The Time Before (Undertale)

52 ~ Sixth Soul

The next few days found Sans at Grillby's quite frequently. He had found he rather liked the place. It had an easy atmosphere, and friendly patrons. When he kinda implied that he would rather not talk about where he was from, everyone stopped asking. And Grillby still had that sort of authority, that, while Sans got the sense that it was definitely more quiet than his dad's, it still had the same sort of general feel to it, and that was comforting to Sans.

He also visited Alphys frequently. She was still just as brilliant and awkward as he remembered, and now she was even more of a recluse.

And it was she that gave Sans the idea, or, at least, really made him think about it.

He hadn't told her anything, none of the real story. He had just talked about the theory of it all. Theoretically if you could fold time, fold space, theoretically if there was a nothingness outside the planes. Theoretically, if someone fell outside those planes, if anyone would remember them, if they had ever existed.

She had said something to the effects of "well, no, I don't think anyone would remember them." And then she had gotten concerned. "O-oh, Annoying D-Dog! Can you imagine? What if s-someone is stuck there?! M-maybe we should t-try to build something, j-just in case."

That had been what convinced Sans of his plans. Not that he would tell Alphys- "no. absolutely not, it's far too dangerous! what if one of us got stuck, then what?"

He had already gotten his dad erased from existence. He would already never forgive himself for that. But if Alphys got erased, too...

It wasn't that hard to convince Alphys to drop it- she already had to worry about her robot-turned-star's body, and apparently she had found some old unfinished project plans to inject inanimate objects with Determination, that might help with breaking the Barrier. She was already far too busy.

But Sans... Sans was going to build a machine.

He needed to find somewhere to do it though. Somewhere secret, preferably, where no one could find it and cause issues.

He would look for someplace like that.

~o0o~

Time slipped on, the brothers got older. Sans turned twenty eight, and Papyrus fourteen.

Papyrus noticed a difference in his brother. He was still sad-seeming. Tired and depressed, missing the Fallen Down friend whom he refused to talk about. But there was a new light in his eyes. Papyrus didn't know what it was, but Sans had found a new hope.

Eventually, Sans found the perfect place to build on that hope: the basement.

Papyrus lived in the house, and not even he remembered the basement was there. It would make the perfect place to build in secret.

When Sans went down there, he found that it was a small but reasonably-sized room. There was a counter against one wall. Once he got the dust cleaned up and the boxes moved, it would make a decent workshop. Most of the boxes were full of random junk, some of which Sans saved, some of it he tossed out.

And there was a photo album. Sans opened it slowly, hoping for maybe, possibly, a picture of his creator somewhere inside.

That wasn't what he found. It was... it was pictures of him.

Alphys was in a few of them, too, along with several other monsters. In the pictures, everyone was wearing lab coats, and the background looked either like a lab or somewhere in Waterfall.