Sorry for the wait! Went on a camping trip and didn't get any service. Here's the next chapter!

I hope you're all enjoying the story; have a great day!

~xXLoveThatAccentXx

xXx

The next day, Mike came to Freddy's for lunch with a genuine smile on his face. Chica found this so surprising, that she actually left the stage area to come investigate it.

"Having a good day?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mm hmm. I feel great." Mike answered, sitting down and fiddling with his tie. That small act was the most Chica had ever seen him move in one place. With the shifting and smiling, it was pretty clear that Mike was telling the truth. Even the dark circles under his eyes seemed to fade.

"Is this about last night? How did it go?"

"Yes, actually. My self-esteem shot up a bit." Mike put a hand to the side of his mouth, as if he were telling a secret. "Jeremy is tiny."

"Mike." Chica chastised. "Don't make fun of your night guard brothers."

"But it's true! In his defense, though, he did put on a much better show than me when getting the animatronics out of the office. You see, he's got this flashlight..." Mike continued to talk about his night at the sister location, how big it was, how many robots there were, how to ward them off, et-cetera, and Chica listened carefully to every word. He brought up Jeremy quite a lot.

Her therapist instincts immediately latched on to the possibility that Jeremy could be potentially helpful to Mike's depression. According to Mike, they were quite similar, so gaining Jeremy as a friend could possibly boost Mike's progress towards recovery. Not to mention the kid was a pretty good role model for this former delinquent, being a dedicated college student and seemingly one of patience and self-control; something of which Mike could learn a thing or two.

"Do you know when you'll be meeting Jeremy next?" Chica asked.

Mike shook his head. "No... The boss hasn't said anything about working there again, and I'm not allowed on Harvard campus, so the next time we meet will probably be pure chance."

As if luck was on their side, Mike's boss swung by his table and slammed his hands on the surface, a big goofy smile on his face.

"Miles! You won't believe it! My cousin just called and said his watchman's getting along much better than before! He's got this smile on his face that he's never seen before, and we're taking it as a sign that it's the result of you two working together! He say's he's real proud of you, 'cause, you know... Jem's got lingering PTSD... and this is the calmest he's been this year. You must be a real calming dude, Miles."

To this, Mike froze. So did Chica.

The boss noticed and gave them both a weird look. "What is it? Is it something I said?"

To think that Jeremy also had some sort of problem intrigued Mike. It made a lot of sense now, Jeremy's vagueness on his parents and those strange gloves, because he now had a reason to connect those events to his past. If only Mike knew what happened to Jeremy to cause that.

Chica was sent back to the stage, so Mike watched them sing and dance in silence for a while.

It wasn't long before he heard someone cough behind him.

Mike whirled around, as he didn't remember seeing anyone pass by to get there. To his surprise, it was a little boy behind him, around eight years old, with ruffled blond hair and an old fashioned striped sweater. His face was smudged with dirt, and his knees were scraped, and he had on a pair of muddy green sneakers to match his shirt. He swallowed hard, looking at the ground, big tears rolling down his cheeks.

This boy wasn't like the other kids Mike had seen crying-he was quiet, as if he hoped no one would hear him. Usually kids his age would make a scene when they were upset, craving attention, but this boy... something was off about the way he was crying. Trying to stifle it. The act was all too familiar to Mike.

"...You wanna talk about it?" Mike asked the kid quietly, remembering himself. The boy looked up at him with a dull expression in his green eyes, bright with tears.

"I can't." He whispered back, his voice hitching.

"...That's okay. I couldn't either. It'll get better, though, trust me." Mike responded truthfully, remembering Chica and the other robots, and Jeremy. Hard times truly revealed true friends. He hoped it would come sooner for this kid than it did for him.

Hard times... Mike stifled Amy's breakup. It wasn't fair how that kept coming up, clenching his heart with an iron fist, resurfacing every negative quality he'd ever known about himself. It's been a week and she still hadn't left his heart. He took his gaze to the ground and tried to clear his head, but it was harder than it seemed. He remembered her pretty green eyes and her long brown hair, her cross country outfit and her white running shoes. Her laugh. Her smile... the crinkles it put under her eyes. All so endearing. So hard to let go of.

The boy gave Mike a tiny smile. "Don't worry, Mike." He said quietly. "It wasn't your fault. It was her own choice to leave. All you need to do is forgive her."

Mike felt a jolt of shock run through his body. "...What did you...? How do you know...?"

The boy simply smiled. Just then, something shattered near the stage area, and instinctively, Mike whirled around to see what had happened.

Bonnie was looking sheepishly at a broken glass water jug on the floor. Freddy and Chica were giggling and attempting to break the tension the accident caused, and slowly, kids were beginning to relax and laugh it off as well. Bonnie and some employees knelt down to clean up the mess, making sure no children wandered close enough to be cut by any unseen shards.

Mike turned back around to confront the child again.

But the boy was gone.