Author's Note

Hope you enjoy the chapter and thanks again to Corona Pax! The chapters will be back on schedule now.

Chapter 78

Damage Report

Of course now when they headed back, the door opened like it had never been locked in the first place. The bots were anxiously waiting on the other side, except for Puppet who was trying to appear disinterested further down the hall.

"Lass!" Foxy yelled, ignoring the oil mostly covering Ruby as he jumped forward to check her over the moment they exited the attraction.

Everyone seemed relieved, including the Toys oddly enough. Toby would be the last to admit it but he relaxed just a little at seeing the Night Guard wasn't hurt.

Hedy waved Teddy's worried questions off and covered her stomach with her arm again, worried that someone was going to get a little excited about hugging her. She still didn't see Goldy.

Ruby had pulled herself together again and calmly told the bots that she was fine.

"I just got a little over enthusiastic today." she shrugged.

Foxy and Bonnie saw through the fake smile though and surprisingly looked to Hedy for answers.

She hesitated. It wasn't like they wouldn't see the damage later and Ruby needed her to be truthful. "I doubt Springtrap will be wanting a physical body any time soon."

Many bots flinched, just imagining what Ruby could do when she was especially mad, and the teen hid her own flinch. Foxy and Bonnie didn't move from her side though. None of them blamed her, most of them had wanted to have a shot at doing the same that night.

"Do you need help getting him here?" Bonnie asked softly.

The Originals were no strangers to damaged bots so wouldn't react as badly to it as the Toys might.

Jeremy paused, glancing at Hedy and Ruby for a cue. Ruby flashed him a tense look, glancing at Bonnie worriedly but it was brief. Hedy seemed unsure but nodded so he gestured for Bonnie to follow him. He cast a short glare at Hedy. "Take your medicine before I get back and don't do anything stupid. Let them help you set up your tools and stuff."

Hedy looked insulted. "The pain meds mess with my head and the antibiotics make me nauseous."

"Hedwig Lamar Fitzgerald."

"God. Fine."

Ruby snickered at the exchange which brought a smile to a few faces. A quiet and anxious Ruby, even if she was good at hiding her feelings, made them all anxious.

The Toys of course took this entire conversation to mean 'help Hedy do literally everything' and helped get her tools, set up the table and fetch any parts she might need.

Meanwhile the Originals helped Ruby clean up. It helped them all relax when she was clean of oil. She was probably going to have to bin the clothes though.

Hedy on her part completely forgot the bit of oil on the clothes the hospital gave her. It was a common occurrence for her and not as shocking to the Toys with how little there was. Plus, she wasn't about to complain. At least the hospital didn't leave her with only her blood-soaked pants in the room. The shirt was long gone, probably in some evidence locker after the doctors cut it off her before surgery. She stole one of Jeremy's t-shirts and a pair of nurse scrub pants a doctor left her.

Ruby settled on one of the tables nearby and waited impatiently for Jeremy and Bonnie to arrive with Spring. Anyone who looked at her could tell that she was nervous over whether Hedy would be able to repair the damage.

Freddy glanced between the girls before talking. "Do we need a heads up before they arrive?" he asked gently. He was mostly asking for the Toys. The Originals had gone through a lot of physical damage themselves and they'd often helped each other. The Toys hadn't been exposed to much beyond Mangle.

Teddy and Toby shared a glance while Mangle stared with blank expectancy. Chi looked nervous and distracted herself by whispering to BB.

Ruby hesitated, wondering how she would explain that she'd run the bot through with the same pipe that the killer had used on Hedy.

Hedy pursed her lips, puffing up her cheeks before she huffed. "Shattered leg. His hand is pretty much crushed. I can't fix that so I need to find replacement parts. Lots of oil leakage. The torso is...wrecked, to put it simply. Ruby...um... somehow got a hold of my new best friend that Springtrap introduced me to. Let's name him Rusty." She winced and chuckled awkwardly at Mangle and Teddy's shocked faces. "It looks worse than Mangle was," she gestured at the fox and made a face. "Though he is technically still in one main piece. I'll probably have to take him out of his suit to see the endo damage, so fair warning."

Guilt flickered across Ruby's face again before she put up a blank mask.

The Toys looked shocked. They couldn't imagine anything worse than Mangle while the Originals nodded. They'd been expecting that. Hopefully Goldy would stay away for this.

Foxy looked at Ruby in exasperation though. "Ya stole the pipe from the cops didn't ya?" he asked.

The teen gave him an innocent smile.

"You what?" Jeremy said as he and Bonnie appeared in the doorway with their oil-stained and torn up cargo. The man seemed to be struggling a bit from the weight and was distracted from his question as Bonnie warned him to watch the door.

"Careful," the rabbit said sharply.

"Got him," Jeremy replied, adjusting so Spring's head didn't knock against the corner. He grunted. "How's he supposed to be worn? He's way heavier than I thought he'd be." They brought Spring over to a table Hedy pointed out.

The Toys watched uncomfortably while Mangle and the Originals winced in sympathy.

Ruby kept her eyes averted from the bot.

"I left them a note." She shrugged as she answered Jeremy's first question.

"A note." Foxy deadpanned. "How the heck do you get away with half the stuff you do to them?"

Ruby's expression darkened. "Their idea of an investigation into anything involving Freddy's is severely lacking. They probably won't even notice it's gone." There was anger and disappointment in her tone.

Freddy moved forward to help them with Spring while Foxy tried to talk to Ruby. She was sticking to mostly non-verbal answers though.

Jeremy frowned, half hoping he'd get a call from Black about the missing evidence and prove Ruby wrong. However, based on the fact that the police didn't know he was involved with Freddy's and he never got a call from someone about Hedy's attack, he suspected someone might have tried to make her disappear, like Scott, if he wasn't there. It was a scary thought, one that made him stay with her overnight. He regretted showing his face at the station if his suspicion were true.

Black's surprise when he found Jeremy at the hospital was concerning. Of course, that didn't mean the guy was involved, but it was weird for the police to try interviewing someone unconscious and not even assign a protective detail when the assumption was the victim was attacked by someone presumably still at large. Even the questions they asked Jeremy were lacking. They didn't even ask if Hedy had any enemies or who contacted him about her state.

He wouldn't be surprised if they pulled him in for questioning and tried to frame him for murder if she hadn't made it out of surgery.

Something else that didn't sit well with him though was the fact that there was no investigation at the scene and it was already cleaned up.

Ruby most likely already noticed that little detail. She was also an important witness but she hadn't been questioned.

Nothing had been done besides that hospital visit.

"I take it the cleaners came?" Jeremy asked. There was a lot of blood. He didn't know them, but Hedy said they weren't bad people despite their sketchy job. That didn't excuse illegally covering up a crime unless they were being coerced. He bet they were so used to Ruby's relatively innocent messes that they got a nasty shock that morning. Unless, they were ordered to come in early. In that case, he wondered if they dreaded finding one of the girl's bodies.

"Yeah, with that police guy." Toby answered with a disinterested shrug. He was focused on unpacking Hedy's tools so she could reach all of them easily.

Ruby looked at him sharply, green eyes narrowed in suspicion. The other bots didn't seem to think that there was anything weird about the police being there while the evidence was covered up.

The teen looked troubled while Freddy and Bonnie carefully moved Spring onto the table.

Jeremy swallowed. Letting Ruby in on his "investigation" was the last thing he needed. He made a note to ask the bots more about it later, like what that cop looked like or if they heard a name.

He hadn't told Hedy about his suspicions either.

Hedy glanced up. "An officer came with the cleaners? That's not normal, guys." She scoffed, "Well, can't say I'm surprised, but it's unsettling to know the company got that far. Not friends of yours I hope." She looked at her brother.

Jeremy frowned, glancing at Ruby as she suddenly seemed confused at Hedy's words.

"Would they keep you in the loop even though you're my brother? Do you know if there's an actual investigation at all?" Hedy asked, forgetting the others didn't know Jeremy was a cop or the plan to temporarily keep it from Ruby. In her defense, the pain meds were pretty strong and just starting to kick in.

Ruby frowned as she glanced between the two. "What are you talking about? How would he know what's going on?" she demanded. "Besides, they probably had someone impersonating a cop to make it seem like they were allowed to clean the place up." she didn't sound like she completely believed her own words though. The lack of any follow up was bothering her.

Foxy patted her shoulder comfortingly while the other bots alternated between looking at Spring and at Hedy and Jeremy.

In the better lighting, the rabbit seemed even worse and still hadn't woken up.

Hedy seemed to realize her mistake and blinked, stifling a wince. She shared a glance with Jeremy as she wheeled closer to Spring to start looking him over.

"I'll keep an eye on things," Jeremy said. "But I haven't heard much. I'll have to get an okay from the district attorney and this precinct's chief along with my own to officially be on your case, for legal reasons, but that's not much of a problem as long as I'm not a suspect," he explained. "Otherwise, Walker and Diana are going to kill me for getting any case thrown out. However, it might be better if I keep an arm's length and just pay attention to what they're doing." If anything, he wanted to add. He doubted there was going to be a case at all. Not that it would help. It was unlikely a ghost was going to get on the suspect list.

Hedy chuckled despite the soreness as she inspected the pipe in Spring without touching it. She knew Jeremy's brother-in-law would indeed kill Jeremy for messing up a case for him, again. Meanwhile, Diana, one of Jeremy's friends, would call him an idiot and threaten to get him fired. She was a sweetheart, but a terrifying lawyer.

Jeremy turned to the others. "I'm a police officer. A detective. That's what Hedy means," he explained cautiously, ready for the surprise.

He had an idea how Ruby would take it but he wondered what the bots thought about the police. He was curious what sort of opinions they had about people who were supposed to catch murderers. He doubted it was positive since the police had never been the most helpful in the pizzeria's situation and they were often on the wrong end of things with all the people who had died here, especially by the Original's hands.

His concern wasn't for nothing since skeptical and suspicious looks flashed across all the bot's faces. The Originals especially since they remembered the lack of help from the police in the kids' murders when Hedy was a child.

Ruby initially looked surprised before covering it with irritation. She reacted in anger like she always did when she wanted to hide her true feelings. "Nice to find that out now." she snapped.

Suddenly the shirt Hedy was wearing made sense.

Hedy ignored the conversation while she focused on Spring.

The pipe had clearly caused a lot of damage. It was a little surprising how far the teen managed to jam it into him. Then again the bot hadn't been in the best shape. Even without taking it out Hedy could hear something sparking. Maybe she should get a full list of what Ruby did before starting.

"Ruby, I don't want to make you feel bad about it, but what exactly did you do? Just so I know," Hedy asked gently, reaching for a notepad and pen, which Chi pushed closer to her while staying arm's length away from Spring as if the chicken expected him to jump up. "I need details, like everything you used on him or how Springtrap tried to defend himself. Weird smells, cracking sounds. And what order did things happen?"

Ruby grimaced, distracted from her irritation. She glanced at the bots before gesturing for the notepad and pen. She wasn't willing to say it out loud.

She wrote for a good few minutes before handing it back silently. The taser would explain the sparking Hedy was hearing. She'd written everything in detail. She definitely hadn't gone easy on Michael... Betty used on his leg and wrist. Taser held on him just a little too long for Hedy's comfort. The teen had used a higher voltage than usual, not enough to really be a danger to the bot but enough to cause extra damage. Then the pipe.

Hedy hummed, careful about her facial expressions. She read for a minute, making notes next to Ruby's writing before setting the notepad facedown next to her and reaching for a pair of gloves in her bag. She climbed up on the table next to Spring to get a better view, ignoring Jeremy and Teddy's very vocal complaints.

"Hedy! The stitches," her brother said.

"Leave me alone," Hedy snapped to hide the pain that stupid move caused, "I'm fine." She peered into the cavity in Springs' chest and frowned in confusion. She took a little red plastic box with two wires coming out, a voltage meter, and checked if there was electricity in the pipe before she took it in both hands, oddly not bothered by the weapon. Her hands didn't even shake. She tugged but it was stuck. Nothing creaked loudly so she took it as a good sign.

"Weird," she muttered. She reached up to brush her fingers at the latches around the neck but didn't flick them open, just checked that they were there. "Mangle, can you bring me my laptop?" As Mangle did so, everyone looked to Hedy for answers.

"Okay, so the physical damage is bothersome in one degree, as in painful if he wakes up and will take a while to fix. But all the mechanical stuff should be fixable. It's the computer system I'm most concerned with. If that's damaged too much or the code is corrupted there's nothing I can do to get his code back."

"What does that mean?" Jeremy asked quickly before anyone reacted badly.

"Imagine printing a document on a piece of paper. If you printed other stuff on that same paper over and over again then the original image gets covered in ink and you can't read it no matter what you do. I don't know how possession works but its possible Springtrap printed his consciousness over Spring so many times that his code can't be read anymore. That's corruption." She saw Ruby's face and spoke quickly. "But, it's just possible he didn't wake up because of the physical damage and his programming is protecting him from getting more hurt. So theoretically, if I fixed enough and his hard drive is okay then those safeguards should decide its safe enough to turn on."

The Toys just accepted her words, having learnt that Hedy knew what she was talking about. The Originals were thinking about how they always felt after the possession, like they were strangers in their own bodies and wondered if that's what she was talking about.

Ruby looked like she wanted to say something but present company was stopping her. Eventually, she snatched the notepad up again and wrote down how Michael gloated about keeping Spring around before pushing him down when the original Fazbear's Fright was around. She silently handed the pad back but those who knew her well could see the signs of her being very worried.

"Do you need help with the pipe?" she asked out loud.

Hedy noted what Ruby wrote and a flash of sadness and anger was in her eyes. "Let's leave it for now," she said, "Since it's stuck on something. I'll probably have to cut the suit to see if there's any circuitry or wires pulling it out would damage. I need to find the hard drive first." She trailed off and stared at everyone awkwardly.

"Uh…. It's freaky but... could you get the...um...the head off? " She couldn't pull it off from where she was seated. She pointed. "I think there are pin latches on the neck."

The teen grimaced while most of the bots looked ill. In a 'you're not arguing' tone she told the Toys, Chica and Bonnie to leave the room. She knew that out of the group only Foxy, Freddy, Puppet and Mangle could handle seeing that.

Chica and Bonnie left as quickly as possible, not keen to watch. When Toby tried to argue he got treated to one of Ruby's best 'older sister' glares and the Toys left meekly after them, wondering why they weren't arguing anymore.

Taking a deep breath she moved around to Spring's head and found the latches Hedy was talking about. A couple of tugs later she frowned. "It's stuck on something."

Naturally, Ruby's solution was to pull harder. Before Hedy could tell her how bad of an idea that was they heard a crack and the teen fell on the floor holding the head. All the bots present felt ill, glad that the others were gone.

"Hah got it-" Ruby suddenly cut off and paled dramatically.

"Lass?" Foxy asked in concern and stepped forwards just as Ruby let out a shriek and threw the head at Hedy.

"What the hell that's sick!" she was frantically wiping her hands on her pants and looking rather green.

Hedy caught the head on instinct, not really appreciating her attempted murderer's former face flying at her, but she still caught it. She frowned in confusion before a flash of purplish-brown caught her eye and she accidentally touched something resembling dry wrinkly leather.

Her scream echoed Ruby's and she half-dropped-half-threw it away from herself in frantic disgust.

The head landed on the floor probably a little harder than was safe and Jeremy watched in bewilderment as the animatronic head rolled to a stop. Then something slipped out of the opening for the neck.

He tilted his head for a moment before he understood what he was looking at and promptly swore in a way that would have the bots escorting him out if they had customers.

An eyeless, rotten, shriveled grin made of exposed skeletal teeth stared back at him, frozen in horrified, tortured terror.