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“…I think I’ve known for a long time.” Toriel stroked a petal with a trembling finger.
Flowey barely managed not to squirm. “O-oh yeah?” he stammered.
“Even in the ruins. Before the end of that long nightmare. I found this glass of water, filled to the brim… That was yours, wasn’t it? So efficient.” She smiled weakly.
Flowey glanced at the door. Frisk had talked him into coming here and then immediately left, but he was sure they were lurking, peeping through the keyhole. They were too nosy not to.
“I felt your presence. Especially when standing at the flowers. It was like someone was watching over me. When I should have been the one watching over you.”
He chuckled. “I can take care of myself.”
She shook her head. “You always thought so, but you never could.”
Now what was that supposed to mean?
“You can stop hiding. I will be there for you. Even if you don’t believe it.”
He rolled his eyes. “If only THAT were the problem.”
“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”
“What?” he said, his voice almost steady.
She didn’t remember. She couldn’t remember. It wasn’t possible.
Was it?
“You’ve convinced yourself that you’re broken. That you’ve fooled us into accepting you, and that it’s only a matter of time before it breaks down. But that wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.”
There had been times when people showed faint glimmers of recognition of erased events. But nothing like this.
“I don’t know how you took this form. And we’re not, we’re not all of us here. But it’s time to come home, Chara.”
Chara?
Chara.
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. He dove through the floorboards, and laughed, and tunneled away, and laughed, and emerged in the garden, heaving, still laughing, tears streaming down his face.