What if, during that period before sans agreed to the deal with the human, it was literally so rare for him to really see Toriel’s actual face, the lady behind the door with the funny jokes and puns, that she stood out to him a lot as a sorta novelty—something new.
What if there was a timeline where they managed to be very close and sans grew to know more and more about her with each reset, on the surface or otherwise, and Tori was one of the few who could still get sans to laugh or smile or even attempt to joke and pun around like he used to. Until eventually not even she could really reach him.












