CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Surgery went well. There was no reconstruction to speak of, just a lot of restitching and repair now that the initial swelling had gone down. Plus, they put her all the way under for it, so she had four hours of anesthetized sleep and four more in the recovery bay somewhere on the basement level of Tranquility Care Center, somewhat less than restful, since the nurses kept coming in to take her blood pressure and make her do breathing exercises. When she did sleep, her dreams were unnaturally intense. Not frightening, not always, but complex and volatile, recreating things she heard or saw on her brief forays into consciousness and further blurring the line between what she knew was real and what she was afraid was not. They didn't always make sense, but they weren't as fragmented or incoherent as her dreams tended to be when she indulged in chemical recreation. If anything, it was their clarity more than their content that scared her.
In one of them, the most memorable although far from the worst, the reassuring hospital sounds faded out, replaced by an ominous silence. As she lay in her bed unable to move, helpless, she became aware of a new sound—the grunting, guttural breath of something in the hall, something huge, something coming closer. She could hear its footsteps, slow and labored. Scraaaape-thud, scraaaape-thud. She could hear the click of its claws on the hospital floor and the tick-and-wheeze of its cooling system.
She was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, but knowing that made it no less real when the bear nosed her door open and came inside. It was not a grizzly, not a black bear, not a cave bear, not any kind of bear born on or belonging to a physical Earth. It looked like someone had tried to describe a bear to someone who had never seen one, who had then built it out of machinery and meat, and brought it to life through some profane ritual best not imagined. And yet, it was alive. She could hear the monstrous workings of its mechanisms, but where its fetid pelt had torn open, it bled. The sockets of its eyes were blind, full of burnt wires, but it drooled hungrily as it sniffed the air and swung its heavy head around to lock on her. It came to her bed, grunting and wheezing, stinking of rot and machine grease. And when it reached her, it rose up as bears do on its hind legs and in the same instant collapsed and seamlessly reformed and now it was Fredrich Faust standing there in his top hat and tailcoat, his face in shadows, but his eyes brilliantly glowing, as blue as Freddy's, as blue as her own. Then she woke up, only she didn't, because Faust was still there, only somewhat less formally dressed, sitting beside her bed and watching her monitors.
She didn't think she said anything, but it was a dream and he looked at her anyway. "Are you awake?" he asked in that detached, distracted way of his.
She nodded.
"No," he said, brushing the hair back from her brow. "No, you're dreaming. I see you dreaming. You're quite safe, you know, when you dream of me."
She nodded again, comforted, and drowsed to the feel of his thin, cool fingers tracing every line of hurt carved into her face.
"Ana, will you do something for me?" he inquired. "Here, in your dream, where it doesn't really matter."
She mumbled something vaguely affirmative. Her throat hurt too much to form words.
He understood and suddenly his face swept in close as he leaned over her. His voice—Freddy's voice—was a thunder in her skull, a whisper in her ear: "Tell me who did this to you."
Ana dug down deep through layers of instability and found the lie. "Bit…by a dog."
"A dog."
"Uh huh."
He lifted himself away somewhat, not fully straightening. His head tipped to better regard her. His hand where it gripped the safety rails of her bed flexed, the fingers drumming once, soundlessly, as he thought.
"What color was the dog?" he asked finally. "Red? White?"
"Black," she said, not consciously lying but only remembering Mangle's jaws yawning wide and driving at her, so that all she could see was the dark hole of her throat beyond all those teeth. "And white," she added belatedly, now remembering what had remained of Mangle's skin-casings. "And red…" Confused, she dragged a limp hand across her chest and looked at it, seeing blood like a ghostly stain across her trembling fingers. "…all over. It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Like Jimmy said…Jimmy said…black and white and red all over…like those horror movies joke. I can't…I can't…"
"All right. All right. Hush, now. You're only dreaming, after all. Which means it's time to go sleep." He drew his hand down over her face like a magician doing a trick and just like magic, her eyes closed. "Sleep now," he rumbled in Freddy's soft, low singing voice, "Baby, sleep."
There was more to the lullaby, but it all faded away into the hiss of oxygen and the soft steady beep of her heart monitor, and the next thing she knew, he was gone, replaced by another nurse urging a hard plastic straw into her mouth and telling her to blow as hard as she could.
She couldn't then, but after many blank spaces and a lot of dreams, she at last she succeeded in blowing a ball up a tube, so they released her from observation. She had a room upstairs, she was told, for as long as she wanted it, but what she wanted was to go home, and after some argument (and probably a phone call to Faust), they let her go. She slept in the transport van, slept in her parlor with Foxy's arm around her, slept in the truck on the way back to the pizzeria, and slept a thousand years straight through to Tuesday once she got there.
Or maybe not straight through. She had vague memories of Freddy sitting her up to help her drink, but her other dreams of drowning in her mother's car or sitting with David in his bloody paper Freddy mask to watch the sun set over Edge of Nowhere felt just as real. Hell, she had one intensely vivid dream of the wardrobe door creaking open and the Puppet crawling out. She could see every detail, from the crack splitting its porcelain in half, held together with strips of duct tape, like the duct tape wrapped around its right leg just under the jointed knee. She could hear the soft knocking sound of its footless pegs on the stage as it approached the bed where she lay dreaming all of this. She could feel the rough splintered texture of its painted claws as it smoothed her hair back and bent over. But she closed her eyes for the kiss and when she opened them again, the Puppet was gone and Freddy was again coaxing a bottle of water to her lips, so she knew it was a dream. She drank, fell back into the pillows as he tucked her in again, and slept.
The next time her eyes opened, she felt sick and drained and sore and heavy, but awake. Her watch said a few minutes past eleven, but whether that meant morning or night, she had no idea until she stepped out in the hall and saw Tux fidgeting with the fake bowtie under the metal stump of his neck over by the emergency exit. Morning then and the restaurant was open, but the dining room was empty when she shuffled through. Nothing on stage but Bonnie's guitar and the box of parts she was supposed to have sorted through a lifetime ago.
She went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee going. Her hands trembled as she measured out the grounds, but for the first time in a long time, she could tell herself it wasn't withdrawal, it was only because she hadn't eaten anything for days and knew it was the truth. Didn't make it any easier to make coffee, though.
As she waited for the carafe to fill, she got that prickly feeling on the back of her neck that told her she was no longer alone. She didn't look (she knew who it was, just by the silence), not even when Freddy's big fuzzy hand closed over her good shoulder and turned her firmly around. She sighed and tipped her head back, offering her face for inspection, only to let out a cough of surprise when he unexpectedly picked her up and set her on the counter.
"The fuck," she said with as much indignation as she could summon up at the moment, which wasn't much.
"Sit down before you fall down," he replied and got her a bottle of water from the fridge, cracking the seal before he gave it to her to spare her the humiliating fight with a plastic cap.
"What do you want me to do with that? Do you not see me making coffee?"
"Water first."
"I need the caffeine more."
"I decide what you need," he told her, leaning in with that DARE-bear stare.
She booped his nose, which no longer honked.
He booped hers back, gently, and went over to the cupboards.
While he fussed around with whatever over there, Ana sucked in a mouthful of water—first painfully, then blessedly cold. She swished it around and spat the taste of soured sleep, bile and blood out into the sink. Took another and rinsed it clean. Took a third and finally swallowed it.
They both waited to see what her stomach was going to do with it. In the end, her body, although petty and vindictive, decided against open revolt. As soon as she began to drink again, Freddy pulled down a paper plate and a box of Ritz crackers.
"That may be a little too ambitious," she remarked, watching him smear peanut butter on the crackers.
"Good," he grunted. "One should set goals that appear slightly out of our reach. To do otherwise would be never to test, nor achieve, our true potential."
"That sounds like you read it on a poster with, like, a penguin looking at the moon."
"Thank heavens you didn't lose your ability to produce sarcasm."
"Actually, I've lost about twenty percent of my sarcasidity, but the doctor says that with a daily routine of stretches and light profanity, I should be able to regain most of it."
"I'll make a note of that on your recovery schedule."
Ana laughed, then frowned. "I have a recovery schedule?"
"And you thought Boss Bear was bad," he replied placidly, setting her plate on the counter beside her: three peanut butter cracker sandwiches and a fruit cup. "Doctor Bear's Daycamp for Convalescing Toddlers is officially open. Eat, Ana."
It hurt to chew and everything tasted a little bit like blood, but the fruit cup was cool and sweet and heavenly in her mouth and the peaches were already soft and mushy. The act of eating took more energy than it gave her, but she did think she felt a little better when it was all down.
Freddy took her dishes, such as they were, and paused to finally get a good look at her face.
"How's it look?" Ana asked.
"It's bruised," he said after a moment. "How does it feel?"
"Better, actually. I didn't think it would. I mean, obviously I thought it would eventually, I just figured it would get worse again for a bit after they got in there and fucked around some more. And I haven't looked at it yet. They specifically said not to be discouraged by what I'd see in the mirror today, so I'm kind of scared to look at one," she joked. "But it feels better. Less tight. Hurts a lot though. But look!" She pointed at her left eye, which was finally beginning to open again, if only just a slit. "I can see again. You have no idea what a nightmare it is to detox with no depth perception."
He grunted, his attention wandering to her other injuries. He peeled back the edge of the gauze pad strapped to her shoulder and frowned at whatever was underneath. "What did they say about this?"
"Nothing. They were there for my face. They didn't even look at anything else."
"When are you going back for follow-up care?"
"Fifth of Never," she promised. "First thing in the morning."
"Ana."
"Hey, I'm keeping it clean and dry and changing my dressings. What else do you want?"
"How long are you supposed to leave the stitching in?"
"They dissolve, I think."
"You think?"
"If they don't, I'll snip 'em out myself. Don't look at me like that. I've done it plenty of times before."
"They might have given you instructions for care when they released you, if," he said, "you had waited to be released."
She shrugged and handed him her empty water bottle. "Live and learn, bear."
"Oh, how I wish I could believe that you learned something." He took the bottle to the trash box for her, but instead of pouring her a cup of coffee, he went to the sink and returned with a warm, wet towel. He began with her face, his every touch like being lightly brushed with a live coal, but Ana didn't flinch. She tipped her head back when he touched her chin, turned to the side when he touched her good ear and held her hair back so he could get at the bad one.
'I have a bad ear now,' she thought as Freddy tended her.
"The swelling really has gone down," Freddy murmured, now working on her neck and shoulder. "I can tell you're smiling. What's so funny?"
She shook her head, then abruptly said, "Do I look dangerous to you?"
"Yes," he said with a low bearish chuckle. "From the very first, I thought you were the most dangerous human I'd ever seen, and time would seem to have borne me out. Why do you ask?"
"There was a guy in Rider's stables once with a notched ear." She indicated the center of the hot throb occupying the left side of her head.
"Were you impressed?"
"Yeah, actually," she said with a derisive chuckle at her young self. "I thought it made him look…"
"Dangerous?"
"I didn't like him, if that's what you're thinking. I only liked the way he looked."
"Yes," he said with perfect understanding. "Because you did not look dangerous."
"I sure didn't. What was I, twelve? Thirteen? Skinny and useless, starting to get tits. Sorry," she mumbled. "Shouldn't talk to you about my tits. I don't know what I'm saying. He ended up shot, you know."
"Did he."
"Yeah. I mean, most of the people in Rider's stable ended up shot. There's no shame in that, on its own. But that guy in particular ended up shot because his gun jammed while we were all out shooting cans in the desert and he actually turned it around to look down the barrel to see why as he for fuck's sake pulled the trigger again."
"So you were right. He was dangerous."
"Only to himself."
"It qualifies."
"I guess. So am I going to look dangerous when all this heals up?" she joked. "Or am I just going to be ugly?"
He rinsed the towel, wrung it out, folded it.
"You didn't answer."
"It isn't worthy of an answer. You'll have scars, certainly, but as you once told Bonnie, a scar is nothing but what remains when the world tried to break you." He lifted her down onto her feet. "And couldn't."
"I don't know, big bear. I feel pretty fucking broken right now."
"I know. But time heals, as you humans say." Freddy contemplated that with a brooding frown and ultimately dismissed it with a flick of one ear. "I never see that part. The healing, I mean. A child falls, bumps his knee. I let him pick out a bandage and help him put it on, and the next time I see him—a week, two weeks—the bandage is gone. And I don't understand that either. We don't heal. When our parts are damaged, however slight or severe, the scar remains until the part is replaced. You humans regrow your skin. It's…"
"Different," Ana guessed.
"I was trying not to say 'disgusting,' but yes, all right, different is perhaps a better word. The point I'm trying to make is that you'll heal. In time. And no matter what I may or may not know about healing, I know time very well. Counting the minutes will never make them go by faster. Try to take your mind off it."
"Yeah. Maybe if Business Bear could readjust what he considers work, I could start getting shit organized in the new room. Did…Did you ever hear about the new room?"
Freddy's face never moved, she could have sworn to that, but his expression grew shadowed all the same. "Yes," he said. "I heard. That's where I was when…" He was quiet for a moment, then pushed that aside and said, "What is it exactly that you have in mind?"
"I need to go up to the house first," said Ana. She did not say, did not even consciously think that she might also take advantage of that unsupervised time to search the house for a stray bottle. There had to be something there she hadn't emptied. Nothing good, but maybe some wine in the kitchen or another bottle of gin tucked away in the office on the second floor where the Metzgers liked to sip cocktails and enjoy their quaint home-made porn. Something. And she wouldn't drink it, obviously. She needed to go to the house for an entirely different reason and drinking didn't even factor in, but at least she'd know what she had and where it was.
But she didn't say any of that and Freddy didn't give her a chance anyway.
"You're grounded," he reminded her.
"I can't believe how serious you are about that."
"I can't believe you've known me this long and still don't think I'm serious literally all of the time." He took a cup out of the cupboard, poured her some coffee and handed it to her. "What is it you think you need at the house?"
"Um, all the old parts I'm supposed to be sorting through? You know, all that stuff that was in the other truck that's just been sitting there all this time while I'm here doing nothing? What?"
Freddy had frowned at the word 'parts,' tilting his ears and eyelids more and more as she continued to speak until he had achieved a deeply brooding expression that was somewhere confusion and concern. At her final half-laughing, half-frustrated word, he turned, beckoning, and led her out of the kitchen through the storage room.
She followed and when he lifted the unlocked loading dock door, the cargo truck seemed to materialize before her astonished eyes.
"Did you send Foxy for it?" she sputtered. "What…What the hell, bear? How many years have you been singing the This Is How We Show Respect song and I've got to tell you it's not okay to let someone else drive someone's car without the owner's permission?"
Before Freddy could say anything (his frown had deepened), Foxy himself leaned over from where he'd been standing just out of frame to the side of the door and looked in at her.
"Me ears are burning," he said. "What have I done now?"
"I'm not mad," she said quickly. "I'm sure he told you to do it and I'm sure you had the best intentions," she added to Freddy, who acknowledged this with a distracted ear-flick. "But you can't take my truck for a drive and not tell me."
Foxy stared at her for a moment, then straightened up and came all the way into view to tell her with a straight face and a puzzled squint, "Luv, ye told me. Hell, ye were sitting in the seat right aside me when I drove it here."
"What?"
"Ye don't remember?"
She tried, but her brain drew a great black bar through everything that lay between sleeping on the parlor floor with him after the medical transport van dropped her off and Freddy helping her into bed after they arrived at the pizzeria. She could vaguely recall the ride down the mountain, mostly because she kept thumping her head against the window when he took those hairpin turns, but of the vehicle in which she'd been riding, nothing at all came to mind.
"No," she said at last. And, a little afraid to hear the answer, asked, "Did I say anything else?"
"Coo, did ye. Had plenty to say, but as ye couldn't be bothered to open yer mouth for most of it, I couldn't make it all out. Mostly seemed to be telling me to keep out o' different parts of the house. Ghosts in the garage—"
"Ghosts?"
Foxy shrugged. "Yer exact words were, 'Don't go in there, mumble mumble, boo.' I took it to mean ghosts. Ye tell me what ye really meant."
Blue. Blue, still laying under a tarp in the back, waiting to be buried.
"So ghosts in the garage," continued Foxy. "Monsters in the basement, dolls in the attic and things that go walking up and down the stairs. Never a lonely night at home, for the house were never empty. Built haunted, ye said. Built on wire and bone and blood."
His voice had settled into the low, rolling growl he used in all his seafaring stories, and now he uttered a short laugh, breaking the hypnotic grip of his words. "And I don't blame ye a whit. I never been in a more haunted-feeling place in me whole life and ye know the sorts o' places I been living! I never felt alone there."
"What did you do?" Ana asked apprehensively.
"I didn't go looking for ghosties and goblins, if that's what yer asking. Never went further than the stairs and I only went that far because…" He hesitated, then shook his head with another laugh and said, "I would have bet me good hand I heard someone walking around on the upper floor. Old buildings talk. I know it. Creaking boards, sure, knocking pipes and the wind blowing down empty halls. Me neural network knows the rational reasons behind all o' it, but there were a pinch o' human in me yet that caught the creepies. So's I went up to have a look-see, but I promise ye, I never went further than the stairs."
"What did you find?"
Foxy peered at her with a puzzled smile. "Nothing, o'course."
Of course. She wasn't even sure why she'd asked. If he'd found Plushtrap running up and down the stairs, wouldn't he have led with that?
"Well," said Foxy, his ears flipping over to a lop-sided, thoughtful angle. "Nearly nothing." He glanced at Freddy. "Saw one o' the old, old plushies on the landing."
Ana's breath caught, silencing her, but Freddy's grunt held only distracted interest.
"Did you really?" he rumbled. "One of mine?"
"Aye and nay. Not a Freddy, a Fredbear. From the diner a'fore we were born."
Freddy's ears went up, tapping at the brim of his hat. "Are you sure?"
"Undeniable, mate. Yellow as a cat's eye, purple hat and tie. Someone loved the eyes off, but other'n that, it were near as good as new."
"Yeah, there's a Bonnie running around there, too," rasped Ana. "Yellow, like the bear, only in way worse condition. Drunk-Me keeps hiding them in weird places so Sober-Me will think they're moving on their own. Funny joke." She hesitated, then took the plunge and said, "They don't actually move on their own, do they?"
Foxy hooted and laughed at her.
Freddy gave him a silencing stare, shaking his head. "They were wind-up music boxes. The heads had some limited movement and the mouths opened and closed, but that was it. They were just toys, after all."
"That's what I figured, but…you know, considering," she said, summing up the whole miraculous impossibility of Faust's animatronics with a loose wave of one hand, "I wasn't sure. Especially since I apparently keep moving them around. I haven't found the Chica or the Foxy yet. I assume there's a full set in the house somewhere."
"Never were a Foxy at the diner," said Foxy. "I weren't more'n a twinkle in a certain eye until the diner were good n' closed and the pizzeria were being built. Was there ever a plushie Chica?" he asked Freddy. "I remember there were leftovers from the diner laying about the shop, lots o' wee bunnies and bears, but I don't recall as I ever saw a Chica."
"I don't believe he ever got it to work the way he wanted." Freddy glanced at Ana, adding, "The Fredbear and Bonneville dolls each played their own signature songs, but he wanted the Chica doll to perform a kind of duet with a little cupcake in her hand. So in a sense, two music boxes operating independently but in sync, requiring only one key. He built a working prototype, of course, but he couldn't make one durable enough to be used by children while keeping the costs below what his financial advisors would approve. Father didn't mind losing money, but Fazbear Entertainment was incorporated by then and even though he owned a controlling share, he felt some sense of obligation to those whose livings depended upon profits."
Ana absorbed that, but most of it went in one ear and out the other, with only one thing hooking in and insisting on further clarification. She said, "Bonneville?"
Before Foxy could confirm this with more than a smirk, Bonnie came around the back end of the truck and loudly said, "Hey, Anastasia, do I make fun of your full name?"
"I'm not making fun of it, it's just the first time I'm hearing it," she said, probably more defensively than he deserved, but his sudden appearance had startled her and all that adrenaline had to come out somewhere, so it came out her mouth. "Who the hell told you my name was Anastasia?"
"You did," he said.
"The hell I did. I never tell anyone that."
"When we were talking about that whole murdered Russian family thing and how one of the princesses had your name," he said, raising one finger as if to point at the next words. "Well, there wasn't a Princess Ana, but there was an Anastasia." He folded his arms, ears thrust defiantly forward. "Checkers."
"Check-mate," said Chica, peeking around the side of the truck.
"Whatever." His ears relaxed and he looked up at Ana curiously. "Why don't you want people to know? I mean, Bonneville's a stupid name, but Anastasia's kind of pretty."
"I don't know," she said, not without a squirm of distaste. "It's nasally and too long. It sounds like someone's snooty spinster aunt."
"Or a dead Russian princess," said Foxy and snorted when Freddy pointed at him in warning.
"And I don't think Bonneville is a stupid name," Ana said.
"I do." His ears came up a little higher, though. "Is it a real name though? I've never met a kid who got stuck with it. I assumed it was made up. Chica says it's a place," he added with a roll of his eyes as Chica opened her beak.
"I never said it was a place," Chica protested. "I just said it sounds like one. Ville means village, so all I'm saying is it's probably a town." She looked at Ana, tapping her fingertips and waiting for judgment.
Ana shrugged. "There's the Bonneville Salt Flats a couple hours north of here. If I had to guess, I'd say you were named after that, even though there's not much to do there anymore except drive through it for an hour and wish you hadn't drank that whole Big Gulp. It's not really a town though, but it's got a…" She paused, then said, almost to herself, "It's got a speedway out there on the flats. I don't know if it's still active, but people used to come from all over the world to race out there. They even named a whole line of cars after it."
Bonnie perked up. "For real?"
"Yeah. Jeez, one of Rider's friends actually had a '69 Bonneville convertible. I rode around in it a couple times. That thing was a beast." Ana studied him while he shuffled in place, waiting the way you do when you know the roast is coming and there's nothing you can do but laugh along and hope it blew over quicker. Bonneville…
She supposed it could refer to some other town or someone's surname or, knowing Faust's history as she did, the name of the some military project he'd commanded that held good memories for him, but she was certain all the same that Bonnie was named after the car. Had that been the first roadster young Freddy took careening out into the desert with Erik whooping it up in the passenger seat beside him? She thought it very likely. His first taste of freedom and danger, leaving rules and regulations and a father's loathing behind him to venture out past the end of the road and all the way to the place where the canyon ended and the whole rest of the world began. Had he crashed it? She thought that likely too. Maybe it was even still out there, sandblasted by half a century of Mammon's winds and maybe set on fire a few times by kids who had nothing better to do…not that Ana was in any position to judge casual arson.
"It's funny," she said at last.
He nodded with obvious relief at the mildness of the remark. "Yeah, it sucks, but it's not like I picked it out or anything."
"No, I mean, it's weird that you are so completely Bonnie that I can't imagine calling you anything else, but still…the other one suits you, too."
His ears came cautiously up. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Bonneville the Bunny…or is the 'The' short for something too?" she joked.
But Bonnie grimaced and nodded. "Theodore. Hey, I've got an awesome idea! Let's stop talking about my many stupid names and talk about something else for a while." He clapped his hands and rubbed them briskly together as he turned toward Chica. "How are you doing back there?"
"Yeah, and why are you both outside in broad daylight?" Ana asked, several minutes too late to be useful.
Chica came all the way out from behind the truck, revealing an object that at first glance appeared to be a child-sized weed-whacker clutched in both hands.
"Is that the metal detector?" Ana asked, which was a stupid question, and she immediately followed it up with one that was even stupider: "When did that get here?"
"Yesterday," said Foxy. "While ye were away. Some bloke dropped it on the porch, so I brought it back with us. Don't tell me ye don't remember that neither. Girl, ye held it on yer bloody lap the whole way here!"
"But…" She dug through her memories again and again, they were all black and flaked away to nothing, like ashes in her mind's hand. "You didn't have to sign for it or anything?"
"Oh aye."
She stared at him.
He spread his arms in a classic 'Duh' stance. "Of course I didn't sign for the bloody thing! Are ye daft?"
"No, but I'm starting to think I'm still a little bit asleep."
Freddy grunted agreement and put a hand on her shoulder, attempting to gently turn her around and steer her back into the building.
"No, wait," said Ana, ducking under his arm to step out onto the dock. "Did you find the keys?"
"We're still looking," Chica assured her.
"They're gone," Bonnie said with finality and shook his head when Chica began the first uplifting protest. "Come on, stop. We've been back and forth over this lot from the dock to the ledge in every direction. We've found a mountain of bottle caps and pop tabs and bullet casings and old lighters and like ten bucks in change—"
"I found a ring!" Chica said, popping open her wrist compartment to show it off. "It looks expensive."
"It's Mammon," said Ana. "It isn't."
"Well, it's pretty." Chica tucked the ring away again, rubbing her fingers over her wrist protectively.
"Yeah, Chica's still having fun, but those key—" Bonnie flinched and grabbed at his head, scowling. "That string doll is long gone."
"We're still looking," Chica said, subdued.
Bonnie glanced at her, his ears shifting to an angle of resigned pessimism. "Yeah, we're still looking. And maybe someone should try the roof again, just in case it got dropped up there, because if not, it probably got dropped out there somewhere," he said, indicating the wooded slopes that wrapped around Coldslip and then rolled on for miles along the edge of the desert. "And if that's where they are, then…"
"Then we'll keep looking," Chica declared.
"No, we won't," said Freddy, bringing the hammer of his law down on her enthusiasm. "The weather won't keep people away indefinitely. Look around the base of the bluff, in case they fell over the side. Bonnie, you check the roof. You both have until it gets dark and then you're done." He softened slightly as Chica's crest fell and her shoulders slumped, adding, "You can play with your toy some other time. Right now, the risk far outweighs the potential reward. Surely, you see that."
"I suppose," Chica muttered, kicking at the ground before sulking off around the truck to continue her treasure hunt.
"You want a ladder?" Ana asked as Bonnie came over to the dock. "I've got one at the house. It'll only take a minute to go and—"
"Naw, I'm good," he said and, like Foxy a few days ago, climbed up on the surviving rail post and jumped to the eaves, boosting himself easily up and onto the roof like it was nothing.
"I need to watch the road while they're outside and exposed," said Freddy. "That leaves you to unload the truck, Foxy. Ana, if you help him, I'm grounding you for another week. You sit on the stage and wait for him to bring the parts to you. If there's anything you want to keep, he can take them to the new parts room—"
"What new parts room?" Foxy asked. "Ye mean the gift shop?"
"No, he means the craft room," Bonnie called from somewhere above them.
"How am I supposed to know that?" Foxy groused. "No one told me."
Bonnie leaned out over the eaves, the shadow of his ears like knives across Foxy's face. "You weren't there. What, you think we were tiptoeing around the building, all, 'Tee hee, don't tell Foxy where the new parts room is!' No, we had this huge discussion and the only reason you weren't part of it is because you were off—"
"Bonnie," Freddy said quietly.
Bonnie glanced at him, then at Ana, and finally moved out of sight again, but she could still hear him up there, searching the gutters for the keys while staying close enough to listen in to what was happening on the dock.
Eavesdropping, thought Ana, from an actual eave. It was kind of funny, but in this mood, she had no one to share the joke with.
Foxy started to scratch at his chest, looked at his hook, then down at the dock. Not at his feet, but off to one side. There was nothing there, apart from some chips in the concrete and freshly-scrubbed yellow letters spelling out KEEP CLEAR, but Ana knew what he was looking at. She could see it, too: the place Mangle had died. He caught her eye when he looked up again and the two of them shared an awkward, unwanted moment of sympathy—he knew that she knew that he knew what that spot meant—and then he pushed his ears up and affected a jovial indifference, dragging the conversation back to the mundane matter of spare parts.
"Right. Craft room it is. Then what do ye want me to do with 'em, luv?"
"Nothing," called Bonnie, out of sight. "Just put them down where no one will trip over them. We'll sort them all out later."
"When have I ever called ye 'luv'?" Foxy said crossly, glaring at the seemingly-lifeless eaves. "I ain't talking to ye, ye poncey shabaroon! Butt out!"
"Those aren't real words."
"I know they ain't!" Foxy snapped as Freddy sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Bloody piratical translator. Meddling jackass! There! Ye like that better?"
Bonnie didn't answer, but Ana nudged his arm and offered him a, "I love it when you talk like a pirate," along with half a bruised smile, and that seemed to defuse his rising temper. It brought his ears back up anyway.
"All I'm trying to say is, I can do better than just lug cargo around, luv. And why the craft room, anyhow? Hell, we already got the job more'n half-started in the gift shop."
Ana sighed. "Yeah, I know, and that's my fault because I knew it wasn't going to work when I told you to start stashing stuff in there. The craft room may not be an ideal situation, but it's big enough to hold everything, or it will be, once I get some stuff so I can organize it all," she added, her restless mind moving on ahead of the here and now. "Tackle boxes for the little stuff. Shelves, drawers…Are the cupboards in the craft room okay or should they come out? What am I even asking, of course they need to come out. And as long as I'm doing that, I might as well redo the walls. They've got to be primed and painted at the very least and if I'm doing that anyway, I really ought to pull them down and do it right. Fuck me, I need to go to Lowe's."
Freddy thumped his paw hard on the top of Foxy's head and pointed at him. "Just carry it. And you," he went on, now with an extremely careful tap on Ana's head. "You're resting. I'm allowing you to sort parts, provided you do so restfully. Abuse my tolerance and I'll put you in bed."
"Kinky," muttered Ana, not quite quietly enough.
Freddy, who had already started to go back inside, either heard her or Foxy snickering beside her and turned right around again, eyes narrowed. "What was that?"
"I said, sure, that sounds good."
He grunted, adjusted his hat, and walked away.
Ana waited uselessly on the dock while Foxy went and got a couple box-loads from the truck, then walked with him to the stage, where she sat and visualized chains locking her in place.
Foxy did not immediately go and fetch more parts. He watched her rummage through the first box, fidgeting with his hook-hand now and then like he had an itch he was too polite to scratch in mixed company, and looking at the camera on the stage wall as it stared helpfully down over Ana's shoulders so she could see what she was doing. Suddenly, he blew static through his speaker like a cough and said, "I ain't trying to make more work for ye."
Ana looked up, rudely torn from her orderly thoughts of parts and boxes and future shelving units. "What?"
He indicated the tables out in the dining room with his hook, still half-buried under loose odds and ends that formed an untidy trail to the gift shop, with even more clutter. "I ain't pushing at ye to deal with any o' that. Ye know me," he said in a gruff, joking tone. "I ain't the sort to sing babby-songs about cleaning up a mess."
Ana looked at the tables…at the mess she'd made weeks ago and still hadn't cleaned up.
'Yeah,' she told herself in Bonnie's voice, 'because you weren't there. You had bigger things to deal with and for once, you maybe had your priorities in the right place, so calm the fuck down about it.'
"One thing at a time," she said out loud and gave him another of her lopsided, stitched-up, ugly smiles. "If you ever had sung those songs, you'd know that's how they go. It'll all get done, just…one thing at a time. And I should be a lot more grateful than I am that everyone keeps reminding me how the song goes, because it's surprisingly easy to forget."
"Still." He approached the stage with a great deal more reserve than the dashing Captain Fox ever approached a dragon and sat on the edge close to her, just out of easy reach. "I want ye to know…I need ye to know that I sees being here is hard on ye and I ain't trying to make it harder."
"Sure. And I'm not so fragile that I need to be protected from things that are hard, but you got to pick your battles." She glanced toward the South Hall like she could see through the wall to the gym, where a grim sentinel in the shape of a talking teddy bear watched the road. "Especially when you're going up against Freddy."
Foxy snorted and nodded.
"And don't you dare tell him I said this, but I do feel better now that I'm…a bit more clear-headed. I still say he seriously over-reacted, but whatever. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day."
"That one I'm telling him."
She went back to sorting parts and he sat on the stage, keeping her quiet, uncomfortable company while the speakers played the back-up music for one of Freddy's magic acts and the camera buzzed to itself, adjusting its focus. Every so often, Foxy would shift as if he were about to speak, but he never did, not until Ana got to the bottom of the first box and started dumping 'keepers' back into it.
"Those for the craft room?" he asked, standing.
"Yeah, but I want to fill it first. I need something to put the junk in, though. There might be a crate or a bucket or something in the store room."
"Aye, I'll dredge something up for ye. And might as well bring in another load a'fore Bon decides I'm shrifting and does it for me."
Ana said nothing.
He took a few steps towards the kitchen, then looked back. She tried to ignore him, not in a mean way, but just like the act of sorting parts was so demanding that it required all her focus and effort, which was ridiculous, so she had to acknowledge him eventually. But when she raised her head, his gaze was fixed on the camera and he only looked at her when he noticed her looking at him. And now it was an awkward stare, so now someone had to say something.
"Could you bring me another cup of coffee?" she asked inanely.
He looked at her half-empty cup still beside her on the stage. Or half-full, if you were that sort of person.
"It's gone cold," she explained and maybe it was even true.
He nodded and came over to collect it.
The camera, attracted by his movement, shifted to put him in the spotlight and stayed with him, lingering on the kitchen doorway while he rattled around at the coffee maker. "How do ye take it?" he called.
"The usual."
"I don't ken yer usual, luv," he said after a moment.
"Oh. Uh…black is fine, then."
The silence that followed was long enough for her to wonder, in its entirety, why the hell she didn't just tell him and stark enough that she could hear it when he wordlessly topped off her obviously not-black coffee. He brought it back to her with a smile, but while he managed to show it off in his ears, it didn't touch his eyes.
"Easy to remember, at least," he said, handing the cup over.
"Yeah. Sorry."
He didn't ask what the apology was for, just shrugged it off and headed for the kitchen again. After a few steps, he suddenly said, "Fox."
"What?"
He turned back, broadly grinning while his tail lashed behind him. He had pretty good control over his ears, she'd noticed that before, much more than Bonnie, but the tail was new and showed off all his nervous energy. "On the subject of names we ain't proud of," he explained. "Fox. Spelled funny, though. I misremember exactly how."
Abruptly, Ana recalled the film cannisters on the mostly-empty shelves down in Faust's basement workshop. Lots of Freddy & Friends, lots of Cooking With Chica, and lots and lots of The Adventures of Captain Fawkes. "F-A-W-K-E-S," she said.
"Aye, that's it. Proper name, is it?"
"Yeah. There's a pretty famous British guy by that name."
"Oh aye? Who?"
"Guy," she admitted and laughed at herself. "Sorry, that sounds like a punchline, but that's his actual name. Guy Fawkes."
"What's he famous for?"
"Tried to blow up Parliament and kill the king."
"Tried, eh?"
"Did not go well," she agreed.
He gave his muzzle a knowing tap with his hook, grinning. "But they still remember him."
"Oh yeah. They still celebrate his failure every year by burning him in effigy."
His ears came up to an admiring angle. "Coo, there's worse ways to be remembered."
"Right?" she laughed. "I was so confused when I first read about him. Like, how much could they really hate this guy if they give him his own holiday with bonfires and explosions?"
Foxy snorted and took a few more steps toward the kitchen. His tail lashed. "Flynn," he said.
"Mm?"
"Me other name. In case ye were curious."
"Flynn Fawkes," she said, since he seemed to be waiting for something. She looked him over, trying the name on him like a coat and a little surprised by how well it fit. "After Errol Flynn, I assume?"
"More'n likely. I don't use it," he added. "No one's used it since High Street. The kiddies don't go in for fancy names with extra letters, they want something they can spell right so the older kiddies don't laugh at 'em. I were just Foxy before the first year were out. Even in me own head, that's all I am now."
He said it so airily, like he really didn't care one way or the other, but his tail lashed again, broadcasting his defensiveness.
"You don't like it, do you?" she said.
He made a token effort at feigning surprise and pretended to think about it, but dropped the act before it was over and just said, "No."
"It's not a terrible name."
"No, it ain't, but it's a joke. Maybe it weren't meant in a cruel way, but all the same…too many things about us were naught but sly little smirking bits o' nothing meant to make someone else laugh at us. Foxy's silly, but it's honest and never meant anything but me ownself." He hesitated, then said, "I don't know if ye still care to know, but ye asked me once if it were me first or last or me only name. Ye remember that?"
"Vaguely."
"Well, seeing as how I now know the full measure of yours—"
"Two-thirds of a measure," she corrected. "I'll take my middle name to the grave, Captain."
"Suit yerself. I only figured fair's fair. And ye might get a laugh out of it. Just don't think ye can needle me with it, princess."
"Ugh, don't call me that," she groaned, not entirely kidding. "Deal. I'm Ana, you're Foxy, and we'll never speak of this again."
"Ha! Agreed."
A few more steps brought him to the kitchen doorway and there he stopped one more time, visibly braced himself and turned back to her. "Occurs to me that, betwixt one thing and t'other, we ain't had a proper homecoming. What say ye, lass?"
"I say—" Do you have a zombie fetish, leapt to mind, but she locked it down before it reached her mouth. "—what do you call a proper homecoming?" she finished instead.
"Just a quiet night abovedecks," he said, showing her an empty hand (and a shiny hook) to prove his chivalrous intentions. "I ain't really had a chance to feel at home since we been back. We could sit awhile down in the Cove, eh? Settle in. Just the two of us." He paused to gauge her reaction (she did her best not to show him one), before adding, "I don't care what we do. Hell, cadge some cards out o' Fred and we'll play us some Gin Rummy or Blackjack or Beggar Me Neighbor all night."
"Never heard of that last one."
"I'll teach ye. I knows scores o' card games, which is a pity, as being a pirate, I never gets to play 'em."
"Why can't pirates play cards?" Ana asked, then rolled her eyes as she caught on and groaned along with him: "'We're always standing on the deck.' Caw caw caw. Hilarious, Captain."
He didn't laugh with her. "I miss ye some, lass," he said haltingly. "I miss yer face."
"Me, too," Ana said sourly and opened the next box of parts.
"Will ye come?"
"Sure. We'll watch a movie or something. A good one," she promised, sketching a quick X over her heart. "No cartoons or kid shit. Blood, bad language and naked tits from start to finish."
"Aye, and I has a bottle o' the Kraken tucked away in the booty chest and perhaps a spliff or three that Fred don't know about. We'll make a proper time of it."
Ana laughed, but wasn't sure she liked the greedy heat that leapt up in her heart at this news. "I don't know, Captain. I fade out kind of early these days."
"I'll make up the bunk for ye."
"Yeeeah, or I could just sleep in my own room."
"Afraid to be alone with me?" He flicked at his lapels with the tip of his hook. "It's the coat, ain't it? Dangerously dashing."
"That must be it."
"No worries, luv. I'll take it off once we're alone," he promised, then winked his eyepatch at her and sauntered out, his new tail flicking at the tip like that of a satisfied cat.
With Foxy gone, the camera swiveled back around to Ana, who snapped her fingers a few times to orient it on her hands, and then she went back to work, but she wasn't thinking about parts anymore, or the storage situation in the craft room or even Foxy's persistent offer of a sleep-over. She was thinking about that damn bottle, the one she hadn't even known existed a few seconds ago and now throbbed like a headache in the back of her mind. She could see the label, the monster rising out of the fathoms, dwarfing the ship it had all but sunk, ready to drag the doomed crew down to drown. And in every waving arm, a bottle.
In addition to not singing songs about chores, Foxy had never had to do them before. Being an animatronic, his opportunities to make a mess were few. He neither shed food wrappings nor dirtied dishes, did not wear clothes and didn't need them laundered, and while he did tip a bottle from time to time as part of his larger than life stage persona, it rarely had anything in it and he used the same one until it broke or got stolen. His daytime job was to get the babbies wilding while they were sugared up on cupcakes and soda pop. Drinks were spilled, pizza thrown, sure, and someone else cleaned it up. Yo ho ho, say hey for the life of a pirate. At night, his job was similarly unconcerned with what got smeared or stained. There was something satisfying about sinking his hook in deep as it could go and ripping it out again, hearing the splatter and the drip and that special sizzle if the muck went high enough to hit the lights. Cleaning up was the Purple Man's headache. True, he got animatronic hands to do it, but Foxy was either back in the Cove or in the Parts Room being hosed off, so it was never him. Even after this restaurant closed and the Game was over, Foxy was usually the one dumping bodies while the others mopped up. And on the rare occasion that he did have to do the cleaning, he was never doing it alone, and if he did a sloppy job of it, he never knew because Chica or Freddy was always there to put the polish on whatever he'd left rough behind him.
Point being that while Foxy did not, as a rule, do chores, it was only because he didn't have any to do. However, as he trudged back and forth from the truck to the stage, lugging boxes and buckets and spare odds and sods, he discovered a fresh thing about himself, namely that he didn't like doing them either. It wasn't difficult. A touch of difficulty might actually make it worth doing, give him something to think about, something to defeat instead of something to just do. There was nothing Foxy loved like a good tricky fight and nothing he loathed like boredom.
But if it was hard on Foxy, even he could see it was harder on Ana. He wasn't sure how just sitting there looking at parts could be strenuous, but the strain was obvious, wearing on her more and more as the day passed. Nevertheless, she insisted on keeping the momentum going even after she'd worked her way through all the truck's parts and got the gift shop and dining room emptied, too. Foxy understood that 'keeping momentum' was just a fancy way of saying, 'I want to get this done before Freddy makes me stop,' so he didn't argue, but he might have vented his cooling system a few more times than was strictly necessary without realizing it because Bonnie made a point of telling him to knock it the hell off the next time they passed each other in the halls on the way to and from the craft room.
Still, it wasn't endless, it only felt that way, and the last part was dropped in the last box not long before closing time. Foxy carried it off, leaving Ana slumped against the stage wall to recover herself, and came back to discover Bonnie sitting beside her, on the pretense of playing his guitar but really just moving in on his girl. In fairness, Ana wasn't encouraging him. She wasn't discouraging him either, but at least her ambivalence could be said to have a sound reason. Poor girl would have been dead on her feet if she could stand. She did her best to hide it and keep a steady chatter going, but the next time Freddy's rounds brought him through the dining room, she interrupted Bon's sterling rendition of 'A Big Stupid Bunny Fingers A Guitar' to ask if it was time for her pills yet.
"Is it six o'clock?" Freddy countered, a rhetorical question if ever there was one, since he, like Foxy, had the time wired right into his brain. Poor girl had an hour and more to go, but she looked so drawn and dim sitting there trying to make sense of the big and little hands on her wristwatch that Foxy was not surprised when Freddy said, "It's close enough," and opened up his wrist compartment. "Do you want one or two?"
"I want two." She sighed and held out her hand. "I'll take one."
Freddy's grunt held more concern than approval as he passed it over and he watched her closely as she swallowed it, but, "You're tired," was all he said.
"I'm fine," said Ana predictably and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm tired, but at least it got done. There's something to be said for the emotional debuff of just being able to check something off the list." She looked out at the empty tables across the dining room and defeat bowed her shoulders like she was seeing an open landfill stretching horizon to horizon and halfway to the moon. "Almost. Whatever. I'll do the rest later. I need to take a break."
"Good girl," said Freddy and headed out on the next leg of his endless patrol. "Get something to eat."
"Yeah, yeah. Come on, Chica. Girls Night in the kitchen."
"Oh yay!" said Chica, startled but pleased. Quickly shaking the little palmful of 'treasures' she'd found out in the parking lot into the pocket of her apron, she came over to offer Ana a helping hand onto her feet. "What are we making?"
"I don't know. Something soft, but hot. It's freezing in here." Ana sent an exhausted, blameful eye up at the place where the HVAC unit used to be, then forced a wan smile. "Want to find out what happens when you mix a packet of cornbread mix with a tub of beefaroni and put it in the Easy Bake?"
"Ooo, like a science experiment!"
"Hopefully my pill will kick in after that and we can take advantage of that brief window between me feeling no pain and spacing the fuck out for me to teach you some humility at Mortal Kombat. I admit I haven't touched that game in a long time, so I may be a little rusty in the first rounds, but I bet I roast you by the end."
"Oh really?" Chica said, fluffing her crest with amused, and well deserved, skepticism.
"Like a chicken, sister," said Ana, limping toward the kitchen with the camera at her back.
"We'll just see about that. Don't think I'll go easy on you just because we're friends and you're a little…um…"
"Hey, if you let me win just because I'm beat up at the moment, we wouldn't be friends. No quarter," Ana warned. "That's the only way I play. You see an opening, you fucking go for it because you best believe I will."
The camera hummed to itself, softly, like a smile.
Foxy smiled too and raised his voice to call after her, "I love it when ye talk like a pirate. Don't ye forget me now, luv."
"Forget what?" The puzzled fog cleared almost at once and she nodded, waving at him. "Oh. Right, sorry. I won't."
Foxy turned away, more than ready to go back to the quiet of his Cove.
"What's that about?" Bonnie asked in a low voice, too low for Ana in the kitchen to overhear.
"Never ye mind, bucko. That's between the lady and meself." He snapped his eyepatch down in a wink and off he went, leaving Bonnie to smolder on the empty stage.
He didn't know how long Ana would be at her little game and he rather suspected she might take herself off for a wee sleep afterwards, so he expected to have a few hours at least to entertain himself. Fair enough. He'd rather have her rested when she came to visit, for he had every intention of wearing her right out, but in the meantime, it would take all his cunning and no small amount of time to set the scene. It wasn't enough just to knock the dust off and kill a few spiders this time. It was going to take some real effort to make his cramped, dark cabin seem cozy and inviting, particularly given all the skulls and crossbones molded into the paneling.
Foxy was not a romantically-minded man under the best of circumstances and Ana liked a rough go herself, but in her present condition, she might appreciate a gentler touch. And although she was not a woman overly concerned with appearances, she might be feeling a bit tender about herself. Needlessly, of course. She was beautiful, the kind of beauty that could not be unmade by something as paltry as physical damage. She might not believe it and he'd sound silly saying it, but he didn't need words to make the woman who made him feel whole and strong and dashing in a decaying box of a building with cracks through his skin as deep as his bones feel desirable in his arms. And if it all ended early with her nodding off under his arm while she watched one of her silly murder movies instead, well, that suited him fine, too. The important thing was to make a memory, to have one good night after all these weeks of fear and pain and uncertainty. How she spent it didn't matter much; who she spent it with was everything.
But he had his work cut out for him.
A few skulking trips to the store-room for cleaning materials and he went to it, scrubbing walls, floor, cupboards, door, and taking especial care with the lintel so its fine carvings stood out like they were new. He swabbed the deck and laid out one of Ana's fluffy towels for a cushion in the bow. After a moment's thought, he snuck out and got another one for a pillow. Pity he had no real blankets, unless he felt like stealing one off her own bed, but on the other hand, if she were cold, she'd have to snuggle up and warm herself by the battery locked away in his chest, so that was all right. He fetched the bottle of rum from the cupboard and tucked it away low in his abdominal cavity where he'd have to take his shirt off to get at it. And on the subject of clothes, he made sure to lay his hat out on the ship's wheel at just the right careless angle to suggest it had been tossed there in frustration by a bloke who couldn't get it to sit right around his ears, which would give her a good reason to sit up with him awhile and do him a favor that he could then make up to her. So there. Every possible reason to stay, no excuse to leave.
So now there was nothing to do but to wait.
Foxy removed himself to the amphitheater and settled himself on the first riser, keeping his ears pricked for the pitter-patter of human feet, and took out his time-passing doubloon.
A few hours passed easily enough. Then a few more, somewhat less easily. When midnight arrived with still no sign of her, he began to feel…well, not worried. Nothing was wrong with her, or at least, nothing wronger than it had been earlier. Neither was he annoyed, although he couldn't deny the sting of something more than mere disappointment every time Freddy came through the East Hall door instead of Ana with a joint tucked behind her ear and that crooked smile of hers, happy to see him.
She never was, and eventually he quit torturing himself with the non-sight of her and went back up to the ship to wait. He flipped his coin, paced the boards, moved the towels from the bow to his bunk and back again before gathering them all up and stuffing them in a cupboard. She might appreciate the consideration of her comfort or she might not appreciate the presumption, and he wouldn't know which way the wind blew until she bloody turned up, which she wasn't going to do because she wasn't coming. At all. She was somewhere else instead.
She was with someone else instead.
He didn't have to believe it. He could choose to believe she was asleep in her bed right now and if he never knew any better, it could be the truth for him. He could sit here all night knowing he'd been forgotten, only forgotten, which was a blow to his pride but perfectly understandable, given the poor girl's circumstances. It wasn't the end of the world. He could try again another night, plan it out a little better or at least a little earlier, and he wouldn't even needle her about it in the morning because he didn't want her to feel guilty about it. Nothing to feel guilty about. She was tired, she went to bed and that was fine.
Oh, who was he kidding?
Foxy popped the keypad panel open on the back wall, punched in the pass-code, and soon was slipping out of the prop wardrobe in the Party Room. His eye went first to Babycakes. Ana had, in her ignorance, set the damned thing on her dresser, its spying eyes aimed right at her bed. But at least they were closed at the moment, and no wonder. Nothing to see here. Ana's bed (plenty big enough for two people, he thought peevishly, if'n they were cozy) was empty.
Tempted as he was to wait here for her, he knew that was the sort of set-up that only ever ended in a fight. He didn't want to fight, he just wanted to find her.
He started with the arcade, as the most reasonable explanation (not the most logical or likely, but the one he could be most reasonable about) was that she and Chica were still enjoying Girls Night, but Chica was in the office alone, all her attention fixed on the television as her thumbs danced over the controller in her hands and her new crest puffing in time with her whispery G-rated cussing. The next most reasonable place to find was the Craft Room, where she might be pretending to be 'organizing' and perhaps knocking up a few shelves while Freddy's back was turned. Might be…but she wasn't. He didn't bother searching any other rooms. He knew where she was.
It was quiet in the dining room, but with a little light to prove it was not empty. Not eye-light. Television light. Well, not television precisely, but if there was a special word for watching shows on a touch-screen tablet, Foxy didn't know it.
Ana was indeed there, across the room in the dark corner under the tray return window where he probably would not have thought to look for her, save that her face was aglow in bluish light. Her eyes were shut, deep asleep if not quite at rest. With each flicker from the screen of her tablet, shadows sketched a pinched, fretful expression over her sleeping serenity. She lay on her side, her legs drawn up, her head pillowed on Bonnie's thigh as he sat beside her. His long ears twitched at the tips as he watched whatever was happening on the little screen, but he didn't seem too invested in it, for all at once, he looked up and saw Foxy.
After a long moment to decide how he wanted to approach this, Foxy raised his hand, both a greeting and a silent question. Can I come in?
Bonnie shrugged with his ears, although he showed little welcome. Do what you want.
Foxy stepped over the invisible threshold between the dining room and the East Hall. "She sleeping?" he asked, not loudly, but making no real effort to be quiet either.
Ana didn't rouse.
"Yeah," Bonnie said softly.
"Early for her. Wore her out, did ye?"
"Funny," Bonnie said in a humorless tone. "I'm going to pretend you're talking about the work and no. Me and Chica did it. All Ana did was patch up the gator."
Work? Foxy glanced around, this time taking in more of the room than just his girl and the long-eared git snuggled up in one piece of it. The first thing he noticed was that the tables he and Bon had cleared earlier were gone. Only after he saw that did all the rest of it become obvious. The floor, swept and mopped. The alligator animatronic had been mostly glued back together and the door that had smashed it apart had been removed, but not hung back up again; the door-jamb needed replacing first. The stage where Ana had done her sorting had also been cleaned, with a fresh-looking coat of primer to finish out the job that had been started, oh, a lifetime ago, before they left for Yoshi's.
"Ye were busy," Foxy remarked.
"Yeah. Lots to do."
"Still not sure why watching ye work put her to sleep."
"Still not sure what you're implying, but Freddy came by with her pills at midnight. She was dead-out ten minutes later."
His internal clock told him it was 12:47. Missed her by that little. That's what it got a man, wrestling with his conscience. Should have just come out and fetched her away on his shoulder hours ago. To hell with romance and say hey for the life of a pirate.
"Ye knew she was coming to see me tonight," he said, which was mild enough, all things considered.
"So?"
"So, it occurs to me that if she'd made plans with ye and I coaxed her in to sit up all night with me instead, ye might have things to say about I were stealing yer girl."
"Probably, but I, a, didn't coax her into doing anything. She asked me if I wanted to watch a movie after we got done with the work. And b, she's not your girl."
Foxy nodded some more, now inspecting the stage. "Seen him around?"
Bonnie looked at the camera, dark and blind. "Naw, he blipped off when we moved over here. Couldn't see us, so he got bored. Probably pestering Freddy."
"Not him."
"Who then?"
"The bloke, kind of looks like ye, who said she broke up with him and he had to respect that and let her go."
"I don't know. Maybe he's off with the other guy, the one who kind of looks like you, who told me she didn't mean it and I should grow a pair and try to get her back." Bonnie stroked Ana's arm, his eyes locked on Foxy, hard and unforgiving. "Wish me luck."
Another day, Foxy might have laughed. Tonight, looking at the two of them…it wasn't funny.
He moved a little closer, just far enough to see the tablet. One of Ana's gore-flicks—blood, bad language and tits, as promised. "That all she ever watches?" he asked, nodding at the picture, presently that of a cadaverous monster biting the eyes out of a screaming half-naked coed.
"It's all she's got on this."
"She ain't showed ye how to get different shows?"
"Sure she has. It's just, you know, she might have to pay for the different movies or whatever. I don't really know how it works."
"She don't mind."
"I didn't say she felt weird, did I? It's my problem." Bonnie lifted his hand as Ana squirmed, waited for her to settle, then resumed his petting. "All I get to do is deal with it."
"She's leaking," Foxy said with a nod at the fresh tear tracks painting themselves down Ana's cheek.
"Yeah, I know. She's dreaming."
"She do that a lot?"
"You haven't noticed?"
"She only ever slept aside of me on the two occasions," said Foxy as neutrally as possible. "The ball pit ain't exactly a restful bed and me cabin ain't much better. She might have cried a bit, but I didn't think enough of it to mark the occasion, especially as she were higher than the damn moon on both accounts to begin with."
"She's not high now, if that's what you're saying. She's just tired. The pills are pretty strong, I guess, but she's not taking them for fun."
"Lord love a guppy, man, did it never occur to ye I might just be saying the words coming out o' me mouth?"
Ana shifted again, this time with a shivery murmur. Foxy looked away, adjusting his volume settings while Bonnie soothed her quiet.
"She don't sleep with me," Foxy said finally, when she was well under again. He felt something, like a cramp in his chest, and scratched at it without thinking. "That's all I meant. She never sleeps with me. I hardly sees her at all."
"Am I supposed to feel bad for you now?"
"Ye sure shouldn't ought to be jealous, lad."
"Stop calling me that. I'm older than you by three months."
"Bon, then." Foxy sighed, letting his head hang for a moment before raising it to look at him. "Bon, I ain't the bad guy here. She came to me."
"And that makes it okay, huh?"
Foxy rolled a shoulder. "I drank from the cup she poured. Ye want me to lie to ye now and tell ye it were bitter?"
"No, I want you to lie and tell me you fell in love," Bonnie said in a harsh whisper. "But you didn't. You just fucked her and now you want me to pretend it's the same thing, that it doesn't even matter which word you use. Well, it matters, damn it!"
"I know."
Bon answered that with a scornful stare and went back to watching his movie.
Foxy turned around, thinking he was headed back to the Cove, but couldn't seem to push himself out of the dining room. He didn't want to look, couldn't stop himself staring, and the thing that pulled at his eye the most wasn't so much him or her but just the places they touched—his hand on her bare arm, her cheek on his thigh. He'd be tempted to call it the space between them, save that there was no space between them. There was him and her…and them. And they could make a them so easy. Hell, she could do it in her sleep.
"She used to talk to me, ye know," he heard himself say. "Back in the day, before she knew we were listening. She'd come down to the Cove, sit a spell, light up and pass an hour. Not every night, maybe, but most of 'em. I liked the way she talked to me, the way she looked at me. I flirted her up some, oh aye. Made her laugh a time or two, that's all, before she put me from her mind and went back to ye. She didn't love me, weren't even playing along at it. I weren't but the broken toy with a funny way o' talking what used to be her favorite when she were a girl. She outgrew me before she ever put a foot over the threshold. She's a woman now. She wants a man. And yer her man."
"Was," said Bonnie.
"Are." Foxy nodded at Ana. "Proof is in the pudding, mate. She don't cuddle up on me."
"She does plenty of other stuff with you."
"One thing. One thing only. She don't even talk to me anymore, not like she used to." He dragged his gaze up with an effort to look Bonnie in the eyes. "Ye want to know how it is with us? Do ye really?"
"No."
"Aye, ye do. It's all but eating ye alive. So it is, Bon. Here's all the ways we are." Foxy went to the stage and sat, staring at them, that easy them they made. At last, he said, "Truth is… Truth is, I don't cheer her up. I don't calm her down. I don't make her feel safe. She didn't come to me because I were handsome or exciting. Or dashing," he added, thinking back to that night in the dark auditorium and her wistful, sleepy confession. "She just came to have a smoke and a swallow and somehow…I can't tell ye how it happened. I think about that night a lot and I still ain't sure meself. First move was hers, I swear by that, but…I can't swear she was sober. She said she was. I did ask," he emphasized as Bonnie's eyes narrowed and turned black. "Twice, even."
"Yeah, right. I'm sure you were a perfect gentleman," Bonnie said with quiet scorn. "If you had to ask twice, you knew she was lying."
"No, I weren't a gentleman. I'll never be a gentleman," he added and had to laugh at the sting of it. "I'll always be…" He looked down at himself and brought his hook up to look at Bonnie through the shining, sharp loop of it. "…this. Yer the one what makes her feel good. And me? Ha. I make her feel the way she's used to feeling about men and that ain't no good thing. But there's a certain kind o' comfort to be gained from getting what ye've always had, even if it hurts. So. She's with me, just like ye said it, because it hurts. Because there be that little voice in the back o' her head telling her she don't deserve ye, that all the best the likes o' her gets is the likes of me."
Bonnie tried to hold onto his stare, but his eyes flickered. He dropped them, looking at Ana instead.
"What, ye don't think I know yer better for her than I am? Sure and there ain't a soul on this spinning rock what I'd be the better for. But I'm…I'm good enough for her," he said, forcing the words out on a crackle of static. "I'll never be good, no matter how bloody hard I try, but what I am is good enough for her. I don't have to pretend to be better, no more'n I has to pretend to be a pirate. She sees past the silly face and the stupid voice and all the yarring and she just sees me. Whatever she gave to me that night, she gave it…to me. And that means something to me, Bon. That matters."
Bonnie made half a scornful sound through his speakers, waking Ana, sort of. She lifted her hand against the light from the unwatched tablet and muttered a question, but accepted Bonnie's, "Nothing, baby, go back to sleep," without argument. She rolled herself over, pressing her face to Bonnie's belly and wrapping his hip with one arm like a belt. Once she was snoring again, Bonnie shut the movie off and set the tablet aside. "Let me ask you something," he said. "Honestly. Do you love her?"
"More'n ye, ye mean?"
"Forget me. Do you love her? Is this seriously what love looks like on you? Because the way you talk about being with her, how you don't make her happy, but she thinks you're good enough…that doesn't sound like love to me. That sounds like sex and…hell, I don't know anything about sex, but it doesn't even sound like the sex is that great, and how am I supposed to feel about that? Do you love her?" he repeated, leaning forward like they were toe to toe and not a room apart. "Tell me you love her and that's something I can understand at least, even if I'm not exactly thrilled about it, but don't you rip my heart out and eat it in front of me and then tell me it doesn't even taste all that great."
Foxy started to scratch at his chest again, but this time noticed his hook and forced his arm down again. He just got this body. It was too early to start carving it up.
"Are you thinking about it?" Bonnie asked with quiet amazement. "Why the hell do you have to think about it? It's a simple question."
"No, it ain't."
"Yeah, it is. The complicated shit is everything else that gets tangled up with it. I'm not asking where it's going or what it means. Making it work is not the question here. Do you love her or not?"
He wanted to answer, he really did, but even on the second asking, he wasn't sure how. "I want to," he said finally. That still wasn't it exactly, but it was as close as he could get it out and still be honest.
"So…okay, so if you know it's all messed up, why are you having sex with her? That can't feel good, can it?"
"Bits of it do. Ah, hell, man," he sighed before Bonnie could come back to that the way it deserved. "Look at yerself. Right here, right now. Does that feel good? Knowing everything she is and isn't to ye… Does that feel good?"
Bonnie glanced down at Ana. He petted her. "Bits of it do."
"Complicated," said Foxy softly. "Ain't it?"
Bonnie didn't answer.
"Why did I do it? She put her arms around me. That's it. She put her arms around me and I'll have ye know, I weren't chatting her up. She done it all on her own, because she wanted to, wanted me. I didn't want to take her from ye, but hell, the two of ye were quits and ye wouldn't even try to have her back, so where's the sin, mate? Ye want to have a cut at me, tell me I envied what ye had with her. Aye, I did. I won't deny it. I were jealous fit to spit and I wanted yer girl. Not to hurt ye, never that, but just to…to see what it looks like when a woman wants ye for nothing but what ye are. She didn't love me, but…" Another shrug. He didn't even lift his elbows from his thighs this time. "…she didn't pay for me neither, so I reckon that's fair enough."
Bonnie's ears flicked low. Not with anger. A flinch. Avoiding Foxy's eyes, he said, "And now?"
"What do ye want from me? She ain't looking for me to love her and ye don't tend to find what ye ain't looking for, do ye?"
"You say that, but you're still with her."
"As long as she'll have me, mate. I keep thinking I might win her over yet. Hopeful chap, me."
"Where does that leave us?" Bonnie asked bitterly.
"Same boat, different oars, I reckon."
"Yeah, well, maybe you can live like that, but not me."
"Is that what yer thinking? Tell her plain to pick one and let the other'n be? And how do ye think that'll play out?"
Bonnie's ears scratched the wall again, although he never looked up. He watched his hand on Ana's arm as if it were some other force moving it.
"Ana don't make choices. She'd rather take a punch than have to choose which way to roll to get out of its way. Mark me, ye tell her to free someone and she'll free herself from the whole mess and be over that blue horizon before the humming of yer speaker's done."
"Man, you sound so convincing when you say shit like that, but I can't help thinking that the real reason you don't want her to choose is because you're afraid she won't choose you."
"Unlike ye, I suppose."
"Me?" Bonnie snorted, not without a certain element of humor. "I know perfectly goddamn well she might not choose me. People have been choosing you over me my whole damn life, but it's not about me. She still has to make the choice. And if it's you, then I'll have to find some way to wish you well and mean it, but I will, because it's not love if she doesn't have a choice and it's not a choice if I punish her for not picking me. And because…" Bonnie's ears wavered and came slowly up at an angle of unhappy resignation. "Because you're my brother and I love you, damn it. I don't want to win the girl if it means losing my brother. And I'm not going to push the girl away just to keep my brother because that's making the choice for her. She's got to choose, man. Not for me or you, but for her. You see that, right?"
He didn't. Made no sense to him at all. Sounded like the sort of lily-livered loverbunny bullshit that could only ever make sense to a man who was giving himself a graceful safety net to fall on when his last leap for the golden ring failed spectacularly.
"I see it," he heard himself say and frowned. He stood to go.
Bonnie scowled, looked at Ana, looked at him. "Look, for what it's worth…For what it's worth, when she asked me if I wanted to watch a movie, she specifically said it had to be a short one. And I'm pretty sure the only reason she asked was because she spent all that time with Chica and then she was going to see you and she didn't want me to feel like she was just using me for labor. She didn't mean to fall asleep." His ears, already low, swiveled on their pins, away from resentment to guilt. "And I shouldn't have let her. I knew you guys had plans."
"Nothing so solid as 'plans,' mate. And she's tired. Let her be."
"Well…damn it. Come on over here. Watch the rest of this stupid movie with me. She won't sleep through the night, pills or no pills. The floor's too hard and it's cold in here. She'll wake up eventually, she'll see you, remember you had a date or whatever…"
"If she remembers, she'll come see me on her own," said Foxy, walking away. "If she goes to bed instead, she needs the sleep more."
"And they say opposites attract."
Foxy paused in the shadows of the East Hall and looked back. "Eh?"
Bonnie fixed him with a frustrated eye. "You know, the one thing I'll never be able to say is that I don't know what you two see in each other. You're so much alike in all the worst ways, I seriously wonder what that says about me."
"What are ye barking on about now?"
"This. What you're doing. Both of you act like if you just ignore the problem hard enough, it'll go away on its own. Dude, has that ever worked? Ever? Get over here," he said again, giving the floor beside him an inviting pat. "You've got to show her that you'll be there even if she doesn't ask, because she'll never ask. I can fuck off, I guess. Let you guys talk when she wakes up."
"No," said Foxy as Bonnie shifted to begin the difficult task of extricating himself from Ana's sleeping grip. "If she wants me, she knows where to find me."
"Come on."
"No," he said again, harsher. "I can't pretend I'm you to change her mind about me. That ain't fixing the problem."
"Yeah, well." Bonnie resettled himself, stroking Ana's arm. "This bit where you stay in your room all day because you don't need anyone or anything? That's only you if you let it be, and if you're letting it be, that's the fucking problem."
"Yer spending too much time with Chica."
"Try it some time. You might learn something. I think she's in the office if you want to get your virtual ass beat down while she psychoanalyzes the real one."
"Hard bloody pass." He started walking again. "Fair winds, mate."
"Night. See you tomorrow."
A good way to leave it, if there were any good ways, but he looked back, because even if Foxy had never been asleep in his life, he still knew how all the bad dreams go, and he saw them alone again in each other's arms. Doing nothing, of course, nothing more lascivious than Bon starting up the movie again and Ana snoring into his side, but it was the sort of nothing that hurt a man's heart. He thought how good they looked together, how easy they made it seem, and how hard he'd worked it at it to make ready for a night that never happened. How even if it had happened, it would never be the same, because he could never just watch the bloody movie with the girl tucked up under his arm, he'd always be watching her, prying beneath the walls she put up, sneaking peeks at the cards she played so damned close to the heart, and planning his next move.
He had to call it love because he didn't know another word for it, but it was the same kind of love that compelled him to save Foxanne by locking her in a box and burying her where she could never feel a living touch or see another soul, where his was the only voice she ever heard, and if that was love, it was love of a very purple shade indeed.