A lone figure stepped out of the car parked at the curb. The lot was laid bare to the sky, but it was an overcast day, and had just rained, so glistening droplets hung from the charred timbers that jutted up like broken ribs. Slowly the man made his way through the burned and crumbling ruins. In one or two places the ground was still warm from the fire that had ravaged the building only a few days ago. Ash clung sticky and damp to his shoes, staining them black, but he just kept walking, turning his dark head from side to side as he tried to imagine the layout of the building.

He closed his clear blue eyes and rested a hand on a charred wall, casting his mind back through the years, remembering something that had been very important to him. He opened his eyes again and walked forwards with more purpose.

At last he paused, looking down at a heap of rubble.

It was here, he knew it.

The man bent and started to drag it all away. Boards, half-melted metal, smoke-stained chair cushions. By the time he had sifted almost all the way through it his arms were covered in sticky ash all the way up to his elbows, but he paid no mind, pausing with hands on his knees as he breathed deeply and eyed the heap.

Overhead the clouds uttered a threatening growl. A chill breeze whispered through the burned ruins, and a fine mist of rain began to touch the world softly. Shaking his head and straightening, the man plunged back into his task.

At last he reached the bottom of the pile.

The rain had begun to come down a little harder, and now his black hair clung to his ash-smudged cheeks, but his blue eyes were bright as he scraped charred cardboard away from a broken piece of machinery.

It was so old that the wires, darkened by smoke, had frayed, and the metal was rust-eaten. Tattered purplish-blue fabric stuck like old flesh against the battered skull framework. A jaw hung crooked from one side, studded with broken teeth. The eye sockets were empty, and only the lights, dark, sat deep inside, but one was shattered, tiny red fragments thrusting jaggedly outward. There was only one ear left; most of the fabric had been ripped away and the framework had been dented and crushed.

But he recognized the face.

"Hi Bonnie," he said.

Look," he continued, "I'm sorry. I know, I didn't keep my promise. But…life has a way of blindsiding you. You know about that right?"

Suddenly he shook his head violently.

"G** Liam, you must be crazy to be out here in the rain, talking to a broken animatronic head." He paused then smirked grimly at himself. "Here I go talking to myself again."

He stared down at the tattered head on the ground.

"But still, I wish you could still be around because I want to apologize for never coming back. I didn't mean to."

Reaching out, he picked up the broken head. The bottom jaw creaked and fell off completely, and Liam stared sadly at it. "I'm so, so sorry."

He wasn't sure if what was running down his cheeks were tears or rainwater. And for just a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of light down in the soulless eyes of his dead friend.

I forgive you.