{~ I finished this chapter on Thanksgiving... and now it's December... where did the time go?~}

"Here we are."

Following Jack's lead, everyone walked deeper into the heart of the studio and through Bendy Land. As they walked around, they noticed the way that the place seemed more and more cleaned up the further the went. By the time Jack lead them to the door, the place looked almost like a normal house.

All it took was one knock at the metal door before movement was heard on the inside, the door soon opening to reveal a woman and two animals. The woman was a little taller than the other girls, her skin tanned and her hair dark, curly, and pulled up into two ponytails. Her body was a little more on the curvy, plus-sized side, though she was still fairly fit. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of goggles, though it was still clear she wasn't happy.

Out of the two animals, one was a dog that appeared to be of a similar breed to Boris, but much closer still to a Pit Bull or Rottweiler as it was quite muscular. Bandages covered its chest area, as well as some parts on its legs that had braces to support it better, its left hind leg obviously a prosthetic.

The other animal, a cat, was very similar to Alice color-wise with its white and black fur. There were no bandages covering anywhere, but there was a belt-like collar with a white bow around its neck.

Like the woman, neither animal looked thrilled either.

"What business have you this time, Fain?" the woman asked. "Brutis found your hat, I finished fixing up your area, and Allie chased all rodents out of it and killed the bugs. What else could you need?"

"I need you to listen to me, Lacie" Jack began to explain. He gestured to the group he brought with him as he continued. "They managed to escape and they managed to come back, that means there's a way out of here now!"

"And we'd like to take you guys out of here as well," Henry quickly added.

Lacie looked over the entire group, her face softening into a smile. "Alright," she said. "Come on in."

The group followed her into the room, finding it to be an extensive safe-house, similar to where Henry stayed with Boris when he first returned to the studio. The main room appeared to be like the living/family room, set up with a sofa, a small table with a few books and a tool box on it, and some small cots that the two animals went to lay on. Across from the sofa was another table with one of the TVs from another part of the studio sitting on it. In the center of the room was a pile of beams, both metal and wooded, that looked like they had been put together into a crude attempt at a home gym.

"So there were other survivors after-all?" Lacie asked casually walking to the adjoined kitchen. "That's good, I was beginning to think there was only a few of us left. Anyone hungry? We've got plenty of soup."

"No thanks," Henry answered, politely declining the offer. "This is a really nice place, Ms. Benton, you must have worked hard on it."

"Thanks, I did," Lacie replied. "But I'm still ready to see the outside again if I can. I'm sure Brutis ad Allie are, too, right you two?" she turned to look at the two animals with a smile as they both perked up happily.

.~.~.~.

Hours had passed and Joey still had no progress on his search for Murry. He had taken breaks to look up the families of various members of his former employees, which what want he was supposed to do anyway.

The Franks were still in town, thankfully, that meant Wally would be able to reunite with them fairly easily. The Lawrences had moved to just out of town, which he learned when he found the movie review channel Sammy's brother ran, the older Lawrence sibling mentioning that he was helping his parents move house to a little bit into the country. So far, they were the easiest to find locally. The Polks were always in the more Southern states, as were the Campbells, so they'd be harder to get in contact with.

He glanced up towards the others at the table. It was lunch time, he had helped prepare food, mostly macaroni-and-cheese, not that long ago and now was slowly eating while he was looking up information online.

Everyone else at the table were eating though. All six of the cartoons where happily eating like children, meanwhile Sammy and Grant were showing how impressive their "hand-eye coordination" was for two people who could barely see at all.

"Finally found the Pendles," Joey stated, ending the voice silence in the room. "Of course they live in a big city far away from here."

"So we only have two options of contact so far," Grant began. "We can work with that, it's better than what we had before."

"Three options if we include Sammy's brother," Joey added.

"Which we shouldn't," Sammy muttered.

"We will anyway," Grant countered.

"My family shouldn't be counted at all," Sammy hissed. "They'll never believe any of this!"

"Sammy," Joey interrupted. "It's worth a try. Your family is the only other chance we have next to Wally's, they may be stubborn, but we have to try. You have to try. And besides, the plan is to contact our families and do a DNA test to try to prove who we are. Okay?"

"Okay," Sammy agreed quietly.

"In the meantime, Shawn's family moved back to Ireland, so they're not going to be able to help too much," Joey continued, turning back to the computer where he had pulled up a notepad to write down everything he found. "Grant, your family's pretty well 'off the grid', and Thomas isn't much better."

"Henry did mention Linda and their daughter are coming back soon," Grant mentioned.

"Wish we could have gotten a vacation to Disney," Sammy sighed. "I always wanted to go to a theme-park, but my family was always too busy for that kinda thing."

"You did get to go to a theme-park," Joey said defensively. "You were there for Bendy Land!"

"A GOOD theme-park, preferably not in that studio!"

"I thought Bendy Land was good."

.~.~.~

The group stayed with Lacie in her safe house for a while before they decided it was time to continue, if they wanted to get home in a timely manor. Lacie and the two animals lead the group to meet more of the survivors.

Most of the other people were formerly Lost Ones, still wandering around the studio on their quest to escape. There were way too many to come home with Henry, but he was able to give them money for a bus ride to a nearby town and help them out of the building before going back to the group.

It was time to find one final person. Bertrum Piedmont. As she promised, Lacie knew exactly where he was. In the Bendy Land theme park the man had built.

"Bertrum!" she called as she lead the group into the giant area the park took up of the building. "Guests!"

A tall man walked out from behind a booth, the familiar mustache of the carousel ghost showing that this was indeed Bertrum Piedmont. It was obvious enough that one of his arms was replaced with that of the Bendy animatronic, judging by the way he was walking his legs might have also been replaced.

"Piedmont came t' me in shambles, asked me t' help fix him up," Lacie explained. "He insisted he could do it on his own-"

"Which I could have," Bertrum interrupted, walking proudly up to the group. "I wasn't helpless, I was perfectly capable of doing it myself, but I thought an extra set of hands would speed it up. "

"And it had nothing to do with the fact you lost an arm?" Lacie asked sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "And your legs wouldn't work without support?"

"That's why I wanted it done faster," Bertrum stated. He turned to face the group. "Ladies, Gentlemen, I am the great imagineer who's responsible for building this here park!"

"Bertrum, this is a little more important that your project," Lacie interrupted.

"Nothing's more important than-"

"They say they can get us out of here."

Bertrum froze in shock before his face lit up with joy. "That is good news!"

Henry nodded and stepped forward. "We've gotten a bunch of people out already," he explained. "Grant, Sammy, and..." he paused, questioning if mentioning Joey at the moment was a good idea or not. "The toons are already outside, they're safe at my house... as is Joey."

Bertrum made some form of a scowling look. "Not sure I'd count that as 'safe'," he stated.

"It's okay, I don't think he's going to hurt anyone right now," Henry explained. "Now, if you want to come with us, you're welcome to, in fact, we're all kind of hoping you will."

"As much as I'm not fond of Mister Drew, I'd like that, too," Bertrum agreed.

"Great," Henry smiled brightly at him. "We have a few more things to pick up before we go, you guys are welcome to bring anything else you want to as well, just as long as it's small enough to fit into my van."

.~.~.~.

It was fairly late when they finally arrived back at the house, the neighborhood shrouded in darkness as the van pulled into the driveway again. The second that Henry opened the door, however, the lights from the house flooded the darkness in the immediate vicinity.

The three who stayed behind had moved to the living room, a movie playing in the background that the toons were watching. "We're back," Henry called, getting everyone's attention. "And we brought some friends."

Jack, Lacie, and Bertrum stepped forwards, looking around while Brutis and Allie raced to meet the other toons. Jack's face lit up and he ran over to the couch, wrapping his arms around the other musician. "Sammy!" he cried excitedly.

"Jack?!" Sammy asked, loosely bringing his own arms around the songwriter as he returned to hug. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again, I thought you were dead dead."

"I thought you were too," Jack replied.

"Hey, Bernie," Joey greeted, waving too the imagineer.

"Don't call me that," Bertrum growled.

Henry walked over to the couch as well, holding out a small case to Grant. "We found your glasses," he explained.

Grant smiled and thanked him as he opened the case, putting his glasses on.

Susie and Alison ran passed with Lacie, telling her how they'd show her their room.

"There is one more thing I should mention," Henry began, turning to Jack and Bertrum. "My wife and daughter are going to be home soon. In two days."

{~ Why was Bertrum so difficult to introduce?! I meant to finish that chapter sooner but then Bertrum decided to be more complicated that Jack or Lacie, and there was no way I was leaving the Lost Ones there so I had to decide how to get them out as well.

Snowwing, I guess this does kinda update once a month currently. There was originally a schedule but now it's become kinda unpredictable. Still, hopefully now that they're out of the studio completely, fingers crossed the next chapter will be finished a lot faster ^-^

Thanks for patiently waiting between updates, everyone ^-^ ~}