There's a lot that wants to come out, at that. They're too quiet, too uncertain, too unable to find a means of truly verbalizing everything at length to truly track it and put it into pieces. Things that aren't easy to name, things like - like how Asriel tore apart the world and built it back together again for their sake, and they wanted to know what kind of person he would have done that for. Things like wondering about why Asgore said they had the same feeling of hope in their eyes. Things like not knowing anything about them besides a handful of tapes they were never supposed to watch and a mess of contradicting threads that never really came together.

Or the relief of finally realizing that a piece of the puzzle had slotted into place; a gap in the narrative they hadn't even registered until it was filled.

"I didn't always understand what you did," they admit, because they must. "Or even...why you did it. But you were someone who saw a happy ending that could only happen without you in it."

Call it obligation. Call it guilt. Call it responsibility. Call it consequences.

Call it love, or LOVE. Or both.

"I guess I don't really know what either of us are yet." It's a bit rueful, paired with a faint lift of one shoulder, a duck of their head, a twitch of the corner of their lips. "But I don't think I would ever have realized any of it without you, either. And - and I'd like to find out with you. If that's okay."