Author's Note:

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 127

Lectures

It was so tense in the pizzeria that everyone could tell something bad was going to happen.

Mike, flat on his back, sighed.

"Why am I on the receiving end of their temper tantrums?" he wondered, his back twinging from pain after falling off the ladder.

AKA a ghost shocked him while he was replacing light bulbs and he fell off.

"Because Ruby and Hedy are ignoring them," Mangle pointed out.

Which was… odd. Hedy refused to speak or look at them. Or even acknowledge their existence. Her fury was a cold, seething thing that Goldy actively tried to avoid sensing. She didn't mention it to the others, but it wasn't even Hedy giving the silent treatment. She didn't even want to approach Hedy about it. It made whatever felt like her insides twist when she barely brushed against Hedy's psyche if the kids dared to stick around.

And Ruby.

That was just weird. They'd all expected just anger and shouting and threats. But instead they got…

Nothing.

No reaction at all. She acted like they weren't there.

It was driving the kids absolutely nuts. So much so that they were lashing out at those around them. But they weren't stupid enough to go after one of the bots so they were focused on Jeremy and Mike.

Jeremy just calmly sprayed them with salt water from a water gun. Mike on the other hand, didn't know how to deal with it.

To say it in the nicest way possible, he was a doormat.

The bots were very sympathetic to his plight but they weren't going to draw the ghosts' attention to themselves.

"Hedy please," Ginny pleaded.

Hedy didn't even twitch at her voice but she did glance at Mike to check that he was okay. She just kept working on the wiring in Foxy's jaw. The fox was eyeing the ghost warily as she stamped her foot in frustration.
"Talk to me!"

Hedy once again ignored her and several more light bulbs popped thanks to Ginny's anger.

"Why?" Mike whined as he carefully brushed some glass out of his hair. He'd just fixed a couple of those.

Ginny stared at Hedy with a heartbroken expression for a moment before whirling on Ruby.

"This is your fault!"

"I'm sorry what?" several bots asked in confusion, glancing at each other.

"If you weren't here then this wouldn't have happened!" Ginny yelled.

Ruby didn't even twitch.

"You stole Hedy from me!" Ginny's voice broke.

Ruby blinked. "Excuse me, what?" Ruby turned to her in shock.

Riled up by Ruby finally acknowledging her, Ginny screamed. "She was my best friend! MINE!"

Benji flinched back a bit at the malice while even the other ghosts looked shocked, but they didn't seem to disagree.

"You took her from me! She's different now and it's your fault! I would have had her back if you hadn't come and messed everything up!"

Rage filled Ruby's eyes. She snapped the manual she was reading closed. "Listen you little brat! Hedy isn't an object. She isn't something you can have. She can have more than one friend. She doesn't just exist to be your friend!" She stood up and stalked forward, Ginny taking an instinctive step back but glaring stubbornly. "Hedy isn't yours! She's her own person and she has the right to make her own decisions! She was perfectly capable of being your friend and mine as well. But you know what happened? You betrayed her."

Benji and Cheryl flinched.

"You only care about what you want. You never, not once, cared or even considered what she wanted. You want her to agree with you. You want kid Hedy back. You want. It's always about you!"

Her voice was rising and Ginny grit her teeth. Everyone watched warily as the lights flickered above the ghost.

"She's my best friend!"

"Then why don't you act like it?!" Ruby shouted. "Why don't you act like her friend?! Why don't you think about what she wants? For fuck's sakes! Hedy doesn't want to die, you bitch! She cares about her life!"

They all reared back in shock at the emotion in Ruby's voice.

Through Ruby's raising voice and Ginny's tantrum Hedy had maintained some semblance of icy calm as she continued to work, barely phased. But her eyes darted to Ruby now.

"You tried to kill her! You tried to murder the person you claim is your friend! Because what? What fucked up logic did you use?" Her gaze swept over all the kids.

"That it's better if you killed her than if Michael did?"

Frederick, Felix and Ginny raised their chins defiantly.

A cruel light entered Ruby's eyes.

"Maybe your parents should have killed you instead of Michael. What if they made it easier?" She mocked. "What if they made it not hurt as much?"

The kids physically recoiled, and Ruby pounced on the weakness.

"Would that have been better? Would that have made things easier? Would you have turned out better if that happened?" She cocked her head, gaze boring into Ginny. "What if Felix gutted you Ginny? Or Frederick beat Benji to death? Would that have been better than Michael killing you?" She was prowling around the ghost now.

"Ruby…" Goldy murmured.

"Don't," Puppet muttered. "There's no stopping this."

Ruby smiled widely at the kids.

"It makes you feel sick, doesn't it? A sinking, twisting feeling in your stomach. Just the thought makes you feel betrayed, doesn't it? Tears at your heart and sanity because they loved you. If they loved you, then why did they hurt you?"

Benji was swaying slightly and unconsciously tried to duck his head and cover his ears while Cheryl looked sick.

Ruby cocked her head, an almost detached expression on her face.

"You really don't know how lucky you are, do you?" she asked.

More than one person in the room gaped at her. Lucky?! For everything they had done, they were still little children who were murdered, brutally so. Why was Ruby calling that lucky?

But Hedy and Jeremy had an idea for where this was heading.

And it was going to hurt.

Jeremy glanced at his sister but Hedy was just evenly watching Ruby with an almost dead stare in her eyes. She still hadn't even acknowledged the kids' existence and Jeremy was guiltily impressed by her self control.

"Excuse me?!" Ginny sputtered.

"You died," Ruby answered serenely, a flash of teeth in the corners of her mouth. "You knew what happened to you. You had all the answers. You were the answers. Your parents? They were wrecked."

"Ruby," someone tried to cut into the impending disaster that was happening as Ruby self-destructed. It might have been Foxy. It could have even been Puppet of all people. But she couldn't hear any of them anymore.

Goldy stared at the lights, watching them pulse to the beat of Ruby's voice.

"Hedy? Destroyed. Jeremy? Almost lost his sister. And don't give me that utter crap about him being to blame for what happened. He was a fucking teenager who went to hang out with his friends. He was a normal teenager. The only person to blame for what happened is Michael."

Jeremy blinked and frowned deeper. Who had told Ruby about that?

She took a deep breath, gaze still fixed on Ginny.

"You got off lucky," she whispered. "Because the people who get left behind, the survivors? They're destroyed by the what ifs, by the questions, by the guilt over just surviving when the others didn't." Her voice broke a little. "Hedy got through that crap. Better than I ever could! Of course she's different, but that's got nothing to do with me. It's got everything to do with you. She lost you Ginny! She lost all of you! No one would be the same after losing their friends like that. You were barely toddlers for fuck's sake! She was in preschool, and saw what would have traumatised a grown man!"

Ruby didn't care to stop now or give Ginny even a second to retort. "You're the reason she's different. Because she had to change to survive. And now you want to blame her and kill her? Drag her into your pain and anguish. And for what? Because you're lonely. Because you don't think it was fair that she survived and you didn't. It's all about you."

She paused for a moment again. "I can't pretend to know exactly how she feels. But I've got an idea. I watched my parents die. And I wished for so long that I died too. Because living without them, living with those memories and what ifs? That hurt more than anything I've ever felt. It ripped my heart to shreds and my sanity to pieces. It took me years to piece myself back together. But once something is broken it's never going to be the same again. The pieces are jagged and some don't fit anymore. I was a sweet kid you know. I was always worried about others. My parents always said I was a surprisingly empathetic kid. Even my godfather mentions how much he misses that version of me when he thinks I'm not going to hear his comments. The accident ripped that out of me and I never picked it up again. Losing my parents made me selfish. Because I wouldn't survive losing someone like that again."

Goldy kept watching the light, listening to every word. Suddenly her eyes darted to Ruby and she froze where she hung in the air, too stricken to even think of glancing to Hedy for confirmation of what she just realized.

The silence was heavy in the room. "Losing someone else, would kill me. Losing Hedy would kill me." The blunt honesty was haunting and Jeremy felt his heart twist with ice knowing he would have lost them both. "Because we fight and we don't agree on a lot but damn it all Ginny! Hedy is my sister. And you almost took her from me!"

The temperature plummeted.

Lights exploded above them, and they were shocked to see tears in Ruby's eyes. Loose tools and papers were flung into the air as a tornado whipped to life in the room.

Toby grabbed Mangle by the arm and pulled her down to duck behind a table when the fox looked about to try running for the teen and Bonnie instinctively did the same for Foxy.

"I woke up from a week of hell! Watching twisted versions of the bots, of my family, try to kill me. Of a week of them hurting me over and over again. Of Nightmare's taunts using their voices." She fisted a hand in her shirt over her heart, laughing hysterically. "HA! And that wasn't even the worst part! That part hurt. It chipped away at my patched together heart. But it wasn't the worst."

She was trembling now.

"Because he used my parents too."

Everything dropped back to the ground as the wind died suddenly.

For a long, horrible moment it was so quiet they could hear the faint hum of the building and Mike and Jeremy's hitched breathing.

Hedy didn't make a sound, not even noticing the disturbing ghostly habit of ceasing her intake of oxygen for longer than a human should reasonably be able to.

Goldy felt that ice around Hedy crack just a bit at Ruby's words, and utter fury at some being she couldn't see or touch leaked through the mechanic's eyes. "Ruby." It was the first time she had spoken.

Ruby dragged in a breath, struggling to keep talking, apparently not able to hear Hedy.

"He used my memories of them, making a fantasy world where they were alive. They felt so damn real. I could smell my mom's perfume and my dad's aftershave." She squeezed her eyes shut.

Jeremy did not look like he was ready to be any comfort. He suddenly looked so pained and ill, burying his face in his hands in a desperate attempt to hold some semblance of calm. His hands were shaking, pressed hard against his eyes as he forced shallow breaths and tried to just listen.

Oh please, why now? Why did this have to happen to her now, of all times…? Why ever?

He couldn't even address the lightbulbs shattering or the whirlwind, and he doubted anyone else could at the moment.

That hysterical laugh bubbled out of her again and Hedy's focused gaze never left Ruby. "I could be that happy little kid again. The one who smiled and laughed without sharp edges. The one who didn't have nightmares and didn't know just how much life could hurt. I could be that kid with a dad who adored her and called her princess." She didn't notice the tears running down her cheeks. "I could have a mom who loved me and hugged me every day. I could be happy."

The only sound was her breathing.

"But it wasn't real," she whispered. "It was perfect and oh so wonderful. But it wasn't real… So I broke it." Her voice went dead.

"You broke it…" Hedy whispered, mimicking the same tone as Ruby.

Oh Ruby, please...

"He was using my memories so I dragged up the one I hated the most. The one I was scared of the most. And I watched my parents die again."

The lights went out for a moment before coming back, the last light bulbs left flickering weakly and leaving them in a room much dimmer than earlier. The whirlwind didn't start up again but the air felt heavy.

"I ripped my heart out all over again and went back to Nightmare's torture. And I chose to."

Ginny had been blissfully quiet. She, in all her rage, hadn't interrupted. Too shocked to. But now her eyes widened.

"WHY!?" she cracked out a panicked and furious scream at Ruby. Some shriveled remnant of humanity knew what that moment was to Ruby. The worst moment of her life. Whether Ginny had sympathy or cared or not didn't matter, but she understood.

It was an odd reaction but the Originals, Goldy, and Puppet knew why. Sometimes memories of what happened to the children needed just the barest hair trigger.

Ginny had relived her death over and over again against her will in the quiet moments in Goldy's poster, during those moments when they were just waiting for a night guard to slip up… There had never really been anything Goldy (or any of the other bots) could do for the kids except wait to let it pass.

Ruby just tilted her head. "It wasn't real. It was fake. I wasn't going to let that monster use their memory, my love for them, against me. Those are my parents. My memories. I'm a selfish, bitter bitch and I wouldn't allow that." She breathed deeply. "Besides. I had people waiting for me. I promised Alice, Clint and the kids at the Orphanage that I'd come back no matter what every day. I promised the bots I wouldn't leave."

She stared Ginny down.

"And I come back to you trying to kill Hedy. To you almost getting her killed by Michael. Because you're also a selfish, bitter bitch. But instead of trying to keep those you care about happy and alive, you want them dragged into your misery so you're not miserable alone."

Ruby's expression hardened. "I won't allow that. I swear I'm not letting anyone take my sister from me. Least of all you brats."

"She was ours first," Ginny muttered petulantly.

They could almost hear it when Ruby snapped. She stepped forward and reached out.

Shockingly her hand didn't just pass through Ginny when she slapped her. The crack echoed in the room.

Cheryl yelped, startled as the other kids jumped, unsure what had happened.

"Hedy is not yours," Ruby spat as Ginny stumbled and fell on her backside in shock, holding the side of her face and staring up. The temperature in the room dropped further to match Ruby's tone. "She is a person. Who you hurt and is so so very angry with you Ginny. Wake up. There's a very real chance that you destroyed your friendship with her."

She ran her eyes over the kids. "You know what your problem is? You think you're the only ones who suffered. You think you're the only ones hurting. You're blind to the pain you put the bots through. And you ignore what Hedy's been through." This time her laugh was more bitter than hysterical. "There is one thing I get now, that I didn't before. That I didn't even notice before. Hedy grieved for you. And she moved on. And then suddenly you're back and I didn't realise how much that must have hurt. Because that brings the grief back too.I can't believe I actually gave her shit for calling me a liar when I first told her about you!"

Ruby huffed out a sharp breath. She rarely thought back to past mistakes after having already moved on, especially when Hedy had moved on from that too..

"I grieved my parents. Seeing them again like that… is one of the most painful things I've ever felt. And I'm grieving them all over again now. You should learn that everyone else's pain isn't meaningless in the face of your own. Just because you hurt doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. And because I know you're not listening-I know you're too wrapped up in your own self pity to care-I'll shove that fact down your throats if I have too and it is one hell of a bitter pill to swallow." Her smile was pained. "Guess something good has come out of almost dying this time. It was all connected to the pizzeria. The building doesn't understand how to take back a decision it made. And I died for two minutes in that hospital. I miss eating pizza with all its stupid salt, but I'm an opportunist. So let's see what you think of my pain hmm? Can you ignore the fact that you're not the only ones suffering after this?"

And she let go of that tight grip she had on all the weird stuff that had been dumped on her the moment she entered the building that night she woke up from her coma. She dropped her barriers and walls. Just for a second. Just long enough for her heartache, her grief, her fear and pain to hit them.

To those who were not ghosts, nothing happened. But the reaction of the spirits was frightening. The kids suddenly cried out and screamed in shock and pain. Cherly's knees buckled and she went down hard enough it could have broken her kneecap if she was alive, whispering pleas and tearful cries. Benji gasped and pulled at his hair, sobbing tears that weren't fully his and screaming in pain through gritted teeth. Felix swayed and wordlessly screamed as if he had been stabbed, clutching his chest and stumbling back. Frederick went down too and hyperventilated on his hands and knees for a moment, his soul tricking him into thinking he needed to breathe in his panic and telling him there was the taste of blood in his mouth. Ginny, already on the ground, cried out and desperately hugged herself as if to block her heart, her little fingernails tearing into the "skin" of her arms as she nearly curled into the fetal position.

Ruby let them drown in the agonising grief of losing her parents again, of being the one to make the decision to lose them once more. She let them struggle under the twisted fear that still plagued her as she remembered sharp teeth and a dark room. She let them feel every pain, the stabbing physical agony that still lingered in her body and the emotional pain of what amounted to a week of psychological torture.

She let them feel everything, shoving it ruthlessly in their faces and daring them to deny that it existed.

But only for a second.

And then she pulled it back, packed it back into that box that held her fears and her misery, and shut it firmly. She dragged her walls back up, shutting them out, shutting the vague awareness of the ghosts out, blocking the slightly sharper sense of Hedy and Goldy out, ignoring the curious probing of the building and building a damn Wall of China so that nothing got in and nothing got out.

It was horrifically easy. She had the practice for it after all.

With that done she looked back at the kids.

"I feel that every minute of every day. You don't see me acting the way you do. I used to. I used to feel entitled to my behaviour. Before I realised how badly it affected those around me. Before I realised how much I hurt the ones I had left. So I made myself better. Because like fuck do I want anyone to feel like I do. It's a horrible way to live and you fucking know it."

The kids "recovered" quickly enough, but didn't look like they wanted to move, the ones that had fallen shakily propping themselves up and the ones who managed to stay upright swaying from exhaustion and ready to collapse anyway.

"You should leave," Timmy spoke up. He walked over to gently help Ginny get up.

She didn't even try to fight or push him away, her eyes frightened and glazed.

She had taken a little more of that than the others, Ruby's ire unintentionally focusing it on the ghost girl.

Ginny realized the older boy was touching her a moment later and instinctively jerked away as if her skin was burned, grabbing Cheryl who was still quietly sobbing and blinking out of existence.

Timmy tried not to sigh as the boys disappeared too. He could only hope Ruby had put a crack in their shells and planted some kind of seed that would get them thinking. Maybe he was hoping for too much.

The second they were truly gone, Hedy broke her icy silence.

"Should I address your parents or the ghost thing first, Ruby?" she asked, sympathetic but a little upset that Ruby had been hiding those important details.

"I'm more trying to ignore the ghost thing," Ruby answered shortly. "I can take a lot of things Hedy, but even I can reach a point where things get too fucking weird and the building poking around in my head is one of them."

"She's processing," Timmy added. "And having a slight existential crisis."
"Shut up Timmy."

"She's been complaining about not being able to eat pizza since she got back."

"Why my pizza?! I want my pizza!"

"Isn't it really crappy pizza?" Mike asked in the still shocked silence.

Chica glanced at him. Normally she would have looked miffed but was too shocked to react.

"That's besides the point! I want my pizza!"

The way Ruby stamped her foot was adorable. The fact that that foot stamp rocked the room was less so.

Foxy mumbled something that might have been a curse.

"Oh fuck it all!" Ruby threw her hands up in exasperation. "Hedy was the pseudo ghost! We didn't need two!"

"She's still freaking out a little," Timmy told Hedy calmly.

"Fuck Nightmare and his damn teeth!"

"Hm. Yeah I don't feel as special," Hedy responded to Timmy, deadpanned.

Ruby pinned her with an unimpressed look. She was definitely still freaking out about this.

"I didn't even flatline that long," she muttered petulantly. "I've been medically dead for longer than that."

Timmy facepalmed.

Jeremy made a hysterical noise. It couldn't even really be called a laugh. It was just a pained whine really. He already was upset enough about this stupid building treating his baby sister like she was dead and he had only recently managed to adjust to it. Now it was happening all over again and he felt the sudden burning urge to punch a hole in a wall.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Goldy asked, pained. She hadn't even realized until the last second. With Hedy she had known immediately...

Ruby actually winced a little. "Didn't want to talk about it." She stared at the tools littering the floor. "Didn't expect all that though," she mused.

Hedy kept up the oddly casual attitude. "Well, you're double dead if you broke any of my tools." She eyed a few of the scattered devices in irritation.

"Hedy!" Bonnie whined.

Ruby glanced down at the nearest one, a tape measure with a cracked casing. She subtly kicked it under the closest table.

Goldy suddenly glanced at Hedy in surprise at something she sensed. "You're jealous?!"

Hedy met her look. "That she can beat the shit out of Michael on her own now? Of course. Do you know how fucking hard I have to concentrate to even try touching one of the kids? I would gladly trade all the emotion bullshit for something more physical."

Ruby went still suddenly. "There are perks to being part dead," she suddenly decided. I've wanted to punch him for ages."

Timmy sighed in defeat.

"Can you not say it like that please?" Chica asked.

Ruby tilted her head. "Part alive?"

Several groans sounded.

"Partially zombie."

"I'm going to have a stroke…" Jeremy murmured, his head in his hands.

"Broken down on the way to the afterlife."
"Ruby…"
"Flashlight broke on the way to the light."

Mike snorted, putting his hands up when Foxy shot him a withering glare.

"Dead or alive, fifty fifty."
"Ruby!" several bots yelled.

Hedy laughed, surprisingly. Goldy sighed.

"Eternal rest turned into a nap."

Chica covered Ruby's mouth with her hand. "No more," she muttered. "This isn't funny."
Ruby stared back at her.

"...are you licking my hand?" Chica asked, bewildered.

"Ew, Ruby," Hedy chided.

"Napping with the fishes?" Mike mused, distractedly.

Ruby pulled Chica's hand down. "One, in this case I learned to swim, Knock-off Security Guard. Two, if I don't laugh then I cry and who here wants to see me cry?" she raised an eyebrow.

Jeremy still had his head buried in his hands so that was his answer.

Foxy was eyeing the wall like he was planning another murder.

Ruby opened her mouth again.

"Continue and we might start crying," Goldy pointed out dryly.

Ruby closed her mouth and pouted. "I was having fun…"

Hedy smirked weakly. "I for one am ecstatic to finally have back up for all the morbid jokes I've been wanting to make, but knew I was going to get yelled at for, but perhaps we should leave it for a day or two."

They all lapsed into silence for a moment.

"If I showed up to work looking like the Grudge-"
"NO!"

She went back to sulking and Timmy patted her arm comfortingly. It was another (smaller) shock seeing how solid his hand looked depressing the fabric of her sleeve...

"Can I freak out now?" Bonnie whispered faintly.

It was going to be a long night for them. And Ruby certainly wasn't going to be any help since she kept humming the 'Ghostbusters' theme to herself now.

Hedy personally preferred the Danny Phantom theme song.