When Charlie picked up John from the library, she discovered that he was in a much better mood than he'd been earlier in the day. Mostly owing to the fact that he'd been able to finish both his project and some additional homework.
She was pleased to see him in such a good mood, especially since it meant that he'd forgotten the earlier tension between them. But despite his good mood, Charlie found herself unable to share in the jubilation.
While she had tried to hide it, it was very clear that she was entrapped in a blanket of anxious melancholy that had also sapped all her energy. Her attempts at staying engaged with the conversation continually feel short, not that she'd been all that interested, to begin with as her focus remained on trying to burn the yellow rabbit's visage from within her head.
A task that became harder when John tried innocently asking how things had gone with Millie. It was a simple enough question, but Charlie still became evasive so as not to give him the full story of the day's events.
Never giving John much more than simple answers that she hoped would placate him enough to avoid any follow-up questions. But even then John managed to pick up on the hints of both shock and pain hidden in her voice, which made him decide to quickly table the subject for another time. To this end, he quickly changed the subject to what they were going to do for dinner.
However, Charlie didn't contribute much to that conversation either, claiming she wasn't hungry. A claim quickly disputed by her stomach making an upset sounding growl. Despite trying to deny it, John decided to cook something special for them both as a way of celebrating their now freed up weekend.
While John started working in the kitchen, Charlie took a seat at the table and watched him cook. Her face rested tiredly in her hands while she lazily traced a finger across her cheek in silent thought.
The day's events had given her a lot to think about while also shattering whatever sense of security she'd had left. The presence of the new Freddy's had already damaged it, but seeing her father's creations alongside the yellow rabbit had left her jumping at every shadow for the rest of the day. She'd tried to keep her anxiety from showing too much, but by the time Millie had come back, it was clear that the day had taken a toll on her.
Thankfully, it seemed like everyone was willing to chalk it up to wrangling the twins all day since they weren't too thrilled that their babysitter had suddenly decided that they needed to stay where she could see them.
But letting them out of her sight hadn't been an option, not after what she'd seen in that backroom. Thinking about it caused a shiver to go through Charlie's body, the movement catching John's attention as he looked up from his cooking. He gave her a concerned look, but Charlie was already trying to wave him off before he could say anything.
"I'm fine, just a little cold." She said before quickly zipping up her jacket. John quietly looked at her and then glanced down at the meal he was preparing before looking back up at her.
"Not to sound mean but you're looking a little tired; would you like to take a nap while I'm cooking?" John asked, his voice becoming soft "This is going to take me a bit-"
"No!" Charlie jumped up, her body becoming ramrod straight and causing both of them to flinch at the sudden intensity of her voice. Charlie let out a heavy breath before remorse took over her face and she slowly lowered her gaze towards the floor. "I'm fine right here."
John looked to the side and momentarily mulled over his own thoughts before looking back down at the food. He set back to work with an airy sigh, before looking up at Charlie with a sympathetic expression.
"Okay, but just...let me know if you need anything okay? If there's anything wrong then...feel free to tell me whenever you're ready." There was no response from Charlie, but he hadn't expected one after seeing how upset she looked.
Her gaze was still settled on the floor, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else entirely. She wanted to think over everything that had happened without distraction while also staying close to John. Being alone after what she'd experienced was the last thing she wanted. But even his presence didn't stop the memories from flowing out from the deepest parts of her mind the second her eyes began slowly closing. Her mind already trying to trap her in a loop that replayed everything that she'd experienced earlier in the day, from finding Arty to the suit chasing her through the storeroom.
With each replay, the suit's rectus grin began slowly transforming into Dave's face. The same disgusting look that he'd worn when they'd first met. His voice ringing in her ears and echoing his remark about her being "something beautiful." Like a broken record, the memory-making Charlie queasy and causing cold tears to begin streaming down her face. Her breath hitching as her body grew tenser the more she thought about the suit bearing down on her like an angry bull.
Right as it was about to reach her Charlie felt a hand lay on her shoulder, accompanied by a distant voice calling her name. She snapped from her memories and jumped out of her seat. The sudden movement caused her to nearly throw herself against the nearby wall as she shakily gasped for air while trying to bring her back to reality. Her heart pounded in her chest as it tried to slow down from the sudden jolt.
She heard the voice call out again to her again, this time much softer than it'd been before. Another shiver ran through Charlie's body as she wiped away the tears from her eyes. After she'd cleared them away she looked up and saw John staring at her with concerned filled eyes. She returned his gaze for a few seconds before turning her head away and wiping away at her face again.
"I-I'm...fine. I'm fine." She said, more to herself than to John. She turned back to him and opened her mouth to speak again but found herself unable to talk. An attempt to force the words out but that just resulted in her making a noise that almost sounded inhuman.
After a moment of silence, John silently offered a hand towards Charlie to give her something to hold. While he wanted to talk about what was bothering her, he knew that she needed to calm down first.
Charlie felt her face involuntarily scrunch up as she stared blankly at the outstretched arm. Despite knowing that he'd probably already seen her crying, his silent offer drove everything she'd feared home. She'd wanted to keep this whole thing private and put everything to rest on her own without getting anyone else involved, but the Yellow Rabbit's new life had made everything become more complicated and had subsequently left Charlie feeling as though there was no one she could turn to.
While she would normally trust John, she'd intentionally misled him about what she'd done. Something that she felt would make things worse if it came to light.
Charlie looked down at the floor and stepped forward. Her arms at her sides as she tried to move past John and go into the bathroom to try calming herself down so she could postpone the inevitable conversation they'd have after dinner.
But she failed to notice how far back the chair had moved when she stood up and because she was distracted, her foot managed to the edge of it and made her stumble before then pitching forward with a surprised yelp. She didn't fall very far though, as John quickly moved in to catch her. Throwing his arms around her body and then pulling into a tight hug. Charlie initially gasped from the sudden embrace, but then eagerly returned it. Her fingers bunching up the fabric of his shirt as she sunk her face into his chest, unintentionally drying her tears before she started to mumble an apology.
"Hey...it's okay. Bad days happen to everybody." John whispered before tucked Charlie's head underneath his chin and giving her a comforting squeeze. He felt Charlie tremble as she pulled back and looked up at him with tears once more spilling down her face.
"No, it's not…" she stammered out and then looked back down at the floor. Her words quickly devolved into incoherent mumbling as she tried to come up with a means of tactfully telling John what had happened. But she quickly found herself unable to stop it all from coming out at once. "I went back…I went back to Freddy's with Millie and her cousins. I snuck into the back areas to try getting some answers about what happened to Arty and found this big storeroom that had all my dad's creations and..." Charlie felt a lump form as the words became caught in her throat. A final attempt to stop them, but they managed to slip out nonetheless after a few seconds of silence.
"I found Arty….and" She finally said, "...D-Dave...the suit... his suit b-but...it was alive and it chased me out of there."
John had remained silent while Charlie made her confession. Not a noise came from him aside from his breathing as he let each word sink in. Knowing that he'd been correct in his assumptions about her real motives didn't make him feel any better. Though he was a little concerned about why she'd felt like she needed to hide what she was doing. But even then he wasn't angry at Charlie for what she'd done, since John knew that he'd probably have done the same in her position. All of the possible outcomes of this situation were bad ones, with many of them having the chance of directly impacting both of them.
But when she spoke about Dave, he felt a cold chill run up his spine as he realized that the worst outcome had come true. He squeezed Charlie just a bit tighter and looked back down at her.
"You mean...he's like...Michael and the others he killed now?" He asked quietly while trying to keep his voice calm.
"Yes," Charlie said, her voice cracking a little. "Arty never took the suit, the suit took him and then...I let the suit escape!"
John quickly pulled Charlie close, her face burying itself into his chest as a sob escaped her throat. His reassurance was a falsehood though on his end though, John was now terrified at the prospect of Dave running around the Pizzeria. A feeling that he realized Charlie must have had to put up with all day. Which made him only want to hug her tighter and never let go.
"God," He whispered to himself, "I can't believe it…" His voice trailing off, but his thoughts went unfinished as Charlie suddenly spoke up again.
"Why-" She asked her voice once again muffled by John's shirt before she repeated herself in a louder voice.
"Why him? Why does he get to come back over my dad, or Sammy, or anyone else that's more deserving of it?" Charlie tensed up as what she at first assumed was the memory of what the voice from Freddy's had said suddenly came back into her mind. The memories of what it'd whispered to her while fueling the transformation of her despair into burning anger.
'He belongs in the darkest pits of hell…not hanging around the new Freddy's like a creep.' Her knuckles turned white as she tightly balled up her fists. A sneer crossing her features as she inhaled sharply. She felt John's hand stroke her hair, but it, unfortunately, wasn't enough to calm her down.
The more she mulled over it, the angrier she became. Not just at Dave's continued existence, but she also felt her initial anger towards Rick starting to return. Having seen all of the pictures in his office, she knew that he cared a lot about her father. But he must have either not cared or been totally insane to bring her father's animatronics to his new Freddy's. Or even just building a new one in the first place In doing so, he'd helped unleash the monster that Dave had become into the world.
Even if Charlie had been the one to open the boxes as it were. A box that wouldn't have been there if Rick had just left well enough alone.
As the little voice continued to stoke up her anger, an idea began to form. A similar idea to the one that had landed her in this mess, to begin with, normally she'd reject it. But the voice had other ideas as it rushed the idea forward; mixing it in with her anger till it was the only thing on her mind. She looked back up at John with a hardened gaze as resolve filled her voice.
"We need to stop that thing before it hurts anyone else," Charlie whispered gravely. The words caused John to stiffen up and look down at her in alarm.
"You mean, go back and try to destroy that suit? Because there's no way that we'd be able to fight it, not without losing our lives or getting hurt."
"Well, Rick's certainly not going to do anything about it. Once he finds that suit he'll probably just put it back with the others and then this whole thing will just start over again. I've been inside his office and talked to him more than you. He worships my dad, so there's absolutely no way he'd destroy any of his creations."
"But we don't even know how to destroy them ourselves," John said, trying to keep his pleading voice from coming across as angry. "We've both seen what these things can be put through and those were just scared, little kids."
"We can't just let him have free reign to do whatever he wants again. We barely made it out, so what chance does anyone in Brookhaven have? We're the only ones who know how to deal with this." Charlie's eyes narrowed and she turned away from John. Crossing her arms and letting out an angry huff.
"Do we?" John asked. "Because if I recall, we never really came close to beating any of the animatronics. I mean, yeah we managed to hurt them a few times sure and you did a pretty good job electrocuting Chica but they never stayed down. Not to mention what Foxy did to your arm and leg-"
"That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and do something!" Charlie snapped back, the mention of her wounds further flaring up her temper. For a moment, there was silence as John contemplated what to say next. Not warning to escalate the situation into a fight.
"I'm not saying that I disagree, but if we're really going to do this then we'd think things through before doing something stupid," John said, trying to make his voice sound calm. "If we want to take on Dave again then I want an actual plan this time, not just us charging in like we did when Carlton was kidnapped because… I don't want to see you getting hurt like that again."
"If you're really serious about doing them with this then I'll have your back. But we need to be careful." He said before reaching out his hands towards hers. The anger that was still bubbling within Charlie wanted to pull away from him again. The little voice in her head already called him a coward for not wanting to rush into action right now, but Charlie managed to push it aside. He was right when he said that they had no means of fighting them off, at least in a way that could keep them down.
Planning ahead would give them time to figure out what could hurt them, even though Charlie feared that the time for that wasn't on their side.
As John's hands came closer she reached out and gave them a squeeze before pulling him back into a hug. The anger abating as they gave each other a reassuring squeeze. For half a minute before they broke apart and stared at each other. John taking the opportunity to reach out and touch Charlie's face. She leaned into it with a sad smile and took hold of his wrist with a sign.
"I'm sorry for all of this…" She murmured. "I just want this all to end…"
"I know, But we won't get anything done by rushing it like last time," John said as they pressed their foreheads together. At that moment, both of their stomachs let out a simultaneous growl.
"Or on an empty stomach," Charlie said, a wary smile appearing as she attempted to lighten the mood. Her effort was rewarded by some hesitant laughter from John. Charlie looked over to the living room and then slowly turning her gaze back to John
"Hey if it's alright with you, I think I'll take a nap while you make dinner… on the couch.." Charlie said, adding the last part rather quickly before hurrying over to the couch without waiting for a reply.
Despite their attempt at a quick reconciliation, Charlie could feel the tenseness from their conversation still hanging in the air like a storm cloud. It'd be a little while before things fully smoothed over from their argument, a feeling stirred up her already churning stomach. They'd rarely had any arguments in their time as a couple and to have one now had hurt Charlie almost as much as the day's earlier revelations.
Even though all of their ups and downs, she'd always been able to rely on John to be there for her. But all of the recent events seemed to have strained that connection a bit, not by too much, but it was enough to make her worried about their future.
'All the more reason to try and put this whole thing behind us as soon as possible.' She thought while settling down on the couch. Only acquiescing to her body's demands of rest to try and soothe the underlying tension that had invaded their apartment.
But as she lay down, something moved inside of her jacket pocket with a faint jingle, like that of keys being jostled around. Charlie reached into her pocket and pulled out the keys she'd picked up from the little backroom closet. The ones that had belonged to Arty. She'd hidden them away in her pockets after picking up the boys, almost forgotten about them entirely until now. As though they were trying to get her back into the mindset of going back once again.
Charlie reached out and flicked on the nearby lamp, gazing down at the keys now in her possession. Thanks to the light, she was now able to make out what was written on each of the keys. A lot of them were for rather innocuous things, but one key stuck out to her in particular.
"Master Key." She read the words aloud slowly, her grip on the key tightening as she realized what she held in her hands. The keys would allow them both unrestricted access to Freddy's, they could go in whenever they wanted without anyone being the wiser.
Charlie froze suddenly as the faint sound of a more familiar voice echoed inside her mind. Much fainter than the one from Freddy's, but still just as intrusive. Unlike the new voice though, this one was trying to make her stop her current train of thought. But the voice only managed to stall it momentarily before fading out of her mind. Pushed out by the presence of Freddy's. However, the interruption had been enough to make her set the keys down onto the same end table as the lamp. After her little spat with John, she didn't want to think about Freddy's for a while. She reached out to flick off the lamp before rolling over and closing her eyes.
But her mind quickly disregarded her wishes, for even while she slept, the little voice from Freddy's returned once more. Stirring up her thoughts in an effort to make her come up with some sort of plan that would bring about the rabbit's end. For only when that suit was destroyed, would any of them be allowed to truly rest...
Rick had been in a shareholder meeting when he'd gotten a frantic call from one of the managers that someone had trashed part of the storeroom. After hurriedly wrapping up the meeting, Rick made his way over to the pizzeria to discover that they'd finally found Arty during the cleanup. Or rather, the twisted corpse that used to be Arty that was hidden away in a forgotten closet.
Everything after the discovery had all become a blur in Rick's mind aside from a few details here and here. The biggest memory being how he'd directed the police to enter through the loading area so that the customers would remain unaware of their grisly find. Something like this was the last thing that the restaurant needed to get out to the press.
Luckily for him, the investigation had been mostly contained to the storeroom, but that could hardly be seen as a victory since it left them with more questions than answers. Especially since Spring-Bonnie was still missing and the fact that he'd turned up dead didn't clear Arty of any wrongdoing.
After they'd concluded their search, several of the investigators had presented their newest theory about how the theft had occurred. Instead of Arty being the one responsible, they now believed that he'd been dispatched by the same criminals that had stolen the Spring-Bonnie suit. Whether or not he'd been in on it and had been subsequently betrayed was another matter entirely.
But whatever theories they came up with didn't change one fact, the suit was still missing and that was the only thing that mattered to Rick.
The idea that someone had broken into the restaurant twice now left Rick unsettled. If they were able to walk in and out with a suit that weighed almost a thousand pounds then what was stopping them from doing the same with a child?
This question had kept Rick in his office long after closing so he could try to think of what could be done so it didn't happen again. Initially, the idea of hiring a security guard had crossed his mind, but knowing that he'd need to provide some form of compensation to Arty's family had destroyed that idea. As doing so would require the use of whatever spare funds were currently at their disposal.
While he wasn't a financial guru like William, Rick knew how to calculate the numbers well enough to know that they wouldn't have the money to hire a guard for a while. He'd spent a good chunk of the night going over their finances to see if the budget could be shifted about so he could hire a guard for at least a couple of weeks. But his financiers had gone over the budget with such a fine-tooth comb that he couldn't even move around a few cents without throwing it all off.
After he'd conceded defeat Rick pulled away from his desk and wiped at his tired eyes. The digital clock on his desk telling him that it was far too late to still be in the office. But he wasn't ready to leave, not until he'd thought up a solution to stop these thieves before things got worse.
With a deep sigh, he turned around to face the large picture of himself, William, and Henry back in Utah. A nostalgic look crossing Rick's face as he stared up at the photograph with another sigh.
"Ah If only the two of you were still here." He whispered. "I bet we'd have this whole thing nipped in the bud before it even started." The picture didn't give Rick a response, not that he'd been expecting one. But it felt good to sink into those memories for just a little bit, his mind creating the mental image of his former partners arguing over the best way to solve this situation.
William would advocate they cut costs, though he'd never actually go through with it, while Henry would start dreaming up some kind of security animatronic to protect the kids. Something that he'd been planning long before they'd even laid the groundwork for the original Freddy's, but William had always talked him out of it. Usually by citing the already high costs that running Freddy's required, meaning that building such a machine would have been a waste of company resources.
It was the willingness to create that animatronic that made Rick disbelieve the rumors that Henry had something to do with the children's disappearances. If the people who've pointed fingers and spread the rumors had known about Sammy, then they would have left Henry alone.
The memories of those awful months leading up to Henry's death reignited his focus to prevent something like that from happening again. But as he turned around, his leg collided with a partially opened desk drawer.
Rick yelped in both surprise and pain before looking down at the offending drawer. Only for his eyes to widen when he saw that it was the drawer that contained all the information about the new animatronics, which he hadn't had any reason to open.
He furiously yanked open the drawer and did a visual check of its contents, while everything seemed to be in its proper place he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. He knelt down and began rifling through the folders, focusing his efforts on the ones that he felt that the thieves would be most interested in.
After half an hour of upturning that drawer, Rick allowed himself to sigh with relief once he was satisfied that everything was still there. While he was thankful that nothing had been stolen, the possibility had left his nerves more than a little frayed.
As he began sorting away the papers, Rick continued to think about ways that he could make the restaurant safer without blowing the budget. But every idea kept falling short, if the thieves had someone on the inside that wasn't Arty then anything he came up with could be easily worked around by an employee.
"There has to be something we can do..." He murmured. "Maybe I should call my backers together and see if they can come up with another idea."
Admitting that there was a problem to the backers would have normally been the last thing he'd do, but that was before someone had been murdered on the property. Plus, it'd be better if they found out from him and not from another source. Absentmindedly, he glanced down to make sure he was still putting things back in their right folders and then caught a glimpse of a few bolded words on the paper in his hands. He looked it over and froze, giving his full attention to the document as he slowly read over the words a couple more times.
Right there on the paper, were the words "Security Mode Protocols." followed by a quick description of what they did. Rick fully unfurled the document and began pouring over the contents. Reading each word aloud in order to commit it all to memory. Despite basing everything off of Henry's designs, the construction of the new animatronics had been outsourced to a different company. The new company had added a lot of things to the designs that Rick hadn't been too happy about and it seemed as though they felt the need to add something extra to the programming as well.
While Rick wouldn't normally be okay with it, the current situation had left him rather desperate. This time, he'd let it slide, especially if this would help ensure the safety of his business.
Even if it meant the restaurant's safety into the hands of its own performers