CHAPTER SIXTY

Ana worked through the rest of that night, framing in Foxy's legs and most of his torso before Yoshi came yawning in. He pulled down his robot-building rig and they got right to it, completing Foxy's endoskeleton, including his new tail. The framework was finished shortly before the goop finally arrived, and while it was still early in the day, it was late enough to make it obvious that, even without accounting for sculpting, furring and detail work, the drying time alone for all the pieces that went into the making of two animatronics added up to more hours than were left in this trip. Which meant that Ana's next big job of the day wasn't helping to make body blanks or backing plates, but calling Shelly to let him know she wouldn't be at work on Monday morning. Predictably, he rolled out the proverbial barrel and attempted to bend her over it, alternately bitching in her ear about her irresponsibility and putting her on hold for five or ten minutes at a time to go deal with 'real work' only to come back when he thought of some more good lines to throw at her.

Ana considered herself a good sport, so she let him work a few things out for half an hour or so, but when he started to repeat himself, especially on the subject of her morals, or lack thereof, and how much of that she had inherited from her mother, Ana decided she'd humored him long enough. The next time he put her on hold, she hung up. She didn't even have time to put the phone back in her pocket before it was ringing again and of course it was him, huffing and puffing in her ear like a belt-hitching big bad wolf.

"You may have time for this," she greeted him, "but I don't, and the longer you want to keep me here on the phone listening to you chew me out, the later you're going to have to wait for me to come back."

"What makes you think I want you back? What makes you think I'd have you back, even if you do decide to turn up Monday, after the stunt you pulled?"

"This would be the stunt where I refused to drive all the way back home to hang a bunch of holiday decorations for you? Sir, no disrespect intended, but if that little job was so intimidating that no one else within a hundred miles could do it, I'd say you need me back."

"You lip off to me like that again, missy, and I will make you sorry you ever walked in my door," Shelly told her, just like she wasn't already sorry. "And you'd better be here Monday morning, nine on the dot, or I'm going to know the reason why!"

"That's why I called," Ana said patiently. "To tell you the reason I won't be there is because I can't leave yet. I'll be back Wednesday," she added and caught a quick, dubious glance from Yoshi, but she didn't give herself any more cushion to fall back on. Even if it meant she didn't sleep between now and then and drove back before dawn, she'd be there on Wednesday. "You don't like it, you have every right in the world to can my ass, and I suppose you have every right in the world to tell me what you think of me for the unforgiveable sin of giving you plenty of time to find someone to cover my shift, but I have every right in the world to hang up and that's what I'm going to do now. Goodbye. See you Wednesday."

She thumbed the End Call icon and held the phone for a while, waiting, but it stayed silent, so she put it in her pocket.

"You can always stay and work for me," Yoshi remarked, pretending interest in the contents of a plastic crate across the room.

"Never," she said. "I like you too much."

The work went on and a productive weekend passed. Yoshi did his part in the workshop, where Ana occasionally wandered in to inspect the furring process or give a dignified nod of approval to sketches and sculpts. Ana sweat in the house, where Yoshi breezed through now and then to compliment the cabinets or coax her down off the roof for a cold drink. Sunday began too early for Ana's taste, but at least when it ended, she could look around and see someone's home and not a series of unfinished projects, secure in the knowledge that her debt to MechaTech had been paid in full.

It was past nine when she finished cleaning up. An inconvenient hour, too early to stop working, way too early to just go to bed, and a little too late to go out for dinner, although that was purely Ana's opinion and the greater part of Vegas certainly didn't share it. She might make an exception tonight. Yoshi's fridge was as empty as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboards and so was Ana's stomach. She couldn't remember if she'd eaten today, but the countertop where Yoshi was inclined to drop off her share of the meal when he ordered in was empty, so either she had eaten or he hadn't. She suspected the former; she was used to ignoring hunger, so when it became this insistent, it usually meant something. Time to head out to the shop to see if Yoshi wanted to help her destroy a bag of burgers or if she ought to just make herself a peanut butter sandwich on frosted strawberry poptarts and call it a night.

She expected Yoshi to be in the molding room, hard at work on his furring contraption, but when Ana poked her head in, all she saw was Foxy, eyes closed, strapped at wrists and ankles to the metal frame Yoshi jokingly called The Rack. Neither Freddy nor Bonnie thought that was very funny after taking their turn on it, but at least it meant their ordeal was almost over. After a quick scan of the room to make sure Yoshi wasn't just hunkered down behind a table or tucked behind the storage locker, she stepped all the way inside and shut the door.

"It's me," she called quietly. "You okay?"

"I'll get through it," he replied without moving his mouth.

"As soon as he goes to bed, I'll let you down."

"Best not. Paint's wet. Bloke worked at it some to blob it in, I'd hate to smear it. How's it look? He's had me eyes taped shut all day."

"It's different," said Ana, walking around the frame so she could get the whole picture. He was definitely a fox now, with a fox's distinctive markings—black 'boots' and 'gloves', black ears with little white dots on the backs, white mask, and of course, that full fluffy fox-tail. She kind of wanted to pet it, but like Foxy said, she didn't want to smear the paint if it was still dry, or mat the fibers up.

She kept her hands to herself reluctantly and walked the rest of the way around to his front-side. "You look good. It's different, but it's good. I know this part's a pain, but it's almost over. Hang in there."

"Ha." Foxy carefully rattled his restraints. "I see what ye did there."

She made some sympathetic noises, which he accepted with grumbling resignation, and she moved on to the shop, only to find Yoshi on the phone, Skyping with someone who, from the sound of it, appeared to be vacuuming up popcorn kernels.

"Oh crap," Yoshi blurted, seeing her, and immediately followed with, "No, no, I wasn't talking to you! Go ahead and turn it off now."

"Is it fucked?" the tiny face on the phone asked frantically. "Am I fucked? I'm fucked, aren't I?"

"It's a rattle," Yoshi began, watching Ana from the corner of his eye. "Rattles are usually fixable. If it was a whistle or a roar, that would be bad, but I still wouldn't say you were fucked."

"You're only fucked if it doesn't make any noise at all," Ana remarked, giving Bonnie beside the shelves and Freddy in the corner each a tiny nod of greeting as she strolled the narrow aisles of the workshop. "You've just got some loose hardware."

"She's right, so don't panic," Yoshi stressed as the phone renewed its lamentations. "All you've got to do is get in there and tighten some screws and bolts, maybe replace some brackets if the pads are worn down."

"In there?" the phone babbled. "What do you mean, 'in there'? I don't know how to take this thing apart! I barely know how to unwrap a banana!"

"Peel. You peel a banana, you don't unwrap it."

"See? I can't even deconstruct a sentence right and you want me to fix a dragon?! Man, you've got to help me. Can't you help me?"

"The thing is…um…" Yoshi glanced at Ana, wincing. "I'm on a job."

"You're on break," said Ana with a shrug. "Do what you want."

"You sure?"

Ana waved him back onto the phone and took a seat at the main worktable. It seemed so much bigger now that it didn't have an animatronic laid out over it. Nothing on it now except Yoshi's tablet, which Ana unabashedly picked up so she could peruse the gallery of sketches he'd done for 'Carrie' while she waited for him to finish his consultation.

It was a different look. They all were, to some degree, but this one definitely boasted the biggest changes—in shape, in color, in character—but all that mattered was that Chica liked it. And Chica loved it. She'd agonized over the proportions of the figure, particularly when it came to the details of the chest, but Yoshi was a gentleman as well as a genius and finally came up with a winning silhouette, plump and feminine, and certainly nothing that could ever be mistaken as a baby chicken. Or a chicken of any age, for that matter. She had firmly embraced her new persona as a canary, although her chosen looks more resembled those of a parakeet. She was still mostly yellow, although a paler hue (a 'happier' yellow, according to Chica), with rosy pink blush spots on her cheeks, pink pinfeathers on the insides of the wings tucked under her arms, a short fan of pink-tipped tail-feathers, shapely pink legs and a tall pink crest to replace the three feathers that used to sprout out of the top of her round head like the spiky fronds of a plastic pineapple.

She wondered now how much longer it would take. Bonnie and Freddy were both done and ready to go. Foxy just needed his water- and dirt-proof sealant, and then it would be Chica's turn in the molding room. Most of her pieces were already out of their molds, just awaiting the process that would cover them with that sleek-feathered look before they could be set to her frame. Then it was just a matter of attaching feedback casters and aligning her sensors, something Ana was confident could be done in less than three hours, now that she was doing it for the fourth time.

Ana reached the end of the gallery and began to flip idly backwards through it, mentally constructing a sensory net, until she came to the first picture, that of Chica's new head. She studied it, her eyes coming back again and again to the crest on top. If Chica had a favorite feature of her new body…well, it would probably be her boobs, but she'd never admit that out loud, so she'd probably name this. Ana liked it too, she just wished it wasn't sculpted into the mold, rigid and inflexible, more like a shark's fin than a feathered crest. If only there was some way to give it a little life, some small degree of animation, like the others' ears…or eyebrows.

Glancing back at Yoshi, still busy and likely to remain so for a while, Ana got up and went over to get a better look at Chica, specifically at the workings of her eyebrows. They grew out of the blocky structure that supported her other facial features, forming the front of her 'skull' separate from the rounded braincase that formed the back. Her eyes bulged, lidless and curious as Ana studied her. A common power jack plugged into the 'bone', providing power to the mechanism, which amounted to a couple rods that could raise or lower at either end through the help of hinge- and swivel-joints, some springs and the world's tiniest pump. Just a few simple components that, together, created the limited movement that transformed into such an amazing range of expression when combined with skin.

"May I?" she murmured and, at Chica's puzzled nod, unplugged them both and took them back to the worktable, making a brief stopover to collect her precision toolset and magnifying goggles from the bottom drawer of her big toolchest in the corner next to Freddy. What else did she need…? A few more hinge-joints, for sure. She could modify both mechanisms into a main cam easily enough, but she needed at least three followers on each line to do what she wanted. What did that translate to? A straight-line linkage with eight fittings along a sliding guide and some kind of trackline to anchor them. Oddly enough, the trackline was the only bit hanging her up at the moment. It was hard to design a setting without a definite form to set it to.

After a moment's thought, she got up again, this time to inspect the clutter on the shelves that lined the shop's walls. In short time, she found what she thought she could remember seeing—a broken bicycle chain. She held it up and gave it a shake to attract Yoshi's attention, whispering, "Can I have this?" so as not to interrupt the guy on the phone, who needed his virtual hand held while he unscrewed a cover plate.

Yoshi nodded and watched with distracted interest as she returned to the worktable with it, but the guy on the phone needed too much of his attention to keep watching as she cleaned it up and broke it down. Then it was back to the shelves, rummaging through boxes and helping herself to whatever odds and ends caught her eye, supplementing as many eyebrow-pieces as she could pick out from the much-depleted store of unused animatronic parts she'd brought with her.

Freddy couldn't help looming over her while she did her shopping—she had to get him to step back before she could even get at the parts—but he didn't have to follow her back to the worktable once she had what she wanted, and he did, leaning over her shoulder to watch as she set everything out and then brought it all together. It was the sort of thing that should have annoyed her, but his presence was almost a comfort to her, a reminder that he was back on his feet again and looking out for her. And once her Other-Vision opened up, she ceased to be aware of him or of anything else, for that matter. Nothing existed but force and movement, rotation and slide.

A little time passed. Impossible to say how much, but when it was over and the real world opened up around her, she had a stiff neck from hunching over and a headache from peering through the magnifying goggles for too long. None of that mattered, though, because she also had the cutest little straight-line link with eight framing rods set along a flexible trackline. Still incomplete, skeletal, but Yoshi would have to finish it. She wasn't a fabricator.

No sooner had this thought come to mind than she heard Yoshi say, "Okay, let's give it a go. Turn it on."

A moment later, Ana could hear a whooshing roar come through the phone, but at least now it sounded like a vacuum and not two rock demons fight-fucking in a wind tunnel.

"Oh thank God," gasped the phone. "It think it's working…It's definitely working. Oh thank you, man, you have no idea. This thing is worth more than I make in a year."

"No problem. If you have any more drama, give me a call. And maybe slow down a little, Speed Racer."

Sheepish laughter, a little chit-chat, and goodbyes. Yoshi immediately indulged himself in a loud groan and a back-cracking stretch. Freddy glanced up, grunted, gave Ana's shoulder a pat and moved away while Yoshi put away most of a bottle of Dew in one thirsty pull. By the time Yoshi finally turned around, Freddy was once again a lifeless doll standing in the corner.

"Sorry about that," Yoshi said, waving his phone at her.

"Can't complain. You did the same for me once."

"Yeah, but you're paying for my exclusive attention and I haven't been that great at giving it to you."

"Forget it," she said comfortably, making a last pass down the track, testing flexion of each rod. "What you do with your free time is your own business. If you want to drive over and make sure his whatever really is fixed, you can."

"That'd be tough. He's in Florida. One of my old friends from rehab got a job as a night guard at what could be generously called an attraction. Kind of a 'Three Flags Over Sindey-World' sort of place. Anyway, he and the other night guards were holding their usual midnight cart-races and he clipped the compressor for their totally-not-Pete's dragon."

"Ouch."

"That thing is fifty years old. It's a brick. He probably could have hit it with a car and not broken it, but I guarantee, if he left it alone and a bolt came loose tomorrow and banged up the motor so they had to call their two-hundred-bucks-an-hour mechanic in to fix it, the owner would have been hanging over his shoulder to make sure every minute on the clock was spent working, and definitely would have noticed the dent in the case and maybe checked last night's cc footage."

"Sounds a little paranoid to me."

"Owner's got a bit of a rep for being skeezy and tyrannical, so maybe not as paranoid as you think. Dude's been fired before, but the thought of being sued for the cost of a brand-new animatronic dragon is understandably daunting, especially on a security guard's salary. So…what are you playing with over there?"

"I made a new crest for Carrie."

Yoshi's broad smile turned crooked, quizzical. "What do you mean?"

"For the top of her head," Ana explained, motioning vaguely in the air over hers. "I made feathers that could sort of flare up and down, you know, like a cockatoo? Well, I made an armature. You've got to turn them into feathers."

"If you think you're going to fit a compressor and auxiliary power supply in her head, you should have told me sooner."

"Don't need 'em."

"Uh, yeah, you do," Yoshi said slowly. "If you actually want an object of function and not just some surface decoration, you do. Unless you've figured out how to access the bot's source code and get it to recognize your armature, you've got to treat it like any other non-magical animatronic. It needs power, it needs pressure and it needs some kind of command switch."

"Nope. Because! She's got eyebrows," Ana told him, wiggling her own for demonstration purposes. "And they're already programmed to move in a certain way to produce certain expressions. So all I had to do was reconfigure the mechanism. Her program doesn't care what it's moving."

Yoshi sat there for a bit and faintly said, "Okay."

His lack of enthusiasm when he'd treated every other part of this process like a chocolate-dipped orgasm unnerved her. She looked at what she'd made, trying to see what was wrong with it that he was just too polite to point out for her, but everything seemed in order.

"It should work," she said doubtfully, but now she had to check. She got up, locating a shop towel to drape over the framework and act as a kind of placeholder for Chica's eventual head-casing. "We just plug it in here…like one of her old eyebrows. And we can run this thing under the skin until…here…and just drill a small hole for the main arm to come up through. You can take it apart real easy," she assured him, demonstrating, "and lay the track along the top of her head. I used these interlocking bits so it should more or less conform to any shape. All it needs is a base. A simple snap-tab will hold it in place easy enough."

Another pause. Another, "Okay."

"Best part is, I'm only using one of her eyebrow ports, so she can still have eyebrows if she wants them—I mean, if I want her to have them. I just need to rig up a separate arm with some extra junk in there to mirror the other mechanism while they operate simultaneously. I can do that easy."

"Yeah," said Yoshi. "Easy."

"Okay, so…it should work. Carrie," she said, stepping back but keeping one hand up in case the unsecured contraption decided to slide off the towel. "Raise your eyebrows for me."

Chica's face, such as it was, did nothing, but the row of rods quivered once and then lifted, flaring forward until they were standing straight up on the track.

"It might be hard to tell from where you're sitting, but they're also kind of twisting out at the base," Ana said, running a critical eye over her work. "I may need to exaggerate that a little more. My thought was…You know cockatoos?"

"I know cockatoos."

"How they're all white, but when they fluff their crests up, they get that pop of yellow? I figured you could fabricate me something like that for the feathers here, only they'd be yellow at first with this pop of pink. I'm not sure what you'd use, but I figured…you'd know what you were doing there, and…um…Look, I am not fishing for compliments here, but your silence is really deafening."

"Sorry," he said at once, then flinched a little and said it again, with feeling. "Sorry, I'm just…You built that? From scratch? From scraps? In—" He checked his phone. "—forty-five minutes?!"

"I didn't build the mechanism. I only modified it slightly."

"Modified it slightly?! I was sort of kidding when I said this before," he interrupted himself, "but I am not even a little bit kidding now. Do you want a job?"

"I have one."

"Are you sure?"

"Point taken," she admitted and shrugged. "But until I get the pink slip, I'm just going to assume I've got a job. I'm an optimist that way."

"So am I. With your skills and my connections, we could be back at Disney in no time. And I know what you're thinking, but it's not all screaming kids and cartoon characters. There are former Imagineers collaborating with NASA right now on developing cybernetic systems to sustain human colonization on Mars. You give them ten years…five! And you can write your ticket anywhere in the robotics industry."

"Are you forgetting I'm a high school dropout?"

"Lady, I guarantee, you build something like that in front of the assessor and they aren't going to care if you were raised by wolves on the Siberian tundra. They see degrees every day. You're a fucking genius. There's a difference."

"I have a job," Ana said again with finality. "And a home. And I need to get back."

"But…" Yoshi clapped a hand to his face and sighed through his fingers, then nodded. "Okay. It's your life and you know what you're doing."

"I wouldn't go that far."

He managed a pale imitation of a smile. "Seriously, though. You have options. If you change your mind a week from now, a year from now, ten years from now…call me."

"Sure."

He correctly read a firm refusal in her polite agreement, but accepted it and clapped his hands once to signal a change of topic. "And yes, to answer your original question, I can fabricate something to cover your totally unremarkable modified eyebrow mechanism. Let me think about things and I'll get back to you tomorrow. As for tonight, I'm ready to move Carrie to the molding room. I tried to do it earlier, but no matter how many times I Simon Says'd her, she just glitches out."

"Glitches out?"

"Yeah. Hey, Carrie!"

Chica turned her eyes toward Yoshi (but not her head; she probably didn't want to disturb the loosely draped crest either) and chirped, "HI, I'M CARRIE!"

Holding up a finger in a 'watch this' gesture, Yoshi said, loud and clear, "Simon Says, Carrie, take one big step forward."

Chica hesitated, her hands twitching, wanting to tap together, and burst into song: "LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN—"

"Stand by, Carrie," Ana said with a sympathetic smile, patting Chica's bony arm. "I'll take care of it."

"Yeah, I figured you'd know what to do. While you're doing that, I'd better grab a shower. Then we can think about something to eat before we start putting Carrie's cases on. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

"Awesome." Yoshi pushed himself onto his feet, loosened up his joints with some stretches, then headed out with a lot less energy than she was used to seeing on him.

Before he was in the house, maybe even before he was all the way out of the building, Chica was scratching through the shelves and boxes around her. Ana knew what she was looking for—anything shiny enough to hold a reflection—so she picked up Yoshi's tablet again, brought up the camera and flipped it around to act as a mirror. She held it up, watching Chica fan her crest and tap her fingers.

"If you don't like it—" she began.

Chica interrupted at once, saying, "Oh hush, you knew I'd love it. And I do."

"You seem nervous."

"I am, I suppose. Reskinning is always a little scary and this isn't how it usually happens. I'm sure Yoshi's workshop is very nice," she added hastily.

"But?" Ana prompted.

"But it's a little…primitive."

"He gets the job done," Bonnie told her.

"I'm sure he's very good in his own way, it's just…" Chica looked at Ana, ducking her head apologetically. "If you had a toothache, and you've always gone to the kind of dentist where there's white walls and a comfy chair and bright lights and dental tools, how would you feel if you walked into your new dentist's office and saw him there with a chisel and hammer?"

"It's not quite that bad," Freddy said as Bonnie snorted.

"Do you want to sleep through it?" Ana offered.

Chica thought about it, crest low and twitching, and ultimately shook her head. "Being switched off is scarier."

Ana gave her bony shoulder a comforting pat, then reached up and disengaged the crest, setting it and the towel aside. "So you ready to go?"

"Yes, of course! I was ready before, I just…" Chica gestured helplessly. "My legs…"

"I know. Bonnie, can you carry—"

"I'll take her," Freddy rumbled at once, stepping forward. As soon as Ana moved aside, he was there, touching a finger to his brow as if to doff the hat he wasn't wearing before he lifted Chica up, careful not to bend any of the framework wrapping her endoskeleton. "I'll keep you company until you're settled," he told her as Ana jogged ahead to clear the path.

"You don't have to. I'm sure Foxy…oh," said Chica. "Um…yes, thank you. I'd appreciate that."

"I've got it," Freddy said when Ana reached for the door, and he did, easily shrugging Chica into the crook of one arm to free his hand. All he let her do was close it after him, and then she was alone with Bonnie, who was staring at the door with his ears set to an odd angle, somewhere in the middle between amused and depressed.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He glanced at her and made a visible effort to straighten out his ears. "Yeah, sure."

She didn't press him. She knew what was wrong anyway. He wanted to go home. They all did. And now that it was so close, they were all feeling it stronger than ever.

She went to the window next to him and peeked out at the house. The bathroom window was dark. Was he already out of the shower? No, there it was, just now coming on. He hadn't even started.

"What?" Bonnie asked, hunching over to share the view. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," she said, watching a shadow move behind the frosted glass. "Just checking to see how much time we have."

His ears twitched. "How much time do we need?"

She huffed a laugh and (not without a pang of conscience) leaned into his side. Whatever Yoshi was using to skin the animatronics was not actual fur, nor was it the fake stuff used to make plushie toys. It was something else, something thick and lush, wonderful to feel. Huggable. Kids would love it, not that kids would ever get the chance. She wished he'd put his arm around her, but didn't want to ask. She shouldn't even be wishing for it, what was wrong with her?

"Am I pushing you?" she asked. "You're not going to fall, are you?"

Silence.

She looked up at him to find him already looking down at her. He put his ears up again before she could get a good look at them, trying to hide his thoughts. "Something on your mind?" she asked.

"No."

"Come on." She reached up to give one lying ear a gentle tug. "Tell me."

After a few false starts, he shook his head. "It's not a great time."

Ana glanced in an exaggerated fashion around the workshop. "We're alone together for the first time since we got here. Probably for the last time until we're home. Seems like the perfect time to me."

"I know, but…"

Ana waited, then gave him a friendly nudge and said, "If it doesn't feel like the right time, it probably isn't. We'll wait. When you're ready, I'll listen. You want me to change the subject?"

"So much."

"You look really good."

His ears lowered. After a moment, he said, "Yeah?"

She nodded, smiling. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you came out of the molding room. Everything else was happening and I just…I wasn't excited for you like I should have been."

"Oh. That doesn't matter."

"Yeah, it does. You know how many times I've come home from the hospital to someone who didn't care? I know it matters. You may not need balloons and cake and all that junk, but you still want someone to notice and say…you know…you look really good. And you do, Bonnie. I thought it would be hard to get used to this face," she added, squinting up at him, "but it's not hard at all. I'm so relieved."

"What, that I'm not ugly anymore?" he asked dryly.

"Don't say that. You were never ugly. I meant I'm relieved that I didn't fuck you up with the framework. I am not an artist."

"You're kidding, right?" He looked at her, laughed, then waved broadly over at her toolchest and the boxes of parts surrounding it. "What you do? That's art. What Yoshi did with the goop and the fur and all that, that's art too and it's obviously the art that people see, but it's not what's on the outside, but on the inside that really matters."

"You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"Just because it's corny doesn't mean it isn't true."

"It isn't true," she insisted. "It was someone else's design, someone else's materials, someone else's vision."

"I play music someone else wrote all the time. Doesn't make me any less of a musician."

"That's different."

"No, it's not. Someone else's design, sure, okay. And you restored it. You played the music without his instruments or his score. You just put your hands on me and played…and now look at me. All my accelerometers are at max efficacy, all my equalizers balanced and my sensory net at 100%. I almost don't even know how to process not having a bunch of errors eating up my processing power. You know how people say, 'I can't remember the last time I felt this good'? It's like that. You really can't remember. You only know it didn't used to feel this bad all the time, but somewhere along the way, you stop expecting it to ever get better. But here I am." He gave his chest a slap and grinned at her. "And I can't remember the last time I felt this good."

It took hearing the words come from him to realize just how long it had been since she'd been happy. She only knew she never used to be this…sad. Angry. Empty. "I wish I could feel…" she murmured, unaware she spoke aloud.

He blinked, ears flicking up at the tips. "What?"

Shit. She shook her head, at her idiot mouth more than him, and stared fixedly out the window. "Never mind."

"No, hey, don't do that. You can talk to me. You know that."

"There's nothing to talk about. I didn't mean anything by it. I just meant…" Her mind raced. What else could she possibly have meant? "Your new fur looks so soft. It's distracting."

His muzzle lifted on one side in a crooked smile. The new facial plates, Toy-plates, could split, like Blue's, but it wasn't Blue's smile. It was his own, still his own and all his own. "And you…wanted to feel me? As in…up?"

"No!"

"You're blushing."

"I am not."

"Where's the tablet?" Bonnie turned around. "I'm taking a picture."

Ana grabbed at him and he let himself be stopped, but as he turned back to her, he gestured at himself with a kind of over-casual air that didn't quite mask some sub-surface tension. "Want to feel my fur?"

She immediately let go of him and actually put her hands behind her back, like she was a child again, caught stealing food. "What?"

"I said, do you want to feel my fur?"

"Why would I want—" she stammered, only to be interrupted by his laugh.

"You are just as red as a radish right now, I need you to know that. Why? Because soft, furry things are fun to touch, I guess. It's not a big deal. You can pet me. I don't mind."

She did, just so he'd stop talking about it, pressing her palm to his chest. That was all she meant to do, she would have sworn to it, but then she was petting him and she wasn't even sure how that happened. She was petting him and each time her hand moved up, her fingers would fan out, pushing through all that impossibly soft fur, parting it so she could feel the unyielding dimensions of his new casing beneath. His body had been carved to cartoonish perfection, made to show musculature even through his fur, but seeing it was one thing. Touching it was something else. She kept petting—slowly up, a little further down—mesmerized by the sight of her fingers buried in all that lush purple fur. She could feel each hard plane and rolling valley as his chest became a rock-and-roll slab of abs, narrowing to a flat stomach. It was not a human body, but it was his and it was perfect, every anatomical detail, correct.

Every anatomical detail, she reminded herself and moved her hand back up to the relative safety zone of his chest. Looking up, she found him looking down at her, watching her with an intensity that was altogether too intimate. Maybe that wasn't the right word…but maybe it was.

She looked back at her hand, sunk deep in the drift of his fur. "So your sensors are working," she said inanely. "Does that mean you can feel this even if you close your eyes?"

He closed them and shrugged. "Sort of. I know where your hand is and I can tell there's weight behind it, but it's still pretty vague unless you're moving."

"Oh." She started to stroke through his fur again, leaning into it just a little. "How about this?"

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, I feel that, but…Hey, would you do me a favor?"

"Sure." Her fingertips drifted of their own accord back over the washboard of his abdomen and it took real effort to bring them out again. "What?"

"My, uh, dynamic pressure devices should really be adjusted. I mean, you installed the hardware just fine, but the sensitivity could use some fine-tuning."

"What do I have to do?"

"Just kind of…move your hand around. When you go from one plate to the other, I can compare the readings and calibrate the pressure plates internally."

"Oh." Ana petted him in broad, circular motions, losing herself in the conflicting sensations—soft fur, hard body. "Like this?"

"Just like that."

She stroked him—chest to shoulder, shoulder to arm, arm to side, side to hip—lulled almost to a waking sleep by the sight of his fur spiking up through her fingers, the little shimmer of light and shadow following in her wake, the transition from his dark lavender body to the pale lilac color on his chest. Even the sound of it was hypnotic, like a shushing sound, a secret. She had no idea how long she'd been at it before she looked up and saw him looking back at her.

Their gazes held several seconds, neither of them moving.

She said, "You're not calibrating anything, are you?"

"No," he admitted.

She gaped at him for God knew how long and then, bizarrely, let out a laugh. Too late, she slapped him as well, but it was a playful swat to the arm and not the righteous muzzle-breaker he deserved. "And I fell for it!" she marveled, walking dramatically away, even though she could only take so many steps before she walked right into her toolchest.

Bonnie caught her arm. In the past, she had simply accepted that this would hurt. Not that Bonnie would ever want to hurt her, but he couldn't always help it. His finger-covers, where he even had them, were abrasive and cracked and had a way of pinching at the joints. Now, for the first time, his grip was gentle. Strong, yes, but aware of his strength and aware of her, which, oddly, made her too much aware of him.

She did not pull away. She wanted to and that was bad enough. She waited, trying not to fidget, because this was obviously important to him and she hadn't been there for him—for any of them—as much as he deserved. So she stood, wearing a smile like a paper pizzeria mask, and hopefully hiding her churning emotions better than he hid his.

She could see the moment he made up his mind, but she still didn't know what he was going to say and never would have guessed.

He said, "Do you want to dance?"

"Wh-What?" She forced a huffing laugh, hoping to loosen the knot pulling tighter in her guts. "Why? So you can calibrate your reticulating splines?"

"That's not a thing. And no, nothing needs calibrating." His hand slid down her bare arm with shivering effect, and opened in front of her, a silent offer. "I just want to dance with you again."

She looked around the grungy workshop, at cluttered shelves and flickering lights and heaps of empty pop bottles—anywhere but at his hand. "Here?"

"Anywhere."

That one word dropped away into the recesses of her mind and sent back an echo from her childhood: Little Ana and David sharing a sundae at Gallifrey's, watching Aunt Easter and Erik Metzger dancing by the jukebox to some sad song by Mia Rose. Aunt Easter's face was all pink. She kept trying to stop, giggling and saying she felt silly, but he wouldn't let her go. He kept saying, 'Anywhere…I'll dance with you anywhere. Every room's a ballroom when you're in love, Mary-Mary, and every dance is a waltz…'

"Why?" she asked, when she could have just said, 'No.'

"It was fun. Great reason, huh? It was the last good time I had before all the bad stuff dumped on us." He thought about it and huffed out a small, sad laugh of his own. "Chica would say I'm trying to isolate my negative memory by bookending it with good ones."

"Does that work?"

"I'll let you know." His fingers flexed slightly, drawing her eye downward to his inviting palm. "Dance with me."

She shouldn't. She didn't think that in so many words; it was one of those things so obvious, no one should have to think about it. She shouldn't.

But she did.

She took his hand, he put the other one on her waist, and when he moved, yes, of course it was a waltz.

She stumbled along with him, trying to laugh even as she struggled to keep up with his smooth, graceful steps in the narrow space. "Bonnie, wait. Slow down. I can't do this."

"You're doing fine," he assured her. "Just let me lead."

"I'm trying. I…There's not enough room."

"Step on my feet. Go on. Just like that," he said, as she hesitantly put first one boot and then the other over his big bunny feet. He never broke his long, twirling strides. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said automatically, but was she? Her stomach felt weird. She told herself she was dizzy from all the spins, but she wasn't sure she believed it. She leaned away to look down at his feet, feeling herself carried by his movements, and decided she didn't like dancing. Not like this, anyway. Without…control. "I didn't know you meant like this, is all," she said, because she had to say something. That was the only way to pretend they were having a conversation. "I thought you only knew the stage routines."

"You want to stop?"

"No," she lied.

"You can tell me if you do."

"I know. I'm good. Are you?" she asked, desperate to shift the focus off her.

"Am I good?" He shrugged with his ears, spinning her, spinning her. "I don't know. I sure look good, though."

"Well, that's a given," she teased, relieved to be once more on stable ground, so speak, even as he spun her around and around the worktables. "You always looked pretty damn good to me."

"Even at my worst?"

"I never saw you at your worst."

"But you got to admit, I'm hotter now."

"Well, I wouldn't…I wouldn't know about…um…I mean, you do look…"

"Sexy," he prompted.

She laughed like it was a joke.

"Hey, I don't have to convince you, clearly. I said you could touch me. You could have touched me anywhere." He paused, then said, "Aaaaanywhere," in case she overlooked his meaning. "Instead, you took a trip through Pectoral Pass and down Six-Pack Rapids, all by yourself. Any lower and you'd be coming 'round Bonnie Mountain when you come, when you come."

The way he almost, but not quite, sang the last words sent a weird little shiver up her spine. She laughed again, unsteadily. "Dream on."

"I wish I could," he said, not smiling. "Dream, I mean. It isn't really sleep, what happens to us when we shut off. There's no dreams. There's nothing. You're on and then you're off, and you don't even know it until you come back and have to reset your clock and see all that time when you just…weren't a thing."

"Sounds awful."

"It is," he said carelessly. "Sometimes when I'm switched off—don't laugh—sometimes I make up stories afterwards and pretend I dreamed them. Like that first night, you and me in the maze, remember?"

The smile that had come so effortlessly to her lips now wavered and suddenly, she realized she was in his arms, like she'd been that night. Mia Rose and kisses in the dark. Did she remember? Hell, she'd tried to forget and couldn't.

"I like to think that's what a dream feels like. Everything about that night was a dream. Even the next morning, as fucking awful as that was, hearing you say you made it all up while I was screaming inside, when all I could say was…let's be friends."

"Bonnie…"

He waited, but she couldn't think what else to say, so in the end, he simply shrugged and said, "That could be a dream, is my point. A nightmare, but still a dream. I like to think, if I could dream, I'd dream about you. Good dreams. Bad dreams. As long as you're there." He twirled her faster, forcing her to grab on to him. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"You ever dream about me?"

"I don't…know what you're talking about."

"Seriously. That's what you're going with. After everything you've said to me, everything you've done—" His head cocked, looking down at her as light and shadow traded places across the separate halves of his face with every spin. "—you're going to say you don't know what I'm talking about."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Ah! See, that, I believe, but that's a very different thing, isn't it?"

"What are you saying to me?" Ana asked, hating the high, shaky sound of her voice. "What are you trying to do here?"

"Something I really should have done a long time ago. And you can blame me if you want. God knows, I do. I wanted to say it a thousand times when I couldn't, and then when I could…I didn't. And now here we are."

"Bonnie, stop."

He did, too suddenly, his hand on the small of her back bringing her right up against him full-length, so close even a whisper couldn't come between them. "I was your man once," he said quietly, staring into her eyes. "You were my baby girl and when this bad, bad world swallowed me, you were all I had. What happened? How did I lose you?"

She blinked, trapped against him, but not so trapped she couldn't talk. "We're…We're still friends."

"Yeah, we are," he said at once. "And I will always be your friend, Ana. I will always be your friend, no matter what you tell me next. But I need to know. I need you to tell me…"

She tried to wait and couldn't. "Wh-What?"

"Tell me there's no chance, none, that I will ever be your man again. Tell me all you want from me is a friend. Someone to watch movies and play video games and stay up all night to talk on your good days and bad ones, and I'll be that guy. I don't ever have to be more than that, but you have got to tell me I will never be more than that! Tell me…you don't love me anymore. We had a thing and it's over. It's over. Say it."

"Let me go, Bonnie."

He shook his head, but his eyes stayed fixed on hers. "You first."

"I told you," she insisted in a voice that shook. "We've been through all this! You weren't…You weren't supposed to be alive. It was just…It was just a game."

"Aha." He began to dance again, soft and slow, a waltz. "And you didn't mean it."

"You weren't supposed to mean it either! You were—"

"A machine."

"Right!"

"A computer program."

"Yes!"

"Going through a series of pre-arranged responses intended to entertain the kids at a pizza parlor. We sing. We dance." He twirled. "We hug."

She was horribly afraid she knew where he was going with this, and she was right.

"We kiss."

"I…It was…I didn't…"

"No, no, it's plausible. It's weird, but it's plausible." He shrugged and suddenly dipped her again, even lower this time, leaning much closer. She'd be able to feel his breath, if he breathed. "So why do you fall for it, Ana? If you really don't know what I'm talking about and if you really don't think I mean it like that, why do you still fall for it every time I come onto you just a little?" He waited, then said, "I'll tell you why. Because deep down…deep…deep down…"

On every 'deep', he bent her backwards a little lower and a little more, until, with a sharp gasp but no more than that, she let herself go, dropping into his waiting hand and letting him, and only him, hold her.

"Deep down, you want to fall," he murmured, close enough now to kiss. "And I want to see you fall."

She tried to smile back at him, like she could make this a joke if she just laughed at it hard enough. "So you can catch me?"

"No. I will, of course," he added, flexing his fingers so she could feel his hand cradling her. "Fall for me and you bet I'll catch you, but that's not what's important to me. What I need to know, is that you took that leap. And I'm sure that tower looks a lot taller when you're in it, but I promise you, the fall won't kill you. You don't even need to be caught and maybe I should want that for you even more, that you should jump for nobody but yourself. I don't know. I only know that it's important to me that you made that choice, because I can't…I won't make it for you. But I'll catch you," he promised.

A strained silence followed, like he was waiting for promises of her own, but she had nothing to give him.

Bonnie vented his cooling system with a sigh, and said, "And then there's Foxy."

Ana's smile froze on her face. Her breath caught in her throat. She smiled wider. "What about him?"

"I guess it's bullshit of me to tell you what he wants, but I have been living with the guy for a while, so I feel fairly confident in saying that he wouldn't want you to jump from that tower. He wants to climb up and get you, preferably fighting off squid-monsters and skeletons the whole way, so he can carry you off with a sword in his hand right into the sunset. He's been saving princesses so long, that's the only way he knows to do it, and I guess that's fine, but that's not me. So…is that why? Is that what you wanted? Was I doing it wrong the whole time?"

She said nothing. She could have. She was breathing just fine, which did not seem at all fair, but she didn't say anything. And that was a choice.

He waited, his smile fading by degrees until he was almost, almost, an animatronic again. All but his eyes, the plastic windows to whatever soul he had. He said, haltingly, "Yeah. I know. About you and Foxy. No, no, come on," he said, still close, still quiet. "Don't do that. Don't tense up. You're fine. Relax. This isn't a fight. We're just talking."

Ana took a breath, but still didn't speak and had to let it out again, there in his arms.

"Well, you don't have to, but I'm talking," he amended. "Just let me say it, okay? You don't have to agree, just listen. Thing is…Thing is, I fell in love. I know you don't want to believe that and I guess a pretty convincing argument could be made. You can tell me how it could have been anyone, that I was just waiting for the first person to come along and say the magic words, but it isn't true. And you can tell me you were just playing pretend and you never meant a word of it—"

She closed her eyes.

He waited until she opened them and finished, "—but that isn't true, either. The truth is, you loved me too. You loved me and it was…magical and wonderful and amazing…until you knew I could love you back, and then it was scary, so you ran. No, no, no, come on now," he added in that soft, soothing voice. "Just talking, baby. Believe it or not, I want you to be happy. If you love him, if he makes you happy, then I'm happy for you. But if…if he made you happy, I really don't think I'd have to ask. I'd know. Because you wouldn't hide it."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"I don't, huh? Let me tell you what I know. I know the world can be a dark place when you're in it by yourself, so dark that even if you're standing right in the sun, looking right at it, you can't always see the light. You carry the dark with you. You get used to it. You can even learn to want it, to feel safe inside it. And I know all about that. We've been alone and living in the dark for all those years and we've all fallen about as far as there is to fall. You could say…we've been lost a long, long time." He closed his eyes, shook his head, hummed a bar of Mia Rose, and opened them again. "But you found me. And when you found me, I knew. Everyone knew. Even Foxy knew, because God knows he just couldn't shut up about it. But Foxy had to tell me you and him were together. I was looking right at him and he still didn't look like a man who'd been found, not the way you found me, there in the dark. And frankly, neither do you. So…just on the off-chance that, you know, that you ain't been found yet…well, I'm still looking for you and I guess I'll keep on looking until you tell me to stop. So tell me to stop, Ana, if you want to be my friend. I'll always stop if you tell me, but I…I don't think I can…if you don't. So if you don't love me—"

"I can't do this."

"If you'll never love me—"

"I need to go."

"Ana—"

"I can't think! Let me go!"

His eyes closed. Longer than a blink, but not much longer. When he opened them again, he stood her up and let her go.

She backed away, belatedly shaking and now her throat was locking up on her, squeezing her voice into a whisper when she said, "I didn't want to hurt you."

His ears, already low, drooped even more. "I know."

"I mean it!"

"I know. We're not fighting, Ana. We're really not. There's nothing to fight about. You get to be in love and you don't owe me or anyone else an explanation for who you pick, okay? That's not what this is about. I'm not going to ask why him and not me." He paused and snorted. "Hell, I know why."

"Whatever you're thinking—"

"No, no, I get it. You think I'm just saying this because I'm jealous and you're absolutely right. I am jealous. I was programmed with nursery rhymes and knock-knock jokes and he got seven-headed sea hydras and a bottle of rum. He's got a hundred different stories to tell about the time he yarred his way to victory against overwhelming odds. What do I do? I sing about sharing and why it's important to floss. He's the one who got retrofitted back in the eighties while I got my fucking arm ripped off to help that blue freak play my guitar. Until today, I had the same servos I was first switched on with and he's had his hip joints alone replaced five times. And on that note," he said lightly, "I bet he's great in bed."

"Damn it, Bonnie! Stop! Just stop!"

"No, I'm sorry, I know that sounds like a cheap shot, but I mean it," he said with a short laugh. "He knows exactly what to do and how to do it, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if his equipment came with adjustable speed oscillation and interchangeable textured tips. The very best I could ever hope for is to be so endearingly awkward that you take it as a personal challenge to educate me. And I'd almost be okay with that," he added with self-deprecating acid. "If it wasn't for the fact that my hardware is never going to match up and it's just a matter of time before personal challenge becomes a pity fuck and I guess I'd rather be torn apart again and set on fucking fire than see what that kiss looks like on the girl I love."

"That's not fair!"

He laughed again. "No, it's not. If my life has a motto, it's exactly that: It's not fair. But don't get the wrong idea, I'm not saying you're with him for the sex. It's everything. Fucking…everything. He's every fucking thing I'm not, so I'm jealous, all right, but I'm not confused. Who wouldn't choose him if there was a choice? I'm the…the singing bunny in a pizza parlor and he's a pirate."

Her mouth worked, uselessly silent.

"He climbs towers. He rescues princesses. He always knows where he's going and he's got a map with an X to show him just where to find treasure when he gets there. He may lose an eye or a hand, but he always gets the gold and the girl and sails away laughing, doesn't he? And that's why you loved him when you were a kid, because he fought all those monsters that lived in caves and dungeons and cursed shipwrecks…and you needed someone who could fight the one that lived down the hall."

Ana's breath caught.

"Yeah, Foxy was a hero. Of course you loved him. You loved him because you needed a hero to save you, but here's the thing, Ana," he said, stepping closer. "That little girl grew up and the woman you are doesn't need saving. The closet door is wide open and the dragon died a long, long time ago. You don't need a ship to sail you off into the sunset, you need to…to run around a kiddie maze in the dark. You need to laugh out loud like no one's listening. You need to dance, even if you don't know how. I know there's a part of you that's still locked up in that tower, but you don't need saving," he told her. "You just need to find the door—it's not locked—and jump through."

Her lips trembled, but she had no voice to speak.

He took her hand. She could have moved out of his reach, made him chase her around the table like a goofy monster in kid's cartoon, but she didn't. He took her hand and she let him take it. His grip was warm and soft and not too tight.

"Fall for me," he said, closer now. Had he moved or had she? "I'll catch you. It's dark where I am, but you found me once. Fall and we can find our way out of the dark together. I've gone as far as I can go on my own. You have got to meet me somewhere. So close your eyes, Ana. Open your arms. And fall." His electronic voice cracked. When he finally spoke again, it was in a scarcely audible hum. "I can write my name on your heart, too, if you just show me where you keep it."

She couldn't move, not even her eyes. She stared at his hand and hers, laced together, and wished he'd let go, but he didn't and she didn't, so what did that mean?

"But if it's not mine and never will be," he said and pressed his brow against her cheek, letting her feel it when he shook his head. "Tell me. Tell me right now. Because I will wait forever to be your man. Don't make me wait if I never will be. I can be your friend. I can be his, too. But I can't…I can't figure out where to go until I know where I am. Let me in…" His thumb moved, stroking hers, as he pulled his head away from hers. "Or, God help me, let me go."

She stared at his hand until her eyes ached and felt her throat slowly unlock. Tears burned, but only one fell and it quickly cooled. The longer the silence lasted, the more she knew it couldn't last. She didn't know yet what her answer would be, but she could feel it growing huge in her heart and it felt pretty fucking final.

But the door opened and she was saved after all, not by a pirate, but by an animatronic engineer with hair still wet from the shower.

"Hey," said Yoshi, not disguising his curiosity about their motionless dancing posture, but not commenting on it either. "You order dinner?"

"Um." Ana looked at Bonnie, at Yoshi. "Not yet."

"Cool! I was thinking, if you're feeling up to it, we could go out. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm kind of burning out on fast food. I could really go for some actual sit-down food on dishes I don't have to wash." He half-smiled, half-winced expectantly. "No offense, but you look like you could really use some human contact."

"Yeah," said Ana, stepping back. Bonnie let his arms drop. "I'll bet I do. Sure. Let me just put him away. I'll meet you in the car."

As soon as he was gone, Ana went to her pack in the office and changed into a clean shirt. It took much longer than it should have. Her hands were shaking. After watching her struggle with it for several seconds, Bonnie came over and helped, gently turning it right-side forward and pulling her braid out of the way as she threaded her arms through the sleeves.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You didn't do anything wrong." The truth of that welled up, so much bigger than she was, impossible to contain. "It wasn't you. It wasn't anything you did…or didn't do. It was me, it was…all my fault. And he…" She shook her head, blinking fast even though her eyes were dry, for the moment. "I'm enough for him. That's all it was. I'm not what you think I am. I'm not…beautiful and special. I'm not art. I'm just…this. And he thinks it's enough."

His ears lowered. He looked away and after a few more seconds, he nodded. "Okay."

"Please don't be mad. Please don't hate me," she whispered and even before she'd finished speaking, he was there with his arms around her, holding her fiercely close while she puked her panicked tears into his chest.

"I'm not mad and I could never hate you," he whispered back at her. "Never. We're not fighting, Ana, not me and you, not me and him. It's okay."

Through her ugly blubbering, she heard the hushed tones of Chica's voice and the low rumble of Freddy's reply. If she could hear them, they could hear her.

Foxy could hear every word of this.

She moaned, hiccupped, wiped her eyes and held her breath until she'd smothered her tears, but it wasn't peace, only quiet. "I have to go," she mumbled. "Yoshi's waiting for me."

"I know." He released her, handed back her old shirt so she had something to wipe her face on, and got out of her way. "I feel dumb telling you to have fun, but…you know. Try to eat something. If…If you don't know when you're coming back, that's okay, but if…if you know you're not, just…don't make me wait. Okay?"

That was her cue to tell him goodbye. He was right, it was bullshit not to, and hadn't she been the one to tell him it was the goodbyes you never said that haunted you? One word. It should be easy. After everything he'd said tonight, she owed him at least one word.

She couldn't do it.

The cheap this-is-an-office-so-I-need-an-office-clock on the wall ticked out the silence.

Bonnie nodded. "Then…I'll see you later. Maybe."

She couldn't answer that either.

"Still friends?" Bonnie asked.

"Still friends," she whispered.

"Then I guess I'm good." Bonnie offered her a small, hurt smile and returned to the workshop.

And Ana went to dinner, because…what else was there to do?