Author's Note:

None of this will make any sense if you haven't read Expect the Unexpected by Arctic Vulpix. ( s/11737586/1/Expect-the-Unexpected). If you're a newbie, you're welcome to enjoy it anyway!

Just a note, we planned out the main story years ago (all estimated 300 chapters of it), long before the Five Nights at Freddy's canon timeline was better hinted, theorized, or vaguely understood. For example, the roles of Michael Afton, William Afton, etc. are swapped around, changed, and such.

We're going to post all these "What Ifs" in this single story on FFN but we might make them a series on AO3 if we find that's easier for readers to navigate. "What If" will be written concurrently so each chapter might bounce around between the different stories/alternate realities.

What if...Ruby was Being Rhetorical

Part 1

Ruby was never saying anything inside this building again. She was going to be fucking mute at work for the rest of her life.

All she'd said, in pure innocence, was that she wished she had been old enough back then so that she could punch Michael. That was all.

And what did the building do?

Fucking time travel.

After the body swap incident, nothing surprised her anymore. It was a guess on her part but from how new this office looked and the calendar on the wall, she was pretty sure she was right. Also, the building dropped her on the desk so she was pissed and had made a hell of a lot of noise with her entrance.

"I. Was. Being. FUCKING RHETORICAL!" she snarled at the wall and the building shuddered, giving her the vague sense of a kicked puppy.

Ruby pushed herself up from the desk, wincing as she rubbed her side. She'd been stabbed by all kinds of random bits and pieces and she was definitely going to bruise. With a groan, she rolled off the table and twisted to sit in the chair. Okay, what was she dealing with now?

Why did the calendar date seem so familiar too?

Almost automatically, the teen reached for the tablet on the table and turned it on. Wow. It was a heavy boy. Ancient tech. She kicked her feet up on the table and slumped down further as she started messing with the cameras.

Place was packed right now. It was a different building, for sure. It had a different layout, and the office was very different with no doors-

Wait.

Wait one fucking second.

No doors?!

No wonder it looked familiar! This was the office from the tapes where Jeremy had his week!

She'd said she wanted to punch Michael...

The blood drained from her face as the date suddenly clicked.

"Son of a bitch!" she shouted just in time for a man to come running into the room.

She threw some bobblehead of Freddy instinctually and beaned him in the head.

He yelped.

They stared at each other for a moment.

"You so don't look like a Scott," she said eventually.

The man rubbed the red mark and glared at her, although he looked fairly confused. Didn't stop the stern look though. "Alright, that's enough. This area is staff only." He glanced at the bobble head and sighed. "Nice aim though."

He picked it up and gestured for her to get up. "Up up. Shoo. Not in the mood to kick out teens today, young lady." He didn't grab her though. He nudged her leg out of the way so he could root around in the desk drawer for something. He pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on to read some document he had brought with him.

After a moment, he paused and turned to look at her over the edge of the glasses, blinking as if surprised she was still sitting there.

"Hello hello?" he asked, snapping his fingers in her face when he realised she was just staring at him with an odd grin on her face. "Did you hear me, miss? I need to ask you to leave."

Ruby didn't give a shit. "You wear glasses," she cooed. "And do the squinty thing Hedy does. She so gets it from you, Steve."

Before he could process that, she scrambled out of the seat and dropped the tablet on the table.

"Now did it- HA!" she grabbed her bag from where the building had dropped it next to the table. "That thing is truly an artifact of history," she said, pointing at the tablet. "But it's horribly slow and terrible quality."

She made a pleased noise when she pulled out her usual tablet from the bag.

"Such a good building, transcending the technological limits of time," she praised, patting the wall as the tablet turned on and showed the cameras of the place in much better quality. "Now, where is that piece of shit and how badly am I going to lose my temper?" she muttered to herself.

Scott was still catching up as she moved around.

"Hedy?" Scott asked, looking at the tablet in intrigue. "Wait, how are you doing that?" He reached to pull her tablet closer to look at the camera layout himself. Didn't pull it out of her hands though, unaware that he was lucky she didn't bite him and he had intense favoritism going for him. "What is this?" He shook his head, trying to focus his curiosity. He was more confused than annoyed by the odd behaviour. "Are you one of Wiggy's babysitters? You must be new. Everyone calls her Wiggy." He smiled goofily. "It's cuter," he explained. He cleared his throat. "Uh. You still can't be back here."

Ruby scrunched up her nose. "Only certain people get to call her that," she muttered.

The name had more negative associations for Ruby. She took a deep breath before it stuttered in her throat when she found the camera showing a group of kids.

And Springtrap.

"Fuck, shit, dammit it all to hell!" she snarled, scaring the life out of the poor guy as she cursed loudly enough it echoed through the vents. "I could have used more leeway in the time department!" she snapped at the ceiling.

She suddenly spun to look at Scott, an eerily serious look in her eyes that was very at odds with her age.

"How high is your tolerance for weirdness, Steve?"

His eyes flicked to the childrens' drawings of the bots taped to the walls behind his desk. "Pretty high," he deadpanned, then realised there was probably a more specific reason she asked. "...hold on. Define 'weird'." He seemed startled by her sudden stress enough to drop the matter of kicking her out of his office. He didn't even ask why she was calling him by the wrong name.

"Weird as in this building is alive and can bend time and space to its whim when someone asks a RHETORICAL QUESTION," she shouted the last bit at the ceiling as she grabbed her bag to pull over her shoulder. She kept the tablet in one hand and grabbed Scott's arm. "Okay, so the bots are alive. Fact. I know this. You know this. That's all good. However, the pizzeria as a whole is also alive. Think eldritch being levels."

She was dragging him out of the office now. He didn't fight the petite teenager, despite being a grown man who could probably stop her if he just planted his feet.

"Where's that clown bastard?" Ruby muttered under her breath as she flicked through the cameras, awkwardly holding the tablet in the crook of her elbow.

"..." Scott looked at the ceiling, nearly tripping on his own feet as he was dragged around. "Why am I not surprised...?" It wasn't even sarcasm. He was genuinely disturbed why the idea didn't seem crazy to him.

"Oh, that's the building too. Stuff that should give you an existential crisis just doesn't. It screws with your perception of reality. In a fond, 'you're mine' kind of way," Ruby said cheerfully. "By the way, my name's Ruby. Oi! There you are, you clown-faced bastard!"

Note: Bit of a teaser but I hope you're all excited. Part 2 might be later today or tomorrow and a proper length.