Author Notes

Here's Sunday's chapter. This isn't counted as one of the missing chapters so there are still eight extra chapters that will be uploaded during the week. Hope you enjoy. :)

Chapter 44

Lecture

Bonnie started when he realised that she was looking his way as he checked on Foxy.

His ears fell back but he focused on his friend.

Hedy mumbled something to herself he couldn't hear. "Do you know how long it might take for him to wake up?" she asked.

She really didn't want to have this conversation.

They glared at her.

"No. It varies." Freddy answered in a clipped tone.

"Oh," Hedy said looking down. "Does it hurt?"

Their glare was enough of an answer.

"He's going to have a nasty headache." Freddy said stiffly.

"Sorry." Hedy said sincerely. "I wasn't sure what else to do. He was going to kill Toby."

"He deserved it." Bonnie muttered softly. "Ruby didn't do anything."

Hedy glared. "And here I was starting to think you were the ones who didn't want to kill anyone." she said softly but with an undercurrent of sharpness. "Guess I was a fool."

Freddy matched her glare while Bonnie looked kind of panicky.

"Excuse us for being protective of the girl who freed us and came around often as a child." He snapped.

"I'm not blaming you for being protective." Hedy bit back. "That's a good thing! I'm mad at you for thinking its okay to kill someone so easily in anger. You sound just like Puppet! That's revenge you're talking about. Not justice! I would have actually been fine with Foxy beating him up. It would hurt, but he sure would learn never to hit a human again! But I'm not going to stand by and let my charge be killed because he's made bad choices that I think he can still come back from."

That led to a glare off between the two. The bots seemed unwilling to back down and Hedy wasn't about to either. Mangle watched everything nervously.

"We'll do whatever it takes to protect those we care about. No matter what it is." Freddy told her coldly. "She's the first to believe in us in a long time. I don't particularly care what you think mechanic."

"Well get in line Freddy, cause you're not the first to say that to me and you're not going to be the last, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wrong." Hedy countered, squashing her fear with extreme prejudice. "And you're not the only one who's willing to protect those close to them. I'm a cripple if you didn't notice. I'll never be able to walk again and I can't defend myself except with a stupid flashlight if you wanted to hurt me, but I'm willing to sit here and argue with the ones who killed my uncle! How much does that tell you about how far I'll go to protect my friends?"

Freddy pulled back in shock at the statement.

"Uncle?" His face scrunched up in confusion.

The others seemed just as confused as he did.

Hedy flinched for the first time in the whole argument and Mangle let out a surprised whimper.

"Yeah." she said through gritted teeth.

She looked up at the ceiling, using gravity to keep her already watering eyes from betraying her further. Please, don't let her start crying. Not now.

"He was here for years so I'm sure you knew him. He made the phone calls." she forced herself to say.

Their confused looks changed to horror after a moment.

Those clearly weren't happy memories they were remembering.

"You're Scott's niece!?" Chica whimpered shakily and stepped back, forgetting her rising anger for the moment.

Hedy continued to stare at the ceiling and didn't react when Mangle came to stand worriedly next to her, glancing up at the originals with a flash of a glare.

The bots shuddered at the memories. They'd been so upset to realise that he was finally dead.

"Yeah. I am." Hedy murmured, closing her eyes.

She didn't even notice Foxy stirring at first.

Bonnie noticed but panicked, not knowing what to do. The others were too deep in shock to notice.

"Ow. Where's that mechanic," Foxy snarled, his face still on the floor.

Hedy jerked and glanced down at him in surprise.

The bots looked at him with worry, still relatively distracted by the horrible new information.

"How are you feeling Foxy?" Freddy asked, quieter than he was when speaking to Hedy.

He continued to stare at Hedy who was looking a little pale.

"Like the lass hit me in the head." Foxy growled.

He shook his head painfully and pushed himself up. "Then I got run over by a truck."

He looked up to see the mechanic backing up slightly and glared, his eyes narrowing to bright orange slits.

"You!"

He surged to his feet, stumbling slightly while Bonnie grabbed his arm to steady him.

Hedy flinched again and her hand ghosted toward her bag. But she didn't open it yet.

Foxy snarled loudly and took a step toward her to give her a piece of his mind only to be suddenly blocked by his Toy version.

Mangle glared and growled viciously, holding out her hand in a "stop" position and baring her shiny silver teeth. Mangle was only a little taller than Toby so there was still a size difference between her and the older fox.

Foxy snarled at Mangle before shifting his eyes to Hedy.

"Calm down Foxy." Goldy murmured in a subdued voice. "Ruby's already gone to get fixed up."

The fox didn't seem satisfied.

"I HATE that flashlight trick mechanic." He snarled even more.

Hedy swallowed. "I-" she got her voice under control and tried again. "I-I know."

She steeled her nerves and looked him straight in the eye. "But if I ever feel like I have to choose between making any of you mad and keeping you from killing me or anyone else, than I'd rather take the consequences of you being angry at me."

She was doing an okay job of pushing it down but that didn't stop the flash of terror from creeping in behind her eyes.

Foxy snarled again. He seemed furious but Freddy caught his arm.

"Go cool off Foxy." He murmured.

The fox speared Hedy with a glare again before stalking off, slamming the door open on his way.

Hedy let out a shaky breath she didn't know she had been holding.

Freddy threw a glare at Hedy though.

"He's going to be glitchy for days..." he muttered.

"Playing the game at the old place must have really sucked with that on top of...everything else." Hedy said softly. "I know it hurts you it but I still feel a little better knowing...the night guard had...something. Sorry."

Freddy just turned away and starting ushering the others out. He seemed to be the first to recover.

Goldy went after Foxy, looking concerned. Bonnie kept glancing at Hedy with more fear than usual.

"Psst. Hedy?"

They looked over to see Toy Chica leaning into the doorway. The smaller chicken didn't say anything else.

Hedy nodded, understanding.

Toby was awake...

"I'll be there in a minute."

Mangle looked at Hedy worriedly. She'd relaxed now that the others were gone.

Hedy met her eyes and smiled softly. "Thanks Mags. But you didn't need to do that."

Mangle rolled her yellow eyes and clicked her teeth together sharply.

She signed slowly, "Yeah right. You Ok?"

Hedy watched her hands then nodded. "I think I'll be fine. Stay here okay? I need to talk to Toby alone. You to Chi."

Toy Chica mumbled something that Hedy couldn't quite catch.

"What was that?"

Toy Chica looked up angrily. "That piece of scrap needs to pay for hurting Toby."

Hedy eyed her sternly. "Don't you dare try anything Chi." She snapped. "You'll only make things worse. Toby shouldn't have hurt Ruby."

"You're defending them?!"

"No. But Toby did something bad and he needs to be responsible for that. And Foxy needs to be responsible for how he reacted. And you need to be completely responsible for what you decide to do next. You can't blame someone else for how you react to them."

"You heard what the night guard said." Toy Chica muttered.

"Yeah." Hedy said. "But everyone still reacted poorly. Stay here Chi. I mean it."

With that she rolled past the chicken.

When Hedy was gone, Toy Chica turned to Mags.

"Have you ever noticed that Hedy acts like she our mom sometimes?" Toy Chica said sourly. "It's really annoying."

Mangle didn't even hear Toy Chica. All she could focus on was the shocking new information Hedy had inadvertently smacked her with. None of the Toys knew anything about Hedy's family, let alone that the phone guy was part of it or that Hedy had any kind of connection with the pizzeria in the first place. Setting aside that little tidbit for a moment (until she could fully process it), Mangle didn't even know he was dead. He did cross her mind a few times but she simply assumed he had quit soon after she and the others were scrapped.

But he was dead. Stuffed by the Originals obviously...

And Hedy had been hiding that she knew the truth for some time.

Worst of all? Mangle had never seen Hedy even come close to crying before.

"Crying" and "Hedy" just didn't belong in the same sentence! Mangle was glad the others hadn't seen that. It made her feel completely terrible.

Mangle continued to stare at the door through which her mechanic friend had disappeared as Toy Chica gave up trying to get her attention and sat on the floor with a frustrated huff.

What else was Hedy hiding?

Toby seemed to be over his shock now and was instead angry now.

Teddy was keeping him in the room but obviously getting increasingly annoyed with him.

"Hope that she gave that fox glitches for a month." he snapped in irritation as she entered.

When he saw Hedy he pouted, still not happy that she had knocked him out too.

"Teddy could you go wait with the girls please?" Hedy asked

Teddy left eagerly, sick of listening to Toby.

"What did you knock me out for?" Toby asked indignantly when he was gone.

He winced as he tried to shift his position. Foxy really did a number on him. Metal was torn from his chest looking vaguely like an opened can of sardines. One arm had completely fallen off with wires sprouting out. His paint was scratched up everywhere and one leg looked like it shouldn't be stood on. He had tried to leave and argued with Teddy but standing on that leg made it crumple a little and he had fallen on Teddy. So here he was, sitting on the floor battered and broken and with a nasty headache. Oh... and bite marks on his neck casing.

Hedy looked at him and deadpanned. "You would have made it worse. I needed everyone to calm down and you would have made someone else mad at you."

"That mangy fox attacked me!" Toby cried out. "He should get scrapped for this!"

"Because he wasn't able to protect someone close to him from getting hurt by you? You hurt Ruby and he got mad that he let it happen so he took it out on you." Hedy said.

"Hmph." Toby looked away. "The fox overreacted."

"Yep and that's his fault. But you overreacted too." Hedy pointed out.

She took her bag off of her wheelchair and set it down next to Toby.

"You broke Ruby's arm, Toby." Hedy moved her chair around to the right position before carefully sliding out of it to sit next to Toby on the floor so that she could reach him.

"Not like its life threatening." he muttered. "It'll heal. And she was asking for it."

"You never learn." Hedy sighed. "It doesn't matter if it's life threatening or not. It isn't right to hurt people. I'm not even talking about stuffing night guards in suits right now. Humans are fragile Toby. When you get hurt I can just fix it or replace it. It only takes as much time as I'm able to spend energy working. It's much more difficult to heal a human. You don't seem to understand how physically dangerous it is for me or Ruby to work here. And that's not even because of the kids. Tonight was a case in point."

Toby huffed. He didn't like getting lectured.

"Why should I care? The night guard is annoying and keeps poking her nose where it doesn't belong." there was no remorse in his voice and he still seemed more focused on the fact that Foxy had attacked him.

Hedy shook her head. She needed to get through to him.

"You should care because if she had actually ducked like you thought she would, you would have hit me. And you would have killed me."

His eyes widened at the thought, stalling out.

"I-That's not-I wouldn't-" he struggled with words, mind wrapping around this scenario.

He'd just been so mad at the night guard. Acting concerned over Mangle. Who did she think she was? She wasn't Hedy who actually cared. But...he could have hurt Hedy?

Hedy quietly watched him as she let him struggle with that possibility.

"But if she didn't interfere in the first place, then it wouldn't be a problem." he said, albeit weakly.

He was used to blaming others if something happened and so it was his default move. It was a problem with Toy Chica as well and one that she hadn't gotten them to stop yet.

"So it would have been her fault you killed me?" Hedy asked with a raised eyebrow as she got out a screwdriver and worked on removing his chest plating. It was too damaged to fix properly so she needed to replace it later. He was going to have to be out of order for the rest of the week.

His mouth opened and closed for a moment as he struggled with the question.

"But it was none of her business! Who is she to pretend to care about Mangle now?!" he asked in frustration. "She's the night guard! It's...it's not right!"

"It's not really actions that have consequences Toby. It's decisions. Things could have gone very differently if Ruby hadn't decided that she actually cared what happened with Mags. She might have ducked instead of focus on Mags and I would be dead because you couldn't control your anger. But she didn't duck because at that moment she decided that helping me with Mags was more important than her own surroundings. Toby, she's not pretending to care and her being the night guard is no reason to think she is."

He frowned.

"But the night guards are there to stop us. That's how things are." he said.

The Toys' world was far too 'black and white' to understand these concepts. Toby especially dealt with a 'them' and 'us' mindset.

"That's only how you believe they are Toby." Hedy said and put on her glasses to work on Toby's broken fingers. "Every night guard has been a different person with a different past, different decisions and different reasons for being here. You have to check what you believe against truth and if what you believe causes pain, then maybe it's time to re-evaluate."

The rabbit was silent, looking away stubbornly.

"Ruby's not a bad kid Toby. Neither are you, though you seem determined to prove me wrong a lot." Hedy said with a small smile.

He just huffed in annoyance although she had given him a lot to think about.

"Okay you should be able to stand on your leg if you don't strain it too much. Help me up."

He did just that since he really didn't want to be knocked out again and her patience had been tested too much already tonight.

"I would suggest avoiding Foxy and Ruby until you're ready to apologize to her. I don't need two Mangles to worry about." She muttered as she rolled away, leaving him to think.

Author Notes

Hope you enjoyed it and I'll try and upload often to continue catching up.