Chapter 57

Family Meeting

By the time Ruby arrived back at the main room with the Puppet trapped in his box, Hedy had lectured Toby into behaving mildly better. The Toys were mostly relieved to see her, Mangle hugging her on sight. The Originals watched her with wary suspicion and Foxy and Bonnie were still miffed that she'd called Ruby a liar the previous night.

Ruby herself had a neutral expression that gave away just how angry she was about that fact. If she had to keep up a mask to prevent a fight then she was furious.

"Hedy." She greeted her shortly after giving the box another solid kick.

No teasing about her full name either. The teen was good at hiding her anger when she wanted to.

She glanced around the room to make sure that everyone was present before sitting on a table in the middle.

"We need to talk." She was blunt about it and the mischievous night guard they were used to was nowhere to be seen.

The Originals seemed used to it but the Toys still found the change unnerving whenever she switched.

"Yeah…" Hedy said, gently gesturing for Mangle to give her a little space.

The fox grinned a little impishly and backed up, only to play with Hedy's hair at an arm's length, twisting the thin blonde strands around a plastic finger playfully. She knew Hedy worried exasperatingly about her hair getting caught in their joints. It was almost a joke at this point and just something for them to mess around with her. She needed something mildly irritating and distracting or else she was going to hyper-focus on the ghosts. It was something small and inconsequential enough that it wouldn't stress her out too much.

Hedy glared at Mags, knowing what the fox was doing and why. She glanced at Ruby, just barely looking the girl up and down. A tiny wince in the form of a twitched lip and one eye closing slightly was all she showed as she took note of the teen's stance. No one, not even Ruby noticed. Hedy just looked…disturbingly neutral in a way that was strangely less threatening than Ruby's way. She didn't even seem defensive despite knowing what Ruby was upset about. Just exhausted. So horribly, incredibly exhausted.

She glanced back at the entrance of the building, this time not bothering to hide her displeased expression. With a short tsk she pulled out her key to the building. She'd asked the manager for a copy after Ruby broke her arm. She looked over all the bots, frowning in thoughtful concern.

"Jeremy didn't want me to come back. I had to wait till he zonked out. If he shows up, just… let him in. He's not going to hurt anything. Or anyone." She added for Ruby's sake.

She set the key down on a table. "BB you make sure no one takes it unless they're letting Jeremy in."

BB nodded enthusiastically, ignoring Toby's moans. He liked when Hedy gave him important jobs.

"He probably won't come." Hedy shrugged, acutely aware of Ruby's impatience.

She didn't mean to take so long. They did need to talk, it was long overdue.

"Mangle, please stop?"

Mangle dropped her hand and shifted backwards.

Strangely enough, Ruby was just leaning against the table and watching them. It was making the Originals visibly uncomfortable. They kept glancing at the night guard in concern. The teen waited until they were settled and focused before speaking.

"So, starting from the top of terrible things to happen yesterday. Springtrap." Ruby saw Goldy wince out of the corner of her eye and felt guilty but they needed to get this out in the open. "He's a bot permanently possessed by the murderer who started all this rubbish." she waved a hand at the building in general before pointing at Hedy. "And you know the ghost brats from before they were psycho killers."

There was definite venom in her voice when she spoke about the ghosts but it wasn't directed at Hedy. Even if she was still clearly mad about the liar thing.

"Springtrap is arriving as soon as they build his part of the restaurant. So we need to deal with this drama now so it doesn't get in the way later."

Chica was hugging Goldy to comfort her and it looked like Bonnie and Foxy wanted to do the same for Ruby. Which was strange. When she was mad they generally let her get it out through pranks. Not comfort.

The Toys glanced at Hedy, mostly ashamed and concerned with what Hedy would say. They never once thought she was as intrinsically involved with the past as last night had revealed, perhaps even more so than them…

Hedy just nodded slightly and didn't say anything yet, tugging on her own hair after she had asked Mangle not to. She needed the distraction desperately. She watched the night guard, wondering if Ruby wanted her to say something or if she would keep going. She spent the last twenty four hours trying to figure out how to formulate her thoughts and memories into words that weren't hysterical, but both were spotty. She hadn't succeeded yet. At this point, she thought it best to be quiet unless someone asked a specific question.

Springtrap.

The name shot through her mind like a bullet, causing her to visibly flinch and clench her fist. Pain made her look down in surprise at her other hand to see a few hairs pulled out by the root.

Ruby was watching her closely now. There was…something, in her eyes. Sympathy? But, why? The night guard had made it clear that she wasn't happy with Hedy being there. She'd only stopped the hostility for the most part for Mags.

Ruby started up again after the moment of silence. She was looking down and flicking through the cameras on her tablet, something the Originals knew she did when she was frustrated by something.

"After they were killed they didn't leave." she started explaining slowly. "The management covered it up, hid the bodies. So the murderer walked free. They somehow managed to twist that into believing that all night guards are evil. Because the murderer was a night guard. So ever since then, they've been forcing my bots to go after every new night guard here. Some got away, some didn't."
She paused while the Originals shifted uncomfortably.

"It's not their fault. If they didn't hunt the guards then they'd just have to face night six. On night six the brats possessed them and did the hunt themselves. From personal experience, they're a LOT more brutal and cruel. My bots were making it as painless as possible if they caught someone. That's all they COULD do." she glanced at them and gave a slight smile. This was pulling up some painful memories for them. "They won't be happy until they shut down Freddy's. For good."

She finally looked Hedy in the eye, looking more serious than they'd ever seen her. Oh, she recognized that look in her eyes now. It was the look of someone about to pass on some terrible news.

"Your Uncle died on night six." she told her. "My bots don't even know who killed him in the end. They don't remember anything that happens during the possession."

She stopped to let Hedy absorb that and react however she needed to.

At first they thought she was going to hold onto a blank expression and merely look away. She could be stubborn too. And she did. Until she accidentally glanced away from a tile on the wall across the room and had a flash of eye contact with Ruby. It couldn't have been more than half a second.

But that understanding sympathy…

Then she looked sick. Then in physical pain. She would probably start crying if she tried to speak.

She just…couldn't do it anymore. One moment of seriousness and sympathy from the crazy night guard was all it took.

Without a word she bent over and covered her face with the bottom of her shirt, exposing her midriff.

There was a sharp inhale.

Then she screamed.

She startled them, the shirt and her stiff shaking hands doing very little to muffle her wailing shriek. It was a horrible, twisting, unfamiliar sound.

The animatronics had heard the joyful shrieks of playful children of course. IN contrast, they had also heard the tortured screaming and terror of victims too. This was just…grief.

Teddy's ears went back as far as the gears would allow as his eyes spiraled wide while Toby looked horrified and stepped behind him, mouth clamped shut and distinctly reminded how stiffly angry yet relatively notably calm Hedy had been about his attitude toward her nightguard uncle that time after he broke Ruby's arm ( and Foxy tore into him). She had acted like it was a hurtful personal insult to her, little else besides a short "I miss him."

Hedy had always seemed oddly chill about the fact that they were, quite frankly, murderers. "Oddly" being the operative word because normal, non-psychopathic humans would never think such an attitude was normal.

It was an act. One she couldn't keep up anymore.

Hedy knew before, of course. It was one thing knowing something horrible. Before, she could just compartmentalize it. It couldn't hurt her if she just didn't think about it. If she just disconnected all the reminders and didn't think about the fact that he was...gone. But she just couldn't do it anymore. She sobbed and screamed without a pillow to muffle her cries, despite her vow not to lose it in front of any of them, for many and varied reasons. Her ears were flushed in embarrassment but that was an automatic response and the least of her concerns.

"H-..." Chi tried to squeak but cut off when Mangle fearfully gripped her arm and fervently shook her head, ashamed that they had a part in their friend's stress and currently overflowing grief.

The Originals couldn't look at her because no matter what Ruby told them they had still physically killed him. And now they were seeing the direct result of that. The grief of someone who lost a loved one. How many others had felt like this because of them?

Ruby walked across to her and did the last thing any of the group expected her to do. She'd been angry at Hedy a moment ago but now she reached out and pulled the older girl into a hug.

"You've got to grieve. It's not fair. It sucks I know. To lose someone unexpectedly like that. When they weren't supposed to die. When someone else is the reason they died. I know how you feel and I'm sorry you have to feel this way Hedy." she told her softly. "It hurts and it's not going to stop hurting for a really long time. But you'll be able to function past that pain, you've just got to let yourself grieve first though."
She took a deep breath before continuing.

"I hated the guy who was in the car that hit us the night my parents died. It wasn't really his fault, it was raining and he lost loved ones in that crash too. But I was angry so I hated him. I hated me too. I just wanted to be angry and hate. I didn't grieve. It took me years before I did. Guess what I'm saying is even though you irritate me sometimes Hedy and I think you're too nice to the blue rabbit, I understand how you feel. And I'm sorry this happened to you and your family."

Hedy felt like a child and terribly guilty that she was making a girl four years her younger comfort her. She cried into Ruby's shirt.

"He was my best friend," she sobbed, now muffled. "I-I don't even know where he is. We can't bury him, Ruby. We can't bury..." She sounded quick and just a little panicked. "No one else knows. I can't...I can't tell his wife...she doesn't know..." She tensed and shuddered, unable to breathe for a second. "I know how it works...I-I know how the suits work...I know how the suits work... I know how everything works. I can't close my eyes..." Hedy covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut painfully tight, shaking her head.

Ruby murmured comforting nonsense to her. Words couldn't solve this. There wasn't a solution. They could talk again when she was calm, make plans. For now, she just needed to cry.

"I know, I'm sorry. We'll figure it out." she soothed. "It's not okay, but it will be."

She just hugged Hedy tightly and waited as she let her emotions out at last.