemed less likely. They could try to use the stove and set something on fire—even though they had never tried to use the stove without her before. They could go out into the Ruins and get lost. They could have a nightmare and not be able to comfort each other. They could get lonely, or bored, or she could come back with a bag of glasses in tow and find them both an emotional wreck.
Was it really worth it, with so much to lose?
No, she told herself. There was so much to lose, but there was also so much to gain. And risks were inevitable now and then. She had taken a risk when she went into Gaster’s lab, and if she hadn’t …
She tried not to think about that.
She had to take this risk. And she had taken plenty of precautions. She had made them enough meals to get them through five days, all of their favorite foods and several desserts, and portioned them out for each meal and snacks. She had collected some new toys from around the Ruins to keep them occupied.
Should she have found them some new books? Sans would certainly enjoy them, but Papyrus … well, he might have liked some picture books, or large print books. Maybe she should put together some books for him to read once he could see properly? Like a special treat for him once she returned. She turned to her bookcase, running her fingers along some of the ones at the top before pulling out a brightly colored title. She brought it down, brushing her hand over the cover to remove the layer of dust—
“ARE YOU LEAVING FOR GOOD?”
Toriel jolted, and the book slipped out of her hands, falling with a thud to the floor at her feet.
She spun around so fast she almost fell over, her eyes wide, her head spinning as all her half-baked thoughts swung to the back of her head.
Papyrus stood in the doorway, his hands clenched in his robes, his eyes wide, his mouth pressed into a tight, wobbling line.
Toriel blinked. Then she blinked again, and again a few times after that.
“What?” she breathed, as his words started to register in the back of her head. The words, and the expression he was wearing to match. “Papyrus … I—”
“I KNOW I’M NOT GOOD ENOUGH RIGHT NOW, BUT I CAN DO IT!” he cut her off, as if he hadn’t even heard her speak. “I CAN BE REALLY REALLY GREAT! I KNOW I CAN! JUST … JUST TELL ME HOW, AND I’LL DO IT!”
He was shaking. His voice, his body, every part of him was shaking, almost as bad as he had been in the kitchen weeks ago. Her instincts screamed for her to run forward, to take him into her arms and hold him, but she couldn’t make herself move. Not while her brain was still struggling to comprehend what he was saying.
She shook her head, her brow furrowed, her mouth hanging open as she tried to find the right words. “Papyrus, my child, what are you talking about?”
A faint whimper slipped past his teeth, and he ducked his head, his little fingers clutching at the fabric of his robes.
“I … I DON’T … I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE,” he murmured, so quietly she almost missed it. He shook harder, the rattling of his bones so loud she swore she could feel it echoing through her own body. He looked up again, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “I’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. JUST TELL ME WHAT IT IS! I … I WANT TO BE GREAT. I WANT TO BE REALLY REALLY GREAT, SO YOU’LL WANT TO STAY WITH US FOREVER, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU A LOT AND I ALWAYS WANT YOU TO BE HERE WITH ME AND SANS AND I KNOW I’M NOT GOOD AT A LOT OF THINGS LIKE MY BROTHER IS BUT I CAN DO BETTER! I … PLEASE. PLEASE, JUST LET ME TRY!”
She swore she could feel her insides being torn apart with each word that left his mouth. She turned around more fully, steadying herself on her feet, taking a step toward him and reaching out a hand.
“Papyrus, I’m not … I’m just going on a trip. I’m coming back.”
“BUT WHAT IF YOU’RE LYING?” he went on, his voice cracking, before she could get close enough to touch him. He flinched at his own words, then dropped his head to stare at the floor. “I … I KNOW YOU WOULDN’T LIE, BUT … WHAT IF YOU’RE SCARED TO TELL US THE TRUTH? WHAT IF YOU WANTED TO LEAVE FOR A LONG TIME BUT YOU JUST DIDN’T WANT TO SAY IT?”
He was still shaking. She had never seen him shake this hard, not since that time he had collapsed, screaming and crying, out in the Ruins, after he had used blue magic for the first time since she had found them.
“WHAT IF … WHAT IF YOU LEAVE AND WE WAIT AND WAIT BUT … YOU DON’T COME BACK.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Words seemed useless now. She seemed useless now. She had come all this way, she had brought them so far, and yet she had missed so much. They had been here a year and a half, but still, she could see the echoes, the scars, of everything they had suffered through.
Everything they might never have had to face if she had been there to stop it.
“HE LEFT US ALONE A LOT,” Papyrus went on, snapping her attention back to him. “I … SOMETIMES I THOUGHT HE WASN’T GOING TO COME BACK BUT HE DID AND I THOUGHT MAYBE … MAYBE THIS TIME I’D BE GOOD ENOUGH. I THOUGHT … MAYBE … THIS TIME I’D BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM TO … NOT WANT TO HURT ME ANYMORE. I THOUGHT I’D BE SO GOOD THAT HE’D MAKE A GOOD CHOICE INSTEAD.”
The line of his mouth wobbled, the first few tears slipping down his cheekbones.
“BUT I NEVER WAS.”
His voice cracked, so quiet and broken and scared that she swore he was still that little boy in the medical gown she had seen on the other side of the beams. His breathing sped up, and his head began to shake back and forth, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
“AND … YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN SO NICE TO US BUT I NEVER FIGURED OUT HOW TO BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU AND I … I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO TO MAKE YOU WANT TO STAY AND I … I …”
And then his voice broke, snapping off into silence like a plank that had been strained and pressed and finally snapped under all the weight piled onto it. A sob forced its way out of his throat, and another, and another, and the tears came faster, so fast they seemed to be pouring out of him, like he had been holding back a whole other wave of tears since the moment he arrived.
Toriel screamed at every one of her muscles, at her tongue, at her brain, and finally, they obeyed.
“Papyrus … oh, my dear …”
He looked up at her, the sobs still coming, like he was sobbing instead of breathing.
With one final push, Toriel crossed the space between them, dropped down to her knees, and pulled him forward into her arms.
Papyrus pressed his face into her robes and wailed.
It was possibly the most painful sound she had ever heard. She had heard monsters dying, tortured, murdered throughout the war, she had watched her own son turn to dust, she had seen things most monsters couldn’t imagine, but right here, right now, she had never heard anything more heart-wrenching than his cries. She held him, murmured to him, rocked him back and forth, but like an infant, he kept crying, letting out everything he had kept trapped inside him for far longer than she had been in his life.
After a minute, she gave up on trying to comfort him. She had held too many crying children to believe that she could always make it better. Sometimes there was too much pain to be fixed, and sometimes … sometimes she didn’t need to fix it. Sometimes they just needed to get it out, like an over-boiled pot spilling over, like humans purged a virus from their body. Sometimes they just needed to let out all their pain.
But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t do any good for there to be someone here to receive it.
So she held him. She held him so tightly she almost worried she would break him. She held him secure against her, a silent reassurance that she was here, she wasn’t leaving, she would be here forever, he had been abandoned but she wouldn’t abandon him again. She loved him. And she was here.
He clung to her, squeezing bunches of her robes and even her fur in his hands, screaming and sobbing into her shoulder until it was soaked, shaking so hard she swore she could feel herself vibrating right along with him. But even as she shook, she kept him grounded, as best she could, reminding him with her murmurs of love, with her hand rubbing his back, with the tiny kisses pressed to the top of his skull, that she wasn’t going to let him go. That she cared about him. That he wasn’t alone, and that she loved him no less just because he was in pain.
Even in the midst of it all, though, she could still hear her own voice whispering in the back of her head. Whispering about how oblivious she had been, even when she thought she had finally seen what was wrong. She had seen one problem, and in trying to solve it, she had completely failed to notice the extent of another. She had forgotten how many issues she had yet to resolve.
It had been a year and a half. But really, how long was that, when he had been hurting since the day he came into the world?
When there were scars on his body, on his mind, that would likely remain as long as he lived?
She wanted to apologize. To say that she was sorry she hadn’t been able to help him, sorry she hadn’t seen this, sorry that she had failed to heal something so deep-rooted, something that had been shaking him at his foundations from the beginning. But she knew that apologies would do no good. She knew that she couldn’t expect everything from herself anymore than she could expect it from him.
There were things she couldn’t fix. Scars she couldn’t heal. Problems that might be there the rest of his life.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t try to fix them, as soon as she knew what they were.
This was her son. Her precious, wonderful son.
And he was worth fighting for.
She knelt there on the floor, holding him, until his screams quieted to sobs, and his sobs to whimpering little cries. Then she got to her feet, adjusting him in her arms until she was cradling him like a baby, like she had carried Asriel, like she had carried Sans months before that first time during their training. Like the man who created him should have held him, should have treasured him, the moment he was born.
And like a baby, she rocked him, swaying her body back and forth, humming all the lullabies she remembered from her own childhood, in languages very few living monsters knew. In between the ending notes of one and the starting of the next, she whispered how much she loved him, how perfect he was, right now, just the way he was, how much she wanted him here, how sad she would be if she lost him.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, moving with beat of their souls, shifting from song to song, like she had in the months after she first gave birth. She wasn’t sure how long it took his final whimpers to quiet, for his body to go limp in her arms, the hands clenched into her robes to loosen. Even after she was sure he was asleep, she kept moving for a few minutes, as if to assure that his unconscious mind settled into pleasant dreams. Then she moved, carefully—almost instinctively—to the bed, leaning back against her pillows and settling Papyrus against her side, tucked under her arm, his head resting on her chest.
He wasn’t a baby. She knew that. Physically, he was almost full-grown, and mentally … she still wasn’t sure. But from what she could tell, he had never had the chance to be an infant. To depend entirely on someone else, someone who he could depend on. To be loved, cared for, nurtured, as every infant should be.
Sans had needed that, months before, when he finally opened up. And his brother clearly needed it just as much.
She looked down at him, like she had looked at Sans, cradled in her arms after training. He had looked so vulnerable, so scared … yet somehow, so trusting, even if that trust flinched away later the same day. It had taken months, but he had finally accepted that she wanted to help him. That she wanted him there. That she cared.
Papyrus had seemed to accept it so easily, so quickly, but … perhaps that had been naive of her. He hadn’t pushed away her affections, certainly. But perhaps he hadn’t accepted it quite as thoroughly as she had assumed.
Perhaps he hadn’t let himself believe he deserved it.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes after she laid down when she heard the soft padding of footsteps in the hall. Her arm still settled around Papyrus, she looked up, just in time to see Sans stop in the doorway, right where Papyrus had stood earlier.
He was in his pajamas, his feet bare. She wondered when he had gotten changed. She wondered what time it was, how long had passed since Papyrus had appeared in her room. It was probably obscenely late by now, but Sans didn’t look tired.
Or … rather, he did. But he looked tired in the way she suspected she did herself. That bone-deep, overwhelming tiredness that came from pain piled on until it seemed to crush you, the tiredness that took far more than a good night’s sleep to heal. The tiredness that should never have shown up in someone so young.
His eyes flicked to her, but they settled almost immediately on his brother, and she could see the sadness, the dullness, grow in his eyelights. The house was small, and sound traveled well, and Papyrus’s voice carried even when he tried to be quiet. She had no doubt Sans had heard almost every word of what his brother said.
And even if he hadn’t, he had certainly heard the crying.
He had heard it, but he had stayed away. Because despite all his doubt, despite his old suspicions, he had trusted her to care for the most important person in his life.
Perhaps later she would allow herself to feel as moved as she should.
For now, she watched Sans’s smile tighten and shake, even though it never fell. She watched his eyelights flicker into darkness, then reappear a second later, even more pained than before.
“he never thought he was good enough,” he muttered at last, so quietly she had to strain her ears to hear it. He still wasn’t looking at her. “he said he did. said he knew he was smart and cool and all that stuff. but … he never really believed it.”
His eyelights went dark again, and his smile twisted into the closest he could manage to a frown.
“he never let him.”
That same hatred still burned in his voice, despite the time that had passed, and more than ever before, Toriel understood it.
“always told him he was mediocre,” Sans went on, talking as much to himself as to her. “dumb. an idiot. always gave him tests he couldn’t do, said he was stupid cause he couldn’t do them.”
He had told her this before, of course. Many times now. But somehow, it hit harder this time. Somehow, now, for the first time, she really got it.
And for a split second, she felt the full force of the anger that had hit her in the early days, when all she could think about was the crimes committed against these two innocent children, crimes that had been unimaginable for most of her life. She felt the blinding fury, the desire to make the perpetrator suffer.
The raw feeling that had muddled months before, when she finally realized, truly realized, who that perpetrator was.
Sans fidgeted, and Toriel forced her mind away from her thoughts, back to the boy standing just inside her doorway. He glanced between her and the floor, as if sorting through his memories, trying to figure out how much he needed—or wanted—to dig up.
“i kept telling him it wasn’t true,” he went on at last, even more quietly than usual. “i told him … don’t let him get to ya. cause i knew he was wrong, i knew my bro was smart and cool, he was the best, but … it never mattered as much, coming from me.”
He paused again, and his smile slipped as small as it ever went, his shoulders falling.
“maybe i wasn’t good enough, either.”
“Sans,” she said, loud enough to catch his attention, gentle enough to show him that she meant no harm. When he finally looked at her, she pursed her lips, pained, and tilted her head. “Do you really still believe that?”
Sans huffed a sigh and shrugged, dropping his gaze again.
“i dunno. sometimes,” he muttered, as if he weren’t sure himself. He went silent for a few seconds longer. “most of the time, it’s fine, but … sometimes i can still hear his voice in my head and …”
He trailed off. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, like trying to shut something out, before lifting his head and meeting her eyes again.
“it’s better now, though,” he said, without a hint of doubt. “even when i hear his voice … i can still hear yours.”
He glanced away again, but this time, she could make out a hint of a blush dusting across his cheekbones.
“and i believe yours more.”
Toriel’s arms tightened around Papyrus, just like she wished she could wrap them both around Sans. She smiled.
“I’m very glad to hear that.”
Sans hummed in acknowledgement, but looked away until that hint of a blush had faded. By the time he looked back to her, his expression had changed, shifted into something wide-eyed and desperate, both far older and far younger than his body appeared.
“can you fix him?” he asked, and his voice was like a toddler’s, high-pitched and pleading for something even he knew he might not get.
Toriel blinked.
“I’m sorry?”
Sans clenched his teeth and shook his head. “can you … i … i tried, i just … i don’t know how. i don’t know what to do. i didn’t even know how to fix myself.”
Toriel had to fight the urge to jump out of her seat and pull him into her arms. She swallowed it, pushed it to the back of her mind, but she could still feel it there, tugging at her. The only thing that kept her in place was the weight of the other tiny skeleton pressed against her side.
“You’re not broken, Sans,” she said, hoping it would be like the hug she couldn’t give. “Neither of you are.”
Sans huffed, then sniffed, a humorless smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “feels like it.”
“You’ve been hurt,” she replied, as if she might force the words into his head with her voice alone. “And it’s normal for healing to take time.”
“is there a normal for going through stuff like this?” Sans asked.
Toriel opened her mouth, but paused, her lips hanging open, her mind reaching for a simple answer she knew she wouldn’t find. She closed it, letting out a soft, shaky breath.
“I suppose not,” she admitted, matching his sad smile. “But everyone does everything at their own pace, and you two are no exception. Some things may come more easily to one of you, and that does not make either of you better or worse.”
Sans’s shoulders slipped down again, but this time, it looked more like he was settling, setting aside his anxieties even though he knew they weren’t resolved.
“i know,” he murmured. He looked at his feet for a moment, clutching his arm, before he looked up again. “will you try, though?”
Toriel’s throat tightened, and before she could even try to think of a response, Sans was shaking his head.
“i just … i just want him to be happy.” His eyelights went wider, then much smaller, until it was just empty sockets staring at a random corner of the room. “i just … want him to … he still wants to help him, to go back and … save him and he can’t, he did everything he could back in the lab and it didn’t do a thing, but he still …”
He breathed in deep, the air shaking as he drew it in and let it back out. Toriel’s eyes softened, and it may not have been a hug, but she could see, when she looked into his eyes a second later, that it was almost as good.
“I will do everything I can, Sans,” she said, with as much assurance as she could give when she was so lost herself. “But … in the end, it must be his choice to move forward.”
Sans’s smile tightened. She knew it was better to tell him the truth—even if he would have accepted a lie, even if she thought a lie would be a good idea—but she still wished she had a better truth to give.
Still, a few seconds later, his smile shifted again, and his eyes fell down to his brother, tucked close and secure against her side, and she watched those eyelights brighten and widen in affection as old as himself.
“yeah,” he breathed. “i guess … i guess i wouldn’t want it any different.”
He looked back to her, giving her a shaky, hesitant smile, and she returned it. She motioned for him to come closer. He did, and for the first time in months, she marveled at how far he had come, how he didn’t even pause or give her a suspicious glance.
He trusted her.
That had seemed so impossible once. And now it was reality. If Sans could move that far … so could his brother.
When Sans stopped in front of her, Toriel leaned forward just enough to give him a gentle kiss on the top of his head. She pulled back to find him blushing, most of his skull a faint blue. But his smile was wider, more genuine, more secure, and she found her own widening right along with it.
He clambered onto the bed a second later, not even bothering to go back and close the door or turn off the light—not that she minded. He looked tired, as tired as she felt herself, and perhaps it was the sort of night where it was nice to wake up and be able to see the people you loved all around you. He settled against her right side, small and fragile but safe and alive, his eyes already falling shut as she readjusted the blankets over him. One of his hands curled into her robes, clinging to her like she was the only thing keeping him from drifting away. She felt his breathing slow, the tension in his bones slip away, and only a couple minutes later, he was asleep.
Toriel sat there for a while after, leaning against the pillows, watching her two children cuddled in her arms. She brushed her hands over their skulls and watched them smile in their sleep. She let her fingers drift over the metal of the plates on their hands, but even as she frowned, even as she remembered exactly why they had struggled so much, they just smiled wider and clung tighter still.
She knew, by now, that there were some scars she could never heal. Gaps she could never fill. Pains and insecurities that would remain no matter how hard she worked to soothe them.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try.
And it didn’t mean they couldn’t get better.
If she had told herself, more than a year and a half ago, that they would one day cuddle up to her without hesitation or fear, she might not have believed it. And if they could come this far already … then perhaps, someday, the things that hurt them now would seem like distant memories, harmless and almost forgotten. Maybe the voices in their heads that repeated Gaster’s words would get quieter, fainter. Maybe there would come a day where her voice—or better, their own voices—would all but drown those first voices out.
For now … for now, she would just have to talk louder. She would just have to fight harder. She would just have to prove to them, little by little, day by day, that the voices in their heads were wrong.
It wouldn’t be quick, and it wouldn’t be easy. They had come so far already, but their journey had only just begun.
But they were worth it. They were worth everything.
And even if it took another hundred years, she would find a way to make them believe it.
*
She knew even before she opened her eyes that she wasn’t alone.
It was … instinct, a sense that she had developed long before she took those two little boys out of the lab. An instinct that had appeared out of nowhere the day she gave birth to her first son. The knowledge of another life, a small, fragile life, right beside her, a subconscious knowledge that kept her from rolling over in her sleep, that urged her to reach out and comfort at the slightest whimper, that reminded her of yesterday’s memories that might have otherwise been a blur.
She could feel Sans tucked under her arm, his face snuggled into her chest, sleeping as soundly as ever.
And she could feel Papyrus’s head resting against her shoulder, his eyes wide, awake, and locked on her face.
She opened her eyes and turned her head to face him.
She was far too old, and far too experienced as a mother, to be surprised when his eyes were, indeed, wide open and locked on her.
He looked … tired. Even though she was sure she would have woken up if he had been awake for very long, and he had fallen asleep long before her, he looked like he had just suffered through one of the longest, most difficult days in his life. Even though she was well aware that nothing could ever happen to him here that would be worse than what he had suffered long ago.
Perhaps the memories, the long-lasting effects, sometimes proved to be worse than what had caused them in the first place.
Despite the pain that surfaced in her chest at seeing his, she still managed a smile.
“Good morning,” she said, just above a whisper, because she knew that Sans would sleep through anything short of shouts.
“GOOD MORNING,” Papyrus replied, a little louder, because he had known Sans, and his odd sleeping habits, a good deal longer than her.
They sat in silence for a moment, just looking at each other. She could feel the weight in the air around them, though, and before it could press too heavily, she spoke up again.
“Did you sleep well?”
He nodded, a particularly shy nod that looked so strange on his usually-eager face. “MM-HMM.”
She tilted her head, adjusting her arm around him.
“You still look tired,” she said, with as little accusation as she could manage, because she knew he might take it as a bad thing anyway. “Would you like to do something today? Something special?”
He shrugged. It was the sort of gesture that looked perfectly at home coming from Sans, but from Papyrus … it made her chest twist. When she tried to meet his gaze, he avoided hers, shifting his eyes back and forth, never looking at one thing for more than a couple seconds. He reminded her of a bit of a Whimsun, or a particularly nervous Froggit. At any other time, she would have laughed at such a ridiculous comparison. But now …
She gave him a minute of silence, then cleared her throat, very gently.
“Can you tell me what you’re thinking right now?”
Papyrus shifted more, but it was a thoughtful kind of shifting, intentional, like he was putting together words in his head. His brow bone furrowed and smoothed out in turn, until finally his mouth opened, and he formed it around the words with meticulous care.
“WHAT DO YOU DO … WHEN YOU’RE FEELING A LOT OF THINGS … AND THEY HURT … BUT YOU DON’T HAVE A NAME FOR THEM, AND … AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHY YOU FEEL THEM AND SOMETIMES YOU KNOW THEY’RE NOT RIGHT BUT YOU FEEL THEM ANYWAY?”
He clamped his mouth shut as soon as the final word left it, as if he were afraid that more would spill out if he gave them the chance. He stared at her for a moment, stunned by his own outburst, then dropped his eyes again.
Toriel blinked a few times, letting the words sink in. Then her face softened.
“It can help to talk,” she tried, keeping her voice gentle, reassuring, but hopefully persuasive. “To … try to sort out what those feelings might be. Would you like to try?”
Papyrus glanced up at her, a fleeting, shy glance, far shier, even, than the boy she had found in that cell with his brother all those months ago.
He said nothing, but he didn’t refuse.
She licked her lips.
“You told me yesterday … that you didn’t feel like you’re good enough,” she went on. She felt him stiffen a little under her arm, and she shifted her hand to rub along his spine. “Have you always felt like that?”
He fidgeted again. Not as desperately this time, not like he was trying to escape or hide. More like he was trying to find the right thing to say.
“I … NOT ALL THE TIME,” he managed at last, but she didn’t miss the forced tone he always used when he was trying to make something bad sound better. “THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD TIMES. THERE ARE A LOT OF TIMES WHEN … I FEEL GOOD, AND EVERYTHING IS GOOD, AND I FORGET … ALL THE BAD STUFF THAT HAPPENED BEFORE. AND I THINK THAT … THAT THIS IS THE WAY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN, AND … THAT WE GET TO STAY HERE. FOREVER.”
He refused to meet her eyes after he finished, as if he were ashamed of his admission. She wished there were words that would express how he had nothing to be ashamed of, how none of this was his fault, it wasn’t his fault he had been made in a lab or put through tortures she would probably never know. He deserved this. He deserved every good thing she had ever done for him and far, far more.
But she had said all that before, many times. And she knew that it would take far more than words to get it through his head.
Still, she gave him a look she hoped held a fraction of those words, and leaned her head a little closer, urging him to meet her eyes.
“Do you worry that you won’t get to stay here forever?”
He glanced from side to side a few times, grinding his teeth.
“SOMETIMES,” he muttered, so quiet she almost didn’t hear it.
Toriel ignored the sting in her chest.
“What do you think would happen that would keep you from staying here forever?”
This time he didn’t look up at all, and she could suddenly see all the insecurities, all the fear, all the shame, that had ever been forced into his head, begin to twist his face.
“YOU WOULDN’T WANT US HERE ANYMORE.”
“Why would I not want you here anymore?” she asked, before she could think about his answer too much.
Papyrus fidgeted again, curling himself up as much as he could, pressing closer as if he could bury himself into her side and hide there forever.
“BECAUSE … WE’RE … I’M NOT … SMART ENOUGH,” he murmured. “SMART LIKE SANS.”
Part of her—the part of her that wouldn’t stop wondering if all those children had left because she wasn’t good enough, because she had failed them, hadn’t given them a good life while they were here—instantly began to rush over everything she had ever said to them, anything that might have shown a favor for Sans, anything that might have suggested that she valued traditional intelligence above any other kind of skill. But she stopped it before it could go too far. There was no way for her to see all of their interactions through his eyes, and even if she could … it wasn’t like she could change any of that now.
And she had learned enough not to blame herself for the pain of someone who had been hurt long before she found them.
“Papyrus,” she said instead, trying to draw his attention back to her. He peeked up, his eyes shy and unsure. “Why do you think I love Sans?”
Papyrus hesitated, like he might if she asked him to explain Newton’s laws of physics. “BECAUSE … HE’S … GOOD AT BOOKS? AND …”
He trailed off. She got the feeling that he already knew that wasn’t right—after a year and a half, he knew her better than that—but he still watched her with hesitant confusion, as if waiting for her to either confirm or deny it.
“Do you really believe I love Sans because he is fond of reading?” she asked.
Papyrus blinked up at her, once, twice. Then he looked down.
“… I GUESS NOT,” he muttered. He risked another glance up at her, taking in her expression, the same familiar face he had seen hundreds of times. He hesitated again. “YOU … YOU SAID YOU LOVE HIM BECAUSE … BECAUSE HE’S A GOOD PERSON. BECAUSE … HE DESERVES TO BE LOVED.”
Toriel nodded, trying not to let her face shift into anything that might imply she was prouder just because he had gotten the “right” answer.
“Do you think Sans has to do anything to earn me loving him?”
Papyrus ground his teeth again. “… I … DOES HE?”
He looked so fragile. So unsure. As if she might tell him he was failure just because he hadn’t known how to answer. As if his ability to answer questions about healthy relationships would change how she felt about him.
She held back a sigh.
“No,” she said, gently, carefully. Papyrus stared up at her, both eager and nervous, ready to soak up the answer and repeat it back to her. Ready to prove himself. It made her want to throw a fireball right in Gaster’s face. She pursed her lips, but tried to smile still. “I love Sans just because I love him. Love doesn’t have to have a reason. It doesn’t have to always make sense. Even if Sans did something bad tomorrow, even if he made a big mistake, I would still love him. Just like I would still love you, even if you broke something or didn’t know the answer to a question, or even if you made a bad choice. I would never stop loving you.”
As she spoke, she could see some of the worry slipping out of his small frame. She could see his eyes brighten, some of the fear fade into the back of his mind, hopefully not to resurface for a long time. But there was still something there, lingering in his gaze, and before she could ask him what it was, he opened his mouth again.
“SO … DO YOU STILL LOVE HIM, TOO?”
It was the quietest she had ever heard him speak, but the second the words registered in her head, it was like someone had shattered a mirror right in front of her face.
She froze, fighting the urge to stiffen, to let her emotions show on her face as they bubbled up inside her. Instead she stared at the ceiling, counting the little cracks, anything to focus on other than the absolute certainty of who he was talking about.
It must have been a full minute later that she turned her head back to look at him, her movements slow and careful. As she had already suspected, his eyes were locked on her, wide and awake and painfully curious. The sort of eyes she couldn’t have lied to even if she tried.
“YOU USED TO LOVE HIM … DIDN’T YOU?” he asked again, a little louder, but no less unsure. Toriel’s mouth worked, but the words didn’t come. Papyrus looked down. “I … I SAW THE PICTURES … IN THAT BOOK IN YOUR ROOM …”
He sounded guilty, and later, she promised herself, she would assure him that she wasn’t mad. She had never asked either of the boys not to look through her personal bookshelf, and she had made it very clear that her room was open to them at all times. Besides, if she had really wanted to hide something, she would have locked it away somewhere a child wouldn’t be able to reach, not openly on a shelf. She had been a mother eight times over before Sans and Papyrus came into her life, and she knew better than anyone that naming a book forbidden just made it that much more interesting.
And even though she tried to wish she had hidden it … she couldn’t quite manage it.
Papyrus peeked up again, hesitant, nervous, and she gave him the most reassuring look she could manage. Some of the tension in his small frame disappeared, and he tilted his head.
“YOU KNEW HIM WHEN HE WAS LITTLE LIKE US, DIDN’T YOU?”
She looked into his eyes, those big, trusting eyes that looked far too much like another young skeleton’s, and the word formed on her tongue almost without her permission.
“… yes.”
“… AND YOU LOVED HIM,” he added, after only a few seconds’ pause. It wasn’t a question, but she felt herself nodding anyway.
“Yes. Yes I did.”
She could still feel it, deep in her soul. A part of herself that she had carved out so many years ago, when she realized that she had left him behind with the rest of her old life. When she realized it was too late to go back for him. When she missed him anyway.
When she realized what he had done in the decades that had passed.
“DO YOU STILL LOVE HIM?” Papyrus asked. “EVEN THOUGH HE DID BAD THINGS?”
There was no anger in his voice, no suspicion. She knew that he would accept any answer she gave. She knew, even more so, that he wouldn’t accept anything but the truth.
She swallowed, barely budging the lump in her throat.
“… I do still love him,” she murmured, as much to herself as to him. “In a way. But … it is a different kind of love.”
Papyrus gave her another questioning look. It was such a familiar look, such a gentle, innocent look, that despite the ache in her chest, deep in her soul, she couldn’t help but smile, just a bit.
“I loved him in a way that never really goes away, but … he did things that I can never forget. He hurt the two of you, very badly. And … sometimes … you have to make a choice when someone you love hurts someone else you love. You have to decide … what is most important.”
She tilted her head toward the other side, toward Sans, who still dreamed away, tucked under her other arm. He looked so peaceful in sleep, so comfortable, unburdened, and she let herself soak it in for a second. To appreciate the expression she had once feared she would never see on his face.
Then she let out a long, heavy breath, and turned to face Papyrus again.
“And I made the choice to protect you, because … it does not matter how much I loved him, or how much I still do. What he did is still very wrong, and I cannot care for him if it means putting you two in danger.”
She tried to soften her voice, but she knew a bit of the bite still came out. Maybe it was inevitable. The intensity of her anger had faded with time, but … like the love, it would never really go away.
She had failed him. But she knew, now, that she couldn’t accept the blame for what he had done.
And she couldn’t change it, no matter how hard she wished.
“SO … YOU’RE NOT GOING TO SAVE HIM.”
Just as before, there was no judgment in Papyrus’s voice. But there was pain. Disappointment. Sadness. An aching emptiness he had never truly resolved, even after so long away from the man who had almost destroyed him.
Toriel pressed her lips together and swallowed again, but the lump in her throat remained.
“I can’t.”
Papyrus looked into her eyes, searching, though for what, she had no idea. She couldn’t tell whether or not he found it. But regardless, a few seconds later, he dropped his eyes again, blinking a few times, as if to chase away tears.
“DO YOU THINK SANS WOULD BE MAD IF … HE KNEW IT MADE ME SAD?”
Toriel didn’t turn her head, but she focused again on the other weight against her opposite side. Such a small, fragile weight. Sans had grown, a bit, and would probably grow more still. But he would always be small. He would always be breakable. And she knew, no matter how carefully she healed his old wounds … parts of him would always remain broken.
“Sans has a lot of very complicated feelings,” she answered at last. “But even if he was mad … he wouldn’t stop loving you. And neither would I.”
Something in his eyes softened. Toriel let herself smile. It was a small smile, a sad and shaky smile, but it was better than nothing. She let her hand rub gently up and down, over his spine.
“It’s okay to want to save him, Papyrus. Many people who are hurt still want to help those who hurt them.”
“DOES IT MEAN I’M BAD?” he asked, a lilt to his voice that made him sound so much younger than she knew he was.
“No,” she said, without the slightest hesitation. “You are not bad. And neither is Sans. You are just … different. But Papyrus …”
She paused. He stared at her with those big eyes, desperate for her next word, and she wanted to hug and squeeze him until every insecurity disappeared. Even though she knew it didn’t work that way, she still tightened her grip.
“I would not want you or Sans to change. I want you just as you are. With all your feelings, all your strengths and weaknesses. I want you because you are perfect, right now.”
Papyrus blinked a few times, and she could almost see the word settling into his head, like a puzzle piece clicking into place.
“IS … IS PERFECT LIKE BEING COOL? AND SMART?”
Toriel felt a laugh bubbling up in her chest, and though she muffled it, she let herself smile instead. “It’s better.”
“OH.”
It came out like a squeak, a surprised but happy squeak, and she could see him fighting the smile that threatened to overtake his entire face. He ducked his head a little, one of his hands curling into the fabric of her robes.
“SO … IF … IF SOMEONE SAID THAT THEY COULD GIVE YOU ANOTHER SANS, INSTEAD OF …” He trailed off, swallowing twice before he lifted his eyes again, a tiny bit of fear shining inside them. “WHAT WOULD YOU DO?”
Toriel’s chest ached again, the deep ache that sprung up every time she was reminded of how helpless she really was, but she tugged him closer still, almost tight enough to hurt, tight enough so that he wouldn’t be able to ignore it.
“I would say that I already have a Sans. One Sans that is perfect the way he is,” she said, each word clear as it fell from her lips. “And I would say that I would not give up my Papyrus for anything in the world.”
“ANYTHING?” he asked, that squeak slipping into his voice again.
She smiled, her mouth trembling from all the words she didn’t say.
“Anything.”
For a long few seconds, he just stared up at her, his eyes so wide and innocent and hurting, like the pain of someone who had lived all her years had been forced into the mind of a child. Then she saw the tears begin to form in his sockets, despite his blinking, despite how he tried to swallow them back.
He smiled again, the line of his mouth trembling.
“OKAY,” he breathed, his one hand clinging so tight she could feel his bony fingers against her skin. She smiled back, and he shifted a little in her grip. “UM … IS IT … IS IT OKAY IF … WE DON’T GET UP YET? CAN WE JUST … STAY HERE FOR A WHILE?”
He asked it like he might ask for a third slice of pie, or a new toy just after he had received another. By now, he must have known she would never deny them, but she also knew how proud he was of being strong, of “not being lazy,” the one virtue he had clung to when his brother unintentionally claimed so many others. Toriel’s face softened, and she leaned forward to press a kiss just above his brow.
“Of course.”
She could almost feel the tension melting off of him. He smiled a little wider, his eyes bright, his head dipping in an almost instinctual nod. Then he settled his head back on her shoulder. She lifted her other arm, careful not to disturb Sans, and began to gently run her fingers over Papyrus’s skull, and she watched as his sockets fell shut, his whole face smoothing out in pure, happy calm.
For the next two hours, they lay there, not talking and barely moving, both of them silent and peaceful but very much awake. She rubbed his skull and placed more little kisses on the top of his head, holding him tight and secure, ready to keep him close for as long as he needed.
And when he buried his face into her chest, she could still feel him smiling.
*
Over the next few weeks, Toriel only thought about the glasses twice, and both times, she let the thought pass her by within a couple of seconds, tucking it away in the back of her mind to be revisited later. Much later. Perhaps never.
Papyrus’s sight was still just as important, but … him being happy was more so.
So for those next few weeks, she made sure to remind him, at least once a day, how important he was.
Sometimes it was little things. Giving him an extra hug or kiss before bed. Spending ten extra minutes reading with him in the afternoon. Teaching him a new cooking skill when they made dinner together.
Sometimes it was bigger things, like she and Sans planning a Papyrus Appreciation Day, with cake, homemade presents, and all the family activities they could pack in.
A few days later, she caught Papyrus penciling in a Sans Appreciation Day—and a Mom Appreciation Day—on the calendar, a couple of months ahead. She said nothing about it.
They ate all the meals she had portioned out, and all the desserts. They played with the toys, and she took down all the interesting books from her shelves and read them out loud, in a sort of family reading session. Papyrus adored it, instantly asking for more sessions, and so the tradition began, nearly every night, both of them tucked next to her in her armchair as she read aloud from a book one of them had chosen. It was slower, and it took much longer to get through a book than it would have taken one of them to read by themself, but Papyrus got to enjoy material that had been locked away from him, and she would never complain about more time spent with her boys.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it made Papyrus smile, and it gave him something to look forward to, every day. That was as perfect as she could ask for.
Perhaps she would still go to the dump someday. Perhaps in a year or two, or perhaps in another decade, when she had other supplies to gather, when both boys were grown and more than ready to spend a couple of days by themselves. But there was no rush. Until then, she would manage. She would find other ways to bridge the gaps her son had faced, to give him the pieces of the world that had been kept from him.
She would make him happy, even if she couldn’t fix his eyes.
It had been days since she had last thought about his vision on the morning she found herself digging through her storage closet. She hadn’t touched it in several years, and if she remembered correctly, there were a few old toys she had tucked away after one of her children … left. In the early days, when she had convinced herself that that was it: she wouldn’t let another one leave, she wouldn’t let another one die. When it was so painful that she couldn’t bear to look at what they had left behind.
It was still painful now, of course. That pain would never go away. But those toys weren’t doing anyone any good sitting in the back of a closet, and she was sure her other children would be happy they were going to good use.
Unfortunately, even though she was fairly sure the toys were in the closet, she had little idea where. And her closet had no organization system to speak of, everything shoved in at some point or another during the past few decades. So she was left to pull things out at random, hoping that it would lead to something worth finding, or at least that it wouldn’t trigger an avalanche of items falling down from the upper shelves.
Of course, as soon as that concern crossed her mind, she tugged out an old scarf, and an entire shelf collapsed, a good twenty pounds work of abandoned junk pouring down onto her head.
Most of it, thankfully, was soft, and hit the floor with little impact, and everything else she managed to catch in scrambling arms. She froze for a few moments, panting from the shock, before sighing, shaking her head, and getting to work putting everything back in place.
She almost didn’t notice the pair of glasses in her hands before she put them back on the shelf. But the light glinted on the edge of them, and she paused, finally feeling the familiar, fragile shape against her fingers. It was a miracle they hadn’t shattered from the impact, but there they were, perfectly intact, if a little dusty, staring back at her like a set of eyes.
For a few seconds, she just held them in her hands, turning them back and forth, trying to figure out how a pair of glasses that definitely weren’t for her—or even Asgore’s—reading had made their way into her home.
Then it hit her.
The glasses slipped from her hands and clattered harmlessly onto the floor.
And suddenly, she could see the glasses on the face of their owner. On the skull of their owner. She could feel the faint remnants of sticky tape that had held them in place until they grew almost completely useless, and the skeleton who had worn them had had to move on and find another, stronger pair.
Leaving his old ones in her house, to be tucked away in a closet as a treasured memento.
To be forgotten for decades, until today.
Her first instinct—an overwhelming impulse that almost overtook her—screamed for her to shove them back into the closet and never look at them again. A much smaller part wanted to snap them in half and set them on fire, but she knew she never could—she would pat the flames out in seconds, tape them back together, desperate to preserve one of the few memories she had left of a happier time. Her hands tightened around them for a moment, but almost instantly loosened, and she found her fingers brushing across the thin frames, remembering how many times she had adjusted them while he blushed and avoided her gaze, how many times she had used a bit of magic to repair tiny scratches on the glass. How many times she had seen his good eye shine on the other side of them. Those rare moments when she saw him glow.
She could feel her chest tightening, her eyes growing moist, and she squeezed them shut for a long second, forcing away the emotions that threatened to swallow her whole.
Then she opened her eyes, looking at the glasses.
And she paused.
Gaster had had very bad eyes, right from the beginning. From the time he was a young child, if she remembered correctly. They had gotten worse over the years, but even in his youth—even when he wore this pair—he had been both near-sighted and far-sighted, needing a very specific prescription that had been extremely difficult to obtain on the surface, and even more so underground. Finding a new pair had taken nearly a month of searching.
And these glasses were still perfectly functional. They just … weren’t enough for him anymore. But Gaster’s vision had been terrible, and had taken years to get worse. For someone younger, whose eyes were bad, but not quite so bad …
Toriel felt something between a warmth and a chill flash through her body.
She didn’t even realize she was moving until she had gone to her room, snatched up some tape, and come back to stand in the entrance to the living room.
And there was Papyrus, right where he sat almost every morning before lunch. He was working on a puzzle today, one of the more difficult ones, with more than two thousand pieces. He had never had much difficulty with those. Even the ones that she and Sans found a challenge came easily to him. And now that she looked more closely, she could see that rather than staring at the image on each piece, he was touching the edges, memorizing its exact shape, then feeling for where it might fit in the whole.
It often took him days to make any progress, but once he started, he seemed to slip the pieces in almost without looking at them. He glanced at them, their shape, their general color, then popped them into place. While she and Sans were focused on the visual details, he had learned to use other cues, and it had made him the most skilled jigsaw puzzle-solver of any of them.
The world had put him at more disadvantages than any child should have to face. And he had made it through, kind and clever and undeniably himself.
Toriel’s hands tightened around the glasses, and she took a long, deep breath.
“Papyrus?”
Papyrus’s head snapped up, as eagerly as it always did, and instantly, he set down the puzzle piece he had been contemplating, his attention entirely on her.
“YES, MOM?”
It had been months since she had first heard the name come from his mouth, but still, she felt something warm and comfortable settle deep in her chest. She smiled.
“Could you try something on for me?”
Papyrus sat up straighter, his eyes bright and a smile already tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“A NEW SCARF?”
“Not quite,” she replied. His face fell, just a bit, but she didn’t let it dissuade her, instead stepping forward and motioning for him to turn around so his back faced her. He did so, still confused. She pulled the glasses and the tape out of her robe pocket, making sure the tape was firmly positioned over the sides before reaching over Papyrus’s skull. “Here. Just hold this up to your head like … there.”
She pressed the tape against the bone, like she had pressed it to Gaster’s head so many times before. Then she lifted her hands and stepped back.
Papyrus blinked. He blinked once, then twice, then squinted very hard.
Then his eyes widened.
“OH.” He blinked a few more times, and his eyes got wider still. “OH!”
He turned to face her, and then she could see them in full. Those lights gleaming in his usually empty sockets, reflecting off the tears forming at the corners, like little stars in the black night sky.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened and closed it a few more times again.
“I … I CAN SEE YOU.”
It was hardly more than a whisper, but as soon as it left his mouth, something seemed to snap, and then he was jerking his head from side to side, looking at everything around the room, moving so fast he probably couldn’t make any of it out but not seeming to care.
I CAN SEE THAT. OVER THERE,” he went on, almost in a shout. He lifted his hand to point. “THAT … PICTURE. ON THE WALL. I THOUGHT … I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A BUNCH OF COLORS!”
Without warning, he jumped to his feet and scrambled over to the bookshelf, snatching the first book he reached. It was large, one of the more advanced ones that even Sans wasn’t interested in, but he flipped it open and began scanning his eyes over the page, hesitant yet desperate, like someone dying of thirst who still paused to test whether the cup of water in their hands was real.
Then his eyes glowed brighter, and his smile threatened to split his face.
“I CAN SEE THE WORDS!” he all but squealed, jerking his head up to look at her and stars, she swore she could see sunlight in those eyes. “I CAN SEE ALL THE WORDS, MOM!”
Her breath caught in her throat, and though she tried to tamp down her hope, tried to keep herself rational, reasonable, she could feel the warmth surging up in the center of her chest.
“Is it … is it blurry at all?” she asked, even as she fought to keep her own smile from overtaking her face.
Papyrus paused. He furrowed his browbone, squinting a bit like he had at the pages, then blinking a couple of times.
“UM … A LITTLE?” he replied at last, apparently unsure about it himself. And of course he would be. If he was born with bad vision, if he had never even had his eyes tested, then he wouldn’t know what perfect vision looked like. “BUT IT’S A LOT BETTER! A LOT LOT LOT BETTER!”
She had a few more questions ready at the tip of her tongue, the same questions she remembered being asked the first time she needed a pair of reading glasses, but before she could even open her mouth, Papyrus leapt to his feet again, book forgotten, and threw himself into her arms.
He hugged her, squeezed her more tightly than she had known his little arms could. He was shaking again, harder than any of the times before, and she could hear the sniffles and hitching breaks that precluded his sobs. But when he tilted his head up to look at her, those miniature suns still glowed in his sockets, warm and bright and happy, like the joy in his soul was ready to burst him apart at the seams.
Then he bounded off down the hall, puzzle forgotten, the clack of his bare feet on the wood floor echoing throughout the house.
“SANS! SANS, I CAN SEE THINGS! MOM BROUGHT ME THESE WEIRD GLASS THINGS AND NOW I CAN SEE!”
Toriel laughed, a sudden, pained, blissful laugh, and wrapped her arms around herself, blinking away the tears that came back to her eyes as hard as she tried to push them away.
For the next two hours, Papyrus ran around the house, followed by Sans for a while, then by himself, pouring through all the small-print books they owned, starting one only to abandon it a minute later for another. He went out into the courtyard, running through the Ruins, greeting all the monsters he saw and telling them how wonderful they looked through these new pieces of glass. When she called him in for lunch, he marveled at the look of the food, how prettily it was set up on the plate, how it “looked at good as it tasted,” and he told her he almost didn’t want to eat it, because it would mean destroying that beautiful sight. She promised him she would make the same thing again.
He kept going throughout the rest of the day, reading and staring and appreciating everything like it was brand new. He looked at books he had tried so hard to read in the past, finishing a page in the time it had once taken him to finish ten. He picked up the pieces of his puzzle without trying to find where they went, just staring at the picture and marveling at how much detail it contained. He only snapped out of his trance when she asked him if he wanted to help her with dinner, and he immediately agreed. Granted, he spent a good deal more time arranging food on the plate in the “MOST BEAUTIFUL WAY” he could imagine than actually cooking, but frankly, she thought the presentation made the meal twice as delicious.
Sans smiled at him all the way through dinner, as he went on and on about all the little things he had never noticed about the food. There was a softness in his eyes that Toriel hadn’t seen for a long time, the sort of look reserved for his brother. The sort of look that reminded Toriel how, above all else, Sans just wanted the person he loved most in the world to be happy.
And when he looked at Toriel, he didn’t need to speak a single word for her to know he was saying “thank you.”
They washed the dishes together, and neither of them minded when Papyrus took extra time to appreciate the print on the plates. When they were done, Sans went to take a nap, as he sometimes did after a good meal, and Toriel started toward the living room, ready to work on the knitted hat she had started a few days earlier.
But before she could make it to her chair, a hand on her sleeve stopped her, and the second she turned around, she felt her waist squeezed by thin skeleton arms, just slightly trembling. He nuzzled a bit into her stomach, and she ran a hand over his skull, and for a long moment, they just stood there, holding the other tight. Then he lifted his head.
He looked up at her, his eyes shining just like they had that morning, the glimmer only amplified by the glasses in front of his eyes. If she looked closely, she could see a pale green beginning to appear in those dark sockets, growing stronger by the second.
And all she could think, in that second, was how much he looked like a little Gaster.
“YOU LOOK SO PRETTY, MOM,” he said, snapping her out of her thoughts. Toriel blinked, letting her attention fall as completely on him as his was on her. He smiled wider. “YOU’RE THE PRETTIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN."
Toriel’s breath caught in her throat. It had been a long, long time since she had given much care to her appearance, but … this was different, far different, than the compliments she had received when she was young. Papyrus stared up at her as if she were the sun rising on the horizon, radiating color and light and warmth across the whole world. Like he could see every good thing inside her reflected in her eyes.
Like he could finally see her the same way she had always seen him.
She swallowed over a thick lump, and allowed herself a wide, shaky smile.
“That can’t be, my child,” she replied, barely louder than a whisper. “You should really go look in a mirror.”
Papyrus blinked once, then twice, squinting a little, like he was figuring out a puzzle.
Then a faint orange glow dusted across his cheeks, and his smile hit both sides of his face, his eyes glowing a brighter green than she had seen on a skeleton in all her life.
He skipped off to the bathroom—perhaps truly going to look at himself, to see all the details of his appearance in the mirror—and Toriel remained where she was, hands clutched in front of her, her smile infectious, her chest so warm it felt like fire.
She knew their journey wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be over for a great many years, and for all she knew, it would continue for the rest of their lives.
But maybe that was alright. The journey wouldn’t be easy, but maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as she had thought. If they were there to stand by each other, to support and to love, then maybe they would be alright.
She heard the echo of Papyrus giggling from the bathroom, and the sound etched itself into her mind, glowing as bright as his eyes. She smiled wider.
Yes. As long as they had each other, they would all be okay.