Picking Favorites
Chapter 2: Nette; 11 Years

McKennah sat on her little bed, wiping the tears from her eyes. She sighed sadly as she dropped her backpack to the floor.

"Ow!"

McKennah looked around frantically for the source of the scream. She looked under the bed and around her cabinets.

"Hey! Anybody! It's dark in here, let me out!"

The blue backpack started shaking and flopping about. McKennah shook her head slightly. "No way..." She quickly unzipped the bag. A little puppet with purple tear stains jumped onto her.

"Thanks! It was getting cramped in there. How many pictures you gotta carry around withcha, huh?" McKennah stared in amazement at the little talking puppet in her arms.

"W-what are you doing here? Who are you?" She asked.

The puppet smiled and held out one of its hands, which was hidden under the sleeve of its suit. "Most people call me Marionette."

McKennah shook Marionette's hand. "Okay. Can I call you Nette? That'd be easier."

"Hmmmmm... Okay! Nette, it is!" Nette said, hugging the 6 year old girl. "So, why were you crying, McKennah?"

Sitting down with Nette in her lap, McKennah began to explain. "Well, it's my birthday today. And, I had went to Freddy Fazbear's for my party, and then, one of the animals bit a boy. Everyone was screaming and running away. I... I just wanna know who did it."

"Who do you think did it?"

McKennah shrugged. "Everyone thinks Foxy did it, but I don't think so. The only other one that could've was Freddy, but he wouldn't do that..."

Nette sighed heavily. "Do you really wanna know?" Seeing McKennah nod, the puppet went on. "It was Freddy. He was jealous, and his circuits got fried."

McKennah looked down at the little puppet and sighed. She didn't know what to do. She kept seeing the look on Foxy's face. The fear and despair etched on his features.

"What's gonna happen to the animals?" McKennah whispered, still a little scared by the event.

Nette shrugged. "I suppose they'll try and fix them. Then, the pizzeria will open again."

"Nette? Why did you get into my backpack?" McKennah asked, hugging the puppet.

The marionette hugged her back and said, "It looked like you needed me." Nette watched as McKennah started petting the head of the Foxy plushie she was still clutching onto. 'Poor kid...' it thought.

In the backroom of the pizzeria, Foxy was being worked on. George was checking all of Foxy's systems to see what went wrong, but came up empty. He groaned and threw his screwdriver across the room. "What happened?! How am I going to figure this out?"

George stood up and dragged Foxy back to the Pirate's Cove. He set the fox robot down a little ways behind the curtains. "Maybe I can find a mechanic to fix you." He lifted up Foxy's still broken jaw. "He could probably fix this, too."

After George left, Foxy's head tilted down a little, almost in shame. He looked down at his paw and hook. 'McKennah, lassie... I'm sorry...' He felt like crying, but couldn't. Instead, he just sat down and hid his face in his hands. This was as close to crying as he could muster. 'She looked so scared... So sad...'


McKennah stretched as she woke up. '11 years... I'm going back after 11 years...' She thought as she pulled her platinum blonde hair into a high ponytail. She left a few strains loose by her face, too lazy to fix them.

"Get up, McKennah! You gotta get to work!" Nette shouted, jumping up and down. Yes, Marionette was still with McKennah. The puppet just couldn't bear to part with her. Sometimes, McKennah thought that Nette was the only reason she could feel remotely happy.

"Do you think they patched him up? Even a little?" McKennah asked as she pulled on her light blue dress shirt.

"I don't know... Maybe, they tried. But, if they did, they wouldn't have needed a mechanic, would they?" Nette joked. McKennah shook her head and smiled.

She picked up a large blue backpack with her tools inside of it. She opened one of the zippers and motioned to Nette. "Come on. Let's go."

With her puppet in tow, the 17-year-old blonde went downstairs to eat something before she left for work. She saw her Dad-doo sitting on the sofa, reading a newspaper. "Good morning, Dad-doo!"

McKennah's grandfather turned around at the sound of her cheerful voice. "Good morning, McKennah. Why are you up so early? It's only 6:05."

"I got a job, Dad-doo." McKennah informed him as she got a pickle out of the jar. "I'm gonna be fixing the animatronics at Freddy's."

Dad-doo nodded slowly, though he was still a bit apprehensive about his granddaughter being left alone for around 4 hours with the animatronics. Once he had told McKennah about the pizzeria trying to open up again, she had begged him to help her get a job there. He just couldn't say no to her big ole puppy-dog eyes.

"Just be careful, McKennah." was all he said on the subject.

McKennah nodded. "I will, Dad-doo. See you later!" she picked up her backpack and headed out the front door. McKennah didn't have a car, so she was going to take the local bus as close to the pizzeria as she could. Nette started jerking around in her backpack once they reached the bus-stop.

"What?" McKennah whispered, opening the zipper a bit.

"Why aren't we there yet?"

McKennah face-palmed herself. "The bus isn't here yet. We have to wait."

"I don't want to wait. You don't, either." Nette poked its head out to show McKennah its wide smirk.

"Well, tough. Now, get back inside. Someone might see you!" Nette slipped back into the backpack, but continued to jostle around and, even started moving McKennah's tools around. McKennah had to shake around to make it seem to the people around her that she was making the noises on her own. 'You're gonna get it, Nette...'

Finally, when the bus got to their stop, McKennah hurried onto the bus and went to a seat near the front. She looked out the window as the bus pulled off. As the trees and buildings slightly blurred, it reminded McKennah of her last birthday party...

After the 'Bite of '87,' everyone called it, McKennah never had anymore birthday parties. She just didn't see the point. Dad-doo would give her a small cake and sing 'Happy Birthday,' but even he knew that it wasn't the same... Not without them...

"Last stop." The bus driver said. McKennah looked up. This was her stop. She rushed off of the bus and sighed. Fixing the straps of her backpack, she took a few steps before she realized that she had been dropped off right in front of Freddy Fazbear's. 'I'l thank the bus driver when I get back on.'

When McKennah opened the front door, she was bombarded with the smell of dried blood and heavy cleaners. They must've been trying to clean the place up after...

"Oh, you must be Ms. Hennessy." a voice said from behind the young woman.

She turned around to see her grandfather's co-worker, Bernard. "Hello, Mr. Porter."

Bernard blinked a few times. "McKennah? I haven't seen you since you were in diapers. How have you been?"

"Pretty okay. I was wondering why you didn't recognize my voice on the phone." She smiled.

"Well, that's on me." He laughed. Then, he pointed toward a room. "The animatronics are in that room."

McKennah nodded and went straight to work. As she walked down the hallway, she looked around at the posters and colors. A lot had changed in 11 years, but then again, that was expected.

Setting her backpack down, McKennah looked over the three animals in front of her. They looked about the same, from what she could remember. "Hi, guys..." she whispered. She half-expected them to respond to her.

She started oiling their arms and legs as she continued to talk to them. "I still have those plushies of you guys. They're a little dusty, but they're still in good condition."

She moved on from Bonnie to Chica. "I never really thought that simply hugging a toy every day could damage it. I guess I'd been hugging them too long, huh?"

She started on Freddy. "Wishing they were you guys..."

McKennah sniffled slightly and hugged Freddy. "I wish... I wish I'd known..." she whispered. She released her grip around the bear's shoulders and went on repairing the animatronics. Once she was done, she looked down for her backpack and saw that it was gone.

"What the..? Nette! Come back!" She dashed down the hallway when she saw the little puppet's feet under her blue backpack. She followed the marionette to a room she hadn't been in for what seemed like forever...

McKennah looked around at the Pirate's Cove. Everything looked virtually untouched. She glanced at the curtains of the stage and saw that they were slightly open. She walked over to them and peeked inside. She gasped softly when her pale green eyes landed on Foxy.

She climbed onto the stage and looked at the red fox pirate. He was sitting on the floor, hiding his face in his paw and hook. It looked like he was crying. She knelt down next to him and started to gently pet his head. "Foxy? It's me... McKennah."

Unknown to the young blonde, Foxy's eyes glowed yellow for a moment, then stopped. He kept perfectly still as she continued. "I... I know you may not remember me, but..." She couldn't continue. She just buried her face into Foxy's neck and sobbed. she had missed him so much.

Finally, Foxy couldn't handle it anymore and hugged McKennah. "Why wouldn't I remember ye, lassie?"

McKennah gasped and looked at the smiling fox in front of her. She looked at Foxy's face, wondering how he'd powered on by himself. She threw her arms around him and started crying again. "Don't cry, lassie." Foxy said softly.

"I-I'm not sad, Foxy... I've never been happier." Unknown to either of them, a pair of glowing blue eyes were glaring at them from a distance.