"A-A-And then I opened my eyes and I-I was on the stage a-and Freddy was next to me a-and then s-suddenly I was Freddy and th-there were s-so many people and I d-didn't know what t-to do and it w-was so s-scary and th-then the p-people started s-screaming and i-it was s-s-so scary!" Brian was sobbing out the story of what had happened on the stage. All of the children had been thrown out of their new bodies the moment that they had sustained enough damage from being attacked, so now Nate and Timmy were in a room with five ghosts in various states of shock. Lucy and Joey stared around looking bewildered, and Suzy was rocking back and forth and covering her face as if she thought it would make everything bad go away. Timothy let Katie squeeze his hand, unsure of whether to be screaming about the situation they were in or relieved that his sister was safe. Nathaniel was feeling certain that if he had to stand in this room surrounded by crying children for one more second, he was going to lose it.
Somehow, Nate had to get these kids to calm down. A solution was neither easily said nor done, and he was really getting frustrated. There was no use trying to think of a way to get these kids to stop crying and feel better if he was on the verge of yelling at them. Right now, he needed to get away and pull himself together.
With a quick hop, Nathaniel flew upwards and through the roof. It was much quieter on top of the building. He took a few deep breaths through nonexistent lungs and felt much better. It was beautiful and quiet and calm and peaceful up there, the stars shining above and the buildings and streets dark below. It seemed for almost a moment that there were no problems to worry about.
"Kids, I need you to come see something," Nathaniel called as he floated to a landing on the floor of the pizzeria. Slowly, Suzy raised her tear-streaked face. Joey and Lucy blinked out of their numb shock. Brian took a timid step forward.
"It's up here," Nathaniel pointed at the ceiling. Katie glanced at her brother before entering an unsteady hover. Seeing their friend take action, the rest of the children tried to fly as well. Joey ended up upside down and Lucy kept flapping her arms and going off course, but they eventually all got to the roof.
"See those stars? All of them are together up there, and they're all happy. That's where we're going to go; we just need to stay here a little longer." Nathaniel wasn't certain if that was true, but it was a hope he was holding onto. That hope that things would get better was the only thing keeping him going. He had given that hope to Timothy and now he was giving it to the children.
They all stared at the night sky. What a beautiful hope it was to have, and the children and Timothy were all smiling peacefully, completely believing that they would get to reach the stars if they just waited a little longer. Only the one who had given them that hope had a shadow of doubt. He and Timmy had been here for six years, and telling himself that they would move on soon was sounding less true every day. And though the innocent children all believed that the curtain of stars was an immutable place where everything was safe and happy, the little voice of experience in the back of Nate's mind kept reminding him of the facts: that stars were so far away from them and each other that it took light years to reach them and of course, the truth that stars could die just like everything else.
"Ready to go back?" asked Timothy. The sky was beginning to lighten with the rising of the sun. They had been up on the roof for a while. Katie gave a little nod and descended into the building. Timmy followed his sister and the rest of the children followed Timmy. Nate came last, taking one last look at the fading stars as he sent up a silent prayer that the hope that he had given to the children and himself was not a false one.
Lucy stood over the Chica robot. "I guess I was in control of this," she remarked, nudging it with a foot that passed right through. "I wonder if I could do it again." She knelt beside the armless robot and put her hands over it. "I'm not really sure how I did it last time," she admitted.
"What if you imagined yourself being Chica? You know, looking through her eyes and stuff," suggested Joey, standing eagerly by her side. The girl nodded and closed her eyes. She began to fade. "Lucy! Why are you disappearing?!" Joey's eyes were wide with terror.
He was answered by a burst of static and the fallen Chica robot flapping her wire wings as she struggled to get up. Joey and the other children screamed and ran to cling to Nathaniel who was too surprised to be annoyed that five kids were crawling all over him. The robot looked as bewildered as the children. She gave one static-filled squawk before going still. Lucy faded in next to her. "I did it!" she announced proudly.
Lucy closed her eyes and disappeared again. This time, Chica was successful in her attempt to stand up. She looked over her friends and took a slightly unsteady bow. Excited to see if they had the same new ability as Lucy, Brian and Joey practically ran over to the robots that they had been terrified of hours before. Before long, Freddy and Foxy were prancing around. Even Suzy ended up giving into curiosity and joined her friends.
"Do you think I can do that?" asked Katie.
Timothy smiled. "Of course you can!" He took her hand and led her to the back room where Fredbear lay. They grimaced at the still bloodstained costumes.
It's easy to forget about that when you're watching the stars, thought Nathaniel. There wasn't anything that could hurt the kids now, so he felt safe leaving them to their play. But being in the same room where such things had happened so recently made him nervous for them. He took another peek at the ghost children. They were still running around happily. He could afford to spend some time with two kids he really knew as friends.
"I'm going to try this," Katie told both herself and her friends. She faded out.
"Katie? You ok?" Timmy asked nervously, hovering next to her. Fredbear's fingers twitched. Slowly, he gave a thumbs up. Timmy and Nate sighed in relief. Katie struggled to try to grab her new body's missing legs. Timothy rushed over to try to help her, momentarily forgetting that he just went through everything. His sister just gave another thumbs up and began to try to reattach the costume's pants. Successful in her attempt, she appeared next to them.
"That was harder than it looked," she panted.
"Well, the other kids have robots and Fredbear is just a costume. I'm surprised you got to move at all," Nate remarked. He cocked his head at the bear. "I made Fredbear glow when I brought you back, Katie, and now you can control him. But I did the same thing to you, Timmy. I wonder… maybe you can control him, too."
Slowly, Timothy walked over to the costume. He disappeared and the golden bear kicked one of his reattached legs. He stood up and walked over to the Foxy head on the floor. Somewhat unsteadily, he bent down and picked it up. Then he sat down and Timothy's ghostly form appeared next to his two friends. To their surprise, his face was streaked with tears. "Why didn't you tell me I could do that?!" he demanded.
Nate took a step backward in surprise. "Wh-What - I didn't know you could control Fredbear! I found that out the same time you did!"
"You could have told me that you bound my soul to a costume!" the little boy screamed. "I might have figured the rest out myself! I might have saved Katie and the kids! In case you haven't realized, ghosts may not be able to do anything, but Fredbear was in the room with the murderer. I could have fought back and saved everybody instead of just watching people get killed!" Tears streamed down his face in unchecked torrents. He took a step backwards, looking unbelievably hurt. "Katie wouldn't have died if I had just known," he sniffled.
"I… I… I'm sorry." It seemed like such a stupid thing to say, but he could think of nothing else. Timothy had deserved to know how Nathaniel had brought him back. And yet he hadn't told him. That the kid couldn't handle the truth wasn't a justification. Timothy had handled much worse. Nate felt like a jerk.
Timothy sat down. "I couldn't save my sister and now I'm yelling at the first person who decided to be my friend," he sighed. "What is wrong with me?"
"Don't blame yourself for my mistake. If I had just not been sulking over stupid little things, the murderer would be sitting in jail by now and we'd all be laughing," said Nathaniel. He sat down next to Timothy. "I guess I really messed up."
Timmy cracked a smile. "Then I guess we'll be losers together."
"I wanna join the loser club!" Katie took a seat next to them. "I had to reattach my legs a minute ago. That makes me the biggest loser of all," she grinned. Soon they were all arguing about who was more of a loser than who and they were all laughing about it. Pretty soon, none of them felt like losers.
"I'd better go check on the kids," Nate remembered. Smiling, his two friends got up and flew through the wall and into the party room. They found the four children hovering next to the stage. A group of workers were hauling the robots into the back room. Timmy and Katie's father, the manager of Freddy's, shouted into a phone loudly enough for him to be heard from his office in the next room.
"I don't care what you do to the place, just as long as I never have to see it again!" he yelled. "Don't you realize how it feels to look at something and remember how everything used to be before it was all stripped away!" In his hand was Katie's toy Vixie. Each word was punctuated by him shaking it with frightening anger. "I told you, you can have Freddy's! Do whatever you want with it! Just never ask me to come back because it's making me sick to be here right now!"
He slammed the phone down and stormed out the door, looking as if he was ready to squeeze all the love out of Vixie and at the same time tear apart the reminder of his daughter. "Daddy?" Katie whispered. He didn't turn back.
He vowed to never return to that establishment.
So here ends another part of this story. I know that there are a lot of theories about the chronology of the games, but since I have to pick some order of time I'm just going to go with the fourth game happening first and then an intermediate Freddy's and then the second game, the first, and finally the third game. I'm not sure if this is correct but I heard a lot of people saying that that is what they believe so that is the timeline that this story is going to follow.