Author's Notes:

Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 142

Ghost Therapist?

Once the other team had been kicked out and Ruby had released some (violent) frustration on Michael who fled as soon as he could, attention was turned back to the remaining group.

"I'm so confused," John admitted, looking between them all.

"Those idiots went and tried to film sneakily. They got caught and we were mad at them so we set up this elaborate prank to mess with them. Hedy's a fan of yours so she invited you too since this place is actually haunted," Ruby explained, much happier after getting to use Betty.

"N-no I get that part," John said, staring at Foxy once again standing behind Ruby like some kind of bodyguard.

"What else is there to get?" Puppet asked.

"You're alive?"

"Yes."

"How?!"

"That's private."

John sputtered a little while Miriah just tilted her head. "You don't know how. Do you?"

Puppet didn't answer.

"What more do you need to know?" Ruby asked casually. "The bots are alive, there are ghosts, and a large chunk of this week was us screwing around." There was a note of warning to her voice though. This wasn't the same spoiled teen they'd been dealing with all week. There was a glint to her eyes that sent a shiver down their spines.

Hedy took a little pity. "It's complicated and we don't know you that well. I know you're curious but some of the story is personal. Ask something specific."

John, Eric, and Avery looked at Miriah. She usually asked the questions. She shot her friends a slightly exasperated look.

"Fine. We met the children." She nodded at Timmy who cracked her a tiny smile. "How long have they been here?"

"Almost fifteen years," Hedy said, her tone getting a little emotionless. "Timmy longer."

The group flinched at that answer.

"What's keeping them here?" Avery asked.

"A bucketload of stubbornness and delusion," Ruby muttered to herself but they all heard. Timmy gently reprimanded her.

"I wasn't talking about you, Tim. You're the only sane person in this place."

"I dunno. Mike is pretty sane," Timmy pointed out.

Mike laughed weakly. "Um… define sane? I go to therapy."

"An evidence of sanity," Hedy agreed.

"Well… you did come back," Mangle pointed out.

Their guests looked like they wanted to ask, but didn't interrupt.

"Are we done now?" Ruby suddenly asked. "I miss playing around at night. This was fun and all but we haven't had a paint night in ages."

"This is really just… normal to you, isn't it?" Miriah asked softly.

"I mean, yeah," Ruby shrugged. "We're used to it. The only new thing right now is that apparently you're a real psychic. Didn't think those existed."

"Well, didn't think living AI existed," Avery retorted.

"Yay, everyone learning something new today," Hedy deadpanned.

Mangle looked at Hedy worriedly, but hid it quickly. Hedy usually wasn't so short with other humans, strangers or no.

Hedy sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I don't think I can be surprised by anything anymore."

"I'll be surprised for the both of us," Mike said. "This is weird. But maybe we shouldn't be surprised." He glanced at Goldy, who just grinned at him.

Ruby rolled her eyes and shrugged. "I want them to leave already," she said bluntly and glanced at Miriah.

The older woman didn't pick up anything overtly malicious from her. It was more a mashup of protectiveness and boredom.

Abruptly Ruby narrowed her eyes and Miriah was cut off from all of those feelings like a door was slammed in her face.

Goldy, Hedy and Timmy all flinched.
"I hate it when you do that," Goldy complained.

"What just happened?" Avery asked.

Miriah glanced at her, silently promising she would try to explain later, even though she was shocked. She took a breath, shoving down the feelings of hurt that some of the only other 'psychics' she had ever met weren't as interested in her. At least Ruby wasn't. Hedy feelings were too scattered and cloudy to get a clear read on. The floating bear's sympathetic expression made her think that Ruby's reaction wasn't only due to her though. It seemed like she'd locked everyone out.

"I want to help."

Ruby blinked and stiffened defensively. "What?"

"The kids. That's what we do."

John explained further. "We travel around trying to help ghosts move on. That's what we really do. The channel funds it. Sometimes we fake things for the views and to be more entertaining, but it's to fund the travel and get better known, so people are more likely to let us spend the night on their property. Eric and I run the show. Avery finds us research and locations. Miriah does the actual work."

"And how do you help them?" Puppet asked, narrowing his eyes.

"...I'm a licensed therapist," Miriah said.

"You're a psychologist," Avery interrupted insistently. "You have a doctorate that took you 9 freaking years, honey."

Miriah ignored her girlfriend for a moment to continue."Although the dead are harder to help than the living. It's not a field taught in psychology classes."

"Huh. Ghost therapist. Wasn't that the plot of that 90's live-action Casper movie?"

"Be nice," Hedy said.

"I am!" Ruby insisted.

No one believed her and she pouted.

"Really, I just want to help." Miriah got the sense she had been saying that a lot. She looked off down one of the open hallways in the direction she sensed a few of the ghosts were. "I promise. They...they're hurting. Children shouldn't be hurting like that."

She got a slight sense of agreement from most of the bots but it was buried under pain.

Hedy scoffed. "Hasn't stopped them before. A couple of them weren't very nice to you, I'm guessing."

Miriah noticed that Ruby shot a concerned look at the mechanic but didn't comment.

"No, they weren't," the woman answered. "One of them was crying, one of the boys just seemed hopeless. Two were more aggressive. But I did get a name out of one of them. She still threatened to kill us."
"They do that a lot," Ruby admitted.

"But at least she opened up enough to tell me she was Ginny. However, I'm very worried about one of the boys," Miriah said softly. "The redhead."

"Felix," Foxy grumbled.

"Yeah, he does the threatening to kill people thing a lot," Ruby mused. "He's a brat."

"You think you can help them?" Chica asked incredulously. The Originals still had very mixed feelings towards the ghost children, some more negative than others. Goldy was the only one who could hold a conversation with her possessor.

"I do," Miriah said firmly. Sometimes the worst thing someone could do was give up on them.

These people seemed close. Most of them at least. And she couldn't completely blame them. There was clear baggage dragging them and their sympathy for the ghosts down. For some reason though, she got the feeling that Ruby did agree with her the most despite her more hostile nature.

Hedy looked at her in pity, but Miriah could sense there was some bitterness behind those eyes. And it was almost inhuman. "You can try," the Manag-no-Mechanic said, earning a few surprised looks from the animatronics. "I don't mind you coming back. Maybe someone objective can actually do something for them. But I don't expect much until they actually want to change, if they can."

It wasn't a no, but it wasn't a resounding yes, either. The hesitancy was more from how close knit this weird group was. John and the others could see that.

These three humans and the dozen animatronics didn't like others in their space during the night shift. They were more than happy to see the other team run away and there was something disconcerting about more strangers sticking around to see them be who they really were. And it wasn't just the animatronics that were uncomfortable with the honesty. Ruby very clearly didn't like the idea but she didn't argue it.

Miriah had that odd stare that Avery had long figured out was just her trying to read someone, even if it looked a little creepy.

"They really hurt you," she said softly to Hedy.

The other woman's expression dropped a bit to more of a glare and Avery watched the golden bear stifle a wince along with a few of the others. The Puppet bot stiffened.

Ruby just stared at Hedy and didn't say anything except for a slight frown.

"They tried to kill me," Hedy deadpanned with a slight shrug.

"...it's more than that," Miriah prodded.

"It's the gist. I don't appreciate you poking around in my head. I have enough of that as it is." Hedy lifted the tense tone to a more joking one as she glanced at Goldy with mock annoyance.

Goldy snorted. "You do it just as much. More even!"

"I do not!"

Miriah took the hint to drop the subject of whatever relationship the fake manager had with the children's ghosts. "Yes, that's another question I have. You-" she looked at Ruby. "-and you, are hella confusing. Are you…" she hesitated because she clearly wasn't confident about her guess and rubbed her neck awkwardly. "Are you psychic too?" She almost sounded hopeful. She had only ever known two other people like her and they were her father and grandmother, both gone now. But she felt like she knew the answer already. She didn't have any other answer for Ruby closing herself off like she had, and Hedy and the yellow bear flinching along with the little boy.

"Most psychics you hear about have been fakes," Miriah continued. "But it's not a science. There's no one way it manifests. And occasionally, someone might have a little bit of ability but not be conscious about it." She looked between Ruby and Hedy. "You two do. I can't really tell if you're fully aware of it."

"We're aware," Hedy said quickly. "And you're the expert but I don't think it's a real psychic ability. More of a side-effect."

"A side-effect? A side-effect of what?" Eric blurted, holding his camera to his chest like a comfort stuffie.

"You're probably sensing the pseudo-ghost bullshit," Ruby said, glaring at the ceiling.

"Language," Freddy said.

"Are you ever going to get tired of saying that?" Bonnie asked, long given up on complaining about the swearing. He missed the days when Hedy pretended like she had a cleaner mouth before she just gave up trying not to badly influence the Toys. Because then at least her lectures could annoy Ruby into behaving for a while. 'A while' being 30 minutes before she started cussing more on purpose to annoy Hedy back, but still.

Freddy had lost whatever authoritative pull he had on Ruby since she was seven.

"What the fuck does 'psuedo-ghost bullshit' even mean!?" Eric said, fairly alarmed and bravely ignoring the glare he got from Freddy.

John patted his shoulder comfortingly.

Eric was chill about ghosts, but it had taken him the longest to adjust to the news they were real. He had been a pretty strict atheist with absolutely no belief in souls or human consciousness being anything more than electrical signals in the brain. Being introduced to Miriah had triggered an existential crisis.

The living animatronics definitely were sending him back to that a little.

"We almost died, the building thought we were dead so now it treats us like we're ghosts," Ruby finally explained. "Perks that come with this are physical contact with ghosts. Downsides are no pizza in the restaurant."

For a moment, she looked genuinely mournful about that. "I miss pizza…"

"You can take it home," Hedy said, in a slightly foul mood about Miriah prodding about the kids. "Take out boxes exist."

"It's not the same!" Ruby insisted.

Miriah ignored Hedy. "I have...never heard of anything like that."

"Take out boxes?" Toby asked, utterly confused.

"Toby!" Chi yelled, exasperated.

"The ghost thing," Bonnie pointed out to the younger animatronic who looked embarrassed.

To be fair, they were all a little tired. They needed to power down for a couple of hours. They hadn't been able to rest properly with the teams around all the time.

John chuckled. He got serious when everyone looked at him at the sound. "So if you're not the manager, won't you get in trouble when he comes back?"
"Not if he knows what's good for him," Ruby muttered darkly.

"No," Hedy said. "We basically run this place." Not that her answer was any less cryptic.

Mike sighed. "He's scared of them. And the ghosts. We gave him a mental breakdown and someone ordered him to take a vacation."

"And the place has run just fine without him!" Mangle said.

"Because Izzy has been forging the paychecks and order forms," Hedy pointed out. "Saint that she is."

"I don't know how that woman hasn't snapped yet," Ruby admitted. "I would have killed someone ages ago in that job. Starting with the manager."

"She doesn't have a bad bone in her body," Goldy agreed.

"I think we got off topic," John said weakly.

Ruby turned back to them. "Hmm, you know you can't actually use this film right?" she suddenly said. "The building won't allow it."
"The building?" Eric asked in confusion.

"Oh yeah. The building is sentient. Don't think about it too hard."

"I need to lie down…" Eric moaned.

Miriah nodded distractedly, too busy thinking about all the strangeness she learned. She had lived her life thinking she knew more about how the world worked than most people. Learning something new of the magnitude of humans treated like ghosts, living animatronics, and buildings that were sentient was disorienting. But extraordinary. It explained so much. Like the constant presence that was just everywhere and unable to pinpoint inside the building. She hadn't mentioned it but not knowing what was causing the sensation had been worrying her. Knowing it was the very building they were standing in was actually an odd relief.

Avery dragged a chair over to Eric while John and Miriah were both distracted by processing their thoughts.

The cameraman started muttering and fiddling with his camera to check his film. Sure enough, everything was wiped. "Ah damn it."

"For the best," Hedy insisted. "I, at least, understand you mean well, but we don't really want to encourage the rumors more. They're bad enough already. And we don't really want the company to notice you guys." She suddenly sounded a little worried and glanced at Ruby.

The teen noticed and rolled her eyes. "I'll make sure they're not stupid enough to go after your favourite ghost hunter show."

Hedy glanced at the team, flushing a little. "Thaannks. You're never going to drop that, aren't you?"

John couldn't resist a weak grin. "You want an autograph?"

Mike laughed as Hedy turned more red. "...yeah…" she admitted through gritted teeth and a sheepish smile. "Shut up, Mike. Please?"

"Never," he said endearingly as Mangle laughed too.

"I'm never letting this go," Ruby cackled. Most of the bots looked amused as well.

Suddenly Ruby's head shifted to the side and they followed her gaze to find Spring peering nervously around the doorway.

"Are they gone?" he asked sheepishly while John's team jumped at the sight of him.

"Yeah the jerks are gone and I kicked Michael so hard he won't be coming out for a while," Ruby assured him, her tone gentling when she spoke to the skittish rabbit.

He visibly relaxed and looked at the guests. "Um...hi. I'm Spring. Really sorry about the other day…"

Goldy snickered.

"Uh...was that you, in the kitchen with the...um...blood?" John asked the freaky looking rabbit.

Spring tilted his head. "No? Oh. Sorry. That was paint."

Ruby blinked. "Did I forget about a trap? Sorry Spring." She knew he was still jumpy with some of her pranks. She didn't target him much, only with mild tricks that helped him feel included.

"It's okay. It freaked them out though."

"Heh," Ruby snickered. "That's funny."

Avery shifted. "You came out of Fazbear's Fright and no one told us about you, then we walked into the kitchen and saw...you… facing away from us, laughing, while your hand is dripping in red…"

Ruby just laughed harder.

"And it was dark," Miriah added sheepishly. At the time she had been scared but now she really just sensed embarrassment and gentleness from the rabbit. Now she felt guilty for screaming.

"Sorry," Spring said again.

"No, in hindsight that's hilarious," John chuckled as he shuddered.

"Shame we don't have that footage anymore," Eric said a little sadly. He eyed Ruby. "Something tells me you would have enjoyed it."

She got her snickering under control at last. "Oh hell yes. Spring is literally the sweetest bot and least likely to hurt anyone."

Spring opened his mouth to correct her, then clicked it shut. Michael didn't count in Ruby's eyes. Michael didn't count for any of them probably.

"He is a sweet cinnamon roll," Ruby continued.

"Uh Spring, was it?" Miriah asked. "It's okay. Really. You just spooked us a little."

"I am rather spooky looking," Spring agreed, cracking a weak grin.

Oh jeez he's such a sweetheart. Avery desperately resisted the urge to coo and over-comfort the robot. He seemed so ridiculously remorseful.

"Meow!" Kitty suddenly poked her head out of a space between Spring's torso and his neck.

"Spring, I told you to please stop letting Kitty crawl inside!" Hedy begged.

"But she likes it!" Spring argued, although he matched Hedy's begging tone.

Ruby sneezed and took a few steps back, scowling. She didn't look too annoyed though.

"I'm the one who has to clean cat hair out of your circuits," Hedy moaned.

"You could get him one of those little vacuum cleaners," Goldy suggested.

Eric cleared his throat. "Um… we have one in the van we never use. You can have it."

"As a peace offering for you letting us come here for a whole week," John added, eyeing the stage. "And for putting up with those other guys."

"Thank you," Goldy told them while Hedy continued glaring mildly at Spring when he did nothing to stop Kitty retreating back into his torso.

Ruby sniffed and sneezed again. "Where'd I put that allergy medication?" she muttered.

"Sorry," Mike said, wincing, "I got a stuffy nose crawling through the dust in the vents. I think I took the last of it…"

Ruby glared at him and Mike slid to stand behind Hedy.

"Uh… okay, that's a sign it's time for you guys to go," Hedy said, "Ruby's going to use that as an excuse to hunt Mike with a paintball gun."

John nodded, heading to pack up their few pieces of equipment. Luckily they hadn't taken out very much for the last night and had mostly left it all by the front door.

Miriah scribbled her number on a gum wrapper. "I promise," she said as she handed it to Hedy. "I do want to help. Please call me, and I can come back."

"Not alone," Avery mumbled.

Hedy frowned. "I really don't know how much help you'll be if the kids don't want help. You might even annoy them more."

Miriah paused, studying Hedy for a moment. "You call me. When you think they're ready for help. I at least think Ginny might be open to it."

Hedy scoffed and took the wrapper. "I don't think I'm the one who should be trusted to tell what's going on with them. I was stupid enough to think they wouldn't try to kill me. I don't know them that well."

Miriah's frown deepened. "You're very connected to them. You'll know. It's just...You're hurt. I don't know what the whole story is. And I'm not going to ask. Just…" Miriah sighed. "Look, I'm still a therapist. Let's just call this me opening office hours for you. All of you."

She looked up at the bots too, which really shocked a few of them.

Toby snorted. "Yeah...no thanks."

It was a bizarre idea. Them? Talking to an outsider like that was supposed to fix their messed up heads?

Miriah nodded. "Alright. Well, I'm here. I mean, I am better at dealing with ghosts. But there are other therapists out there. I guess it just takes a little looking."

Puppet wanted to laugh a little. Ha! Imagine finding some random human out there that would deal with this ridiculousness. Or could and wouldn't think they were going insane themselves. The animatronics had to deal with their issues themselves.

Maybe this was help for the children. Maybe even the humans. But not the animatronics.

"I've got a therapist thanks," Ruby piped up, which was a little surprising to them. She seemed like the type to fight therapy tooth and nail. She stared at them. "Okay, you can go now. Freddy's is officially closed." She hefted a large paintball gun. Wait where did that come from?! "I want to shoot Mike now."

Eric bolted, frantically carrying three cases of equipment at once as he ran out the door.

"...that wasn't actually a threat," Ruby said in confusion.

"Speak for yourself. I feel very threatened," Mike complained.

Ruby thought about it for a moment. "Hmm, you're right. That's unfair. I'll shoot everybody instead then."

"I have a week of work to catch up on!" Hedy yelled in complaint as the ghost hunters escaped out the doors before they got too involved, most of them laughing.

Outside they found a cop arresting the other group who were babbling insanely about ghosts and animatronics. He just waved at them.

"Well… that was an adventure," John mused as they just walked by and loaded their stuff, Eric making the trip to drop the hand vacuum off inside. "Want to do that haunted hospital next?"