Author's Note:

Well this was supposed to be up yesterday... but the website wouldn't let me onto my account page. It's back now though so here's the chapter! Sorry for the delay.

Chapter 146

Outside

"Hi Hedy!" Mike greeted as cheerfully as ever, nevermind the fact that she probably woke him up.

Hedy cracked a smile. She didn't deserve this man.

"Welp. Mike picked up," Marion said as the day staff chuckled at Hedy's smile.

Jess snickered while Izzy and Olivia let out overdramatic awws.

Most of the day staff relentlessly teased Mike during his dayshifts. He made it too easy.

"When a pretty girl like Hedy calls, he better," Harrison added with a laugh.

Hedy stopped and looked at him with a vaguely disturbed expression.

"What?" Harrison asked while Chi shuddered.

"Oh bleh," Toby complained with the old man's face.

"While you're using Toby's face and voice, maybe keep the teasing to a maximum of none," Hedy said with a grimace.

"So you're saying don't make innuendos?" Marco asked. Even the word "innuendoes" sounded wrong with Teddy's voice.

"Hedy? What did Toby just say?" Mike asked, confused.

"It's not Toby. It's Harrison."

"Oh... Wait what?"

"How soon can you get here?"

"Ten minutes?" he said, testing.

"Brush your teeth and comb your hair, Mike," Hedy sighed, ignoring Ruby's amused snort. "And wear something more presentable than your pajamas. It's not that much of an emergency. And you're going out."

"Us?"

"You and Ruby."

"In public?"

Hedy tried her best not to smirk at Mike's guilty alarm.

"Ruby in public is not who you need to be concerned with," Hedy said looking at all the bots.

Ruby squinted, unsure over whether she should be offended or not.

Mike considered his answer. "Twenty minutes then. I'm wearing my running shoes," he said, knowing Hedy would explain when he got there. "Don't tell her I said that..."

"Why do I feel like I should be insulted and planning revenge?" Ruby asked suspiciously.

She liked Mike, despite all the trouble she gave him. He was too much fun to mess with to pass up on the opportunity though.

Freddy was looking at the day staff, coming back to the earlier topic before Ruby could focus too much attention on Mike. "Our programming would stop any inappropriate conversations."

Huh, the day staff was censored. Kinda. The bots could get around the swearing programming but not everything that would be "censored."

Except for BB, which wasn't a surprise, and Jerry because Puppet didn't have any censoring program.

Next was Jeremy. He was far more suspicious of Hedy's phone call but she eventually convinced him to come too and told him he needed to make a day out of it. Luckily it was his day off, but he was still irritated because he had been meaning to spend it with Amelia and the kids. He didn't bring up what happened that morning and he was grateful Hedy wasn't calling for a related issue. However, he was hoping for some kind of break.

"You think the kids might like to go to a Star Wars convention?" Hedy suggested.

"What? Yeah. They would love it. Why are we going to the Star Wars convention?"

"We need adult supervision, I'm not going, and Mike has trouble saying no."

"He's a pushover," Jeremy and Ruby said at the same time but didn't hear each other.

"He's got a limit," Hedy assured. "But today's not the day you push him. Just come to the restaurant Jeremy. You'll see when you get here."

"It's a two hour drive, Hedy." The irritation was clear under the stress. "I literally just got home…Two hours."

"I know. And I'm so sorry. I wouldn't ask you if this wasn't important."

The building definitely didn't concern itself with Jeremy's commute.

Jeremy sighed, his mind made up several minutes ago.

"Fine. But you owe me. You better have a good explanation."

"Thank you, Jeremy," Hedy said earnestly, always grateful for her brother. To break the tension she smirked. "I love you," Hedy cooed in a toothache sweet voice reserved by a sarcastic younger sister for her big brother.

Jeremy grunted. "Yeah. Yeah. See you soon."

"Yay! The responsible one," Ruby muttered sarcastically, although it didn't relieve the tension in her voice.

Hedy wondered if Ruby was upset at Jeremy for his arrest. There had to be mixed emotions about her brother at the moment.

Ruby sauntered over to Hedy and lowered her voice. "So...who's going to explain going to the bathroom? Cause I'm not it. I volunteer Mike or Jeremy."

This...wasn't going to be all that fun. At least Ruby was thinking about this instead of encouraging dangerous or difficult activities.

Hedy sighed, not surprised about this coming up, just a little resigned about Ruby forgetting the staffs' feeling about this situation. "I'm tempted to say let the staff explain. It's their bodies. But it's less traumatizing for them if we do it, even if it's worse for us. Jeremy has kids. He can, but he's going to have nightmares about teaching grown men how to go one and two."

Hedy paused and looked across the room. "Hey Jess? Harrison? Come here for a moment, please."

The cleaners (both who Hedy would call friends) came over, unsteady in Toby and Chi's bodies.

Jess was using a line of tables like a guard rail.

"What is it?" Jess asked.

Hedy hesitated. "The bots have your bodies for more than a few hours. They don't know the mechanics of going to the bathroom."

Both adults made faces that only got worse as they felt the limitations of the bots' expressions.

"Do you want us to explain or do you think each of you should explain for yourselves? If you think not everyone's going to be okay with it, Jeremy can handle the guys and I can talk to the girls."

Harrison huffed, but was serious. "It's awkward, but it's gotta happen..." he said resigned while Jess just shrugged.

"I got it. I'll tell the girls," Jess said.

"You have to use polite or anatomical words. The programming won't let you use slang or rude words," Hedy said.

"That just makes it weirder," Jess complained.

"It's what you've got to work with," Hedy answered dryly.

"Besides, they'll react better to the more scientific wording," Ruby added. "Some of them are going to freak out. Some of them will just accept the whole thing." She paused for a moment and looked across the room. "Puppet may try and go after Mangle. I don't think his…" Ruby snorted. "Patience is holding up."

At least she was pushing aside her amusement for the moment.

She was probably right though.

Puppet was staring at Mangle, and Chi to a lesser degree. It wasn't quite a glare but he was clearly uncomfortable and unhappy, keeping his new mouth shut as the fox and chicken tried to remember what the rest of the "list" had on it.

"Also, if you ask them not to do certain things, they'll respect that," Ruby continued. "They have a thing against anything resembling possession."

"They're going to expect you to do the same and respect their bodies," Hedy added before Jess and Harrison asked too many questions.

Harrison sighed. "I'll explain to the boys." He turned. "Henry's gonna throw a fit about BB touching his..." he muttered under his breath, not noticing his voice box cut off at the last word. "Alright, all the guys over here! You too for this Chica."

Hedy glanced at Ruby and tried to stifle a shudder.

Ruby didn't quite manage to stifle hers.

"I am so glad this happened during the day shift," she admitted. "I would not be handling this as well as some of them."

Well, she was a teen and despite how mature she seemed sometimes, she would still react like a teen to most things.

Hedy wasn't about to mention that as much as she loved the bots, she probably wouldn't want to swap bodies with any of them either.

"They are taking this pretty well, aren't they?" Hedy observed. "I honestly thought some of the day shift would react really badly. Pass out or something." She paused. "Liam looks like he still might. The bots seem..." She shrugged. "Hmm. This is one step less than normality. At least no one's realized they don't consciously know how to breathe, so that's a plus."

"As long as no one points out the weirder things, they won't think about it. Most of them will get excited in a bit. Puppet's not going to drop the grumpy act though. I wonder what he wants to do?" Ruby mused. "We should probably write a list down when they're finished."

She waved a hand over to where the bots were looking faintly horrified while they got their explanations.

"Yeah. I don't doubt her observation skills," Hedy said. "But there is some room for error. Let's hope Mangle's guesses were accurate-"

"MANGLE!" Puppet snapped, looking red in the face. He definitely knew Harrison's talk was something that was coming, but that didn't mean it couldn't be the last straw.

Mangle squeaked and kicked off Izzy's shoes, making a break for the closest room with a closable door, which happened to be the Prize Corner near the entrance.

But she only got to the doorway of the main room before slamming into Mike.

"Oof! Ow. Izzy? What are you..." Mike glanced at the woman in confusion as he held her steady to keep her from falling and looked around for the danger, checking on Hedy and Ruby and darting his eyes over the larger group.

Mangle reacted quickly and spun around with Mike and then shoved him into Puppet.

"Sorry Mike!" she winced.

"Ow," Puppet hissed. "Schmidt! Get off me!"

"No! Don't move, Mike. Hold him down," Mangle said, her fright giving way to amusement.

Mike awkwardly rolled off who he thought was Jerry but still held his arm. "What the hell?" he seemed a bit dazed.

Ruby crossed her arms and stared. "That was so close to what I deal with at home that it's actually a little scary," she admitted. Then she raised her voice. "Puppet! Don't punish Izzy for Mangle's mess! Mike! Get over here so we can explain!"

Mike just looked even more confused since 'Puppet' was across the room.

The explanation took a little while, then even longer when Jeremy and his family got there so they started over.

Amelia, Jeremy, and the kids were there sooner than Hedy expected. Were they already nearby or on their way when she called?

Marcus and Mercedes didn't care about the weirdness much, of course, they were fine just playing with a few of the grown-ups who were suddenly much nicer, in addition to the bots. It was weird because they seemed to understand what was going on and that they were switched around, but the six-year-olds just didn't care very much.

Marcus really made Liam nervous crawling over "Bonnie" talking a million miles per hour. The cleaner didn't interact with young children very much, as he was usually done with his job before opening.

"Miss Goldy?" Mercy asked, her hands out, also wanting to be picked up.

Goldy didn't look surprised often, but she did then, both at Mercy's request and that she didn't call her "Olivia."

Mercy, meanwhile, was absolutely enamored by Goldy, both as Olivia and as the big yellow "teddy bear."

All the night shift couldn't help noticing Goldy had an odd expression as she held Hedy's niece but she just smiled and listened to the little girl talk about her toy lightsaber.

Puppet looked at Goldy for a minute, gaze lingering on her expression before turning his attention back to the explanation.

"I think I need to sit down," Jeremy groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as he processed what Hedy and Ruby just said.

Mike, however, thought it was hilarious. "You gotta admit this is kinda awesome. I mean, the bots get to be human for a day and the day staff get to understand what the bots deal with just being alive on top of having to deal with Hedy or Ruby alone for more than an hour at a time."

"What is that supposed to mean, dearest?" Hedy said warningly.

"Plus, Henry might finally quit after this," Mike said quickly.

Ruby had a similar expression to Hedy. "I'm feeling insulted. The bots love me," she paused and looked at the Toys. "Well, most of them do. I am absolutely lovable."

"Think before you argue with her because Foxy will take offense," Freddy added quickly.

Foxy was glaring at Mike.

Mike looked at him head on with a conflicted expression.

"I can't decide if you're just as scary as Marion or not as much."

"Well, remember that I'm gonna be back in my body eventually and I hold grudges just as long as Ruby does."

Ruby grinned. "Where do you think I learned it from?"

Hedy sighed.

"Duly noted," Mike said. "However, all I'm hearing is that I should take advantage of you being the same height and as human as me while I can," Mike said with a grin at Foxy.

Marion didn't look as pleased about that. "Mike. I'm all for Foxy getting to taste rum or whatever. But if I have a hangover because you got Foxy plastered, I'm gonna kill you."

"No one's getting plastered," Jeremy scolded. "This is already going to be like herding cats and I don't want to be the one dragging Foxy around while he sings sea shanties at the top of his lungs."

Hedy snickered, suspecting her brother was being a bit more prophetic than he intended. He was always good at reading people, even subconsciously.

"I herded cats once. It was for a kind of complicated prank involving catnip and a bank."

"Oh my gosh that was you?!" Mike gaped at Ruby. "Everyone thought it was a weirdly complicated bank robbery!"

Ruby crossed her arms. "One of the tellers was rude to Alice."

"In that case, maybe I should take Mangle to drop off Izzy's stuff at the bank when it's my turn..." Hedy said. "It's pretty far away anyway. Plan to do all the stuff within walking distance first and when we switch off Mike, Jeremy, and I can take you guys further into the city."

"Four can go in my car," Mike said.

Amelia spoke up. "The kids are probably going to be fussy before long. That opens up seats in our car. We can take a taxi home. Or stay here."

Ruby shuddered at the mention of cars.

"I'm completely in agreement with that plan. Besides, the laser tag place is just around the corner and the Star Wars convention is a twenty minutes walk away.`` She looked up at the ceiling and narrowed her eyes. "Convenient."

"Can we go now, Daddy?!" Mercy whined with great timing, waving her toy lightsaber in the air and smacking Bonnie in the face with it.

"Ow," Bonnie yelped half heartedly.

Goldy, who was still holding Mercy, giggled at Bonnie.

Jeremy sighed, knowing his kids were going to complain about the walk five minutes in. He squinted and looked at the group. Then again, he suddenly had about thirteen babysitters who Mercy and Marcus could beg with puppy dog eyes to never let their feet even touch the ground. Maybe the real danger today was not letting his kids get spoiled.

He shared a glance with Amelia, who looked vaguely amused and seemed to be thinking something similar.

Ruby looked at Hedy. "See ya later, good luck with the staff." She glanced over at Spring as he started making weird sounds.

Spring crouched on the floor, gently trying to coax Kitty out from under a chair with little noises.

She stared at him with a face he definitely would call confused.

Hesitantly, the small cat inched forward until her little nose just barely booped the human hand. She immediately started purring and leaned forward to nuzzle against her dad's "new" hand, although Spring could have sworn her eyes looked toward Andrew. He wondered if she liked the smaller fingers as he scratched her under her chin.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Hedy promised.

Spring nodded, already worried about leaving Kitty alone for the first time. He gently picked her up and handed her, still purring, to Hedy before backing up to join the others.

The bots were looking at the front door with expressions ranging from nervous to excited.

The day staff and Hedy watched, actually curious how this was going to go. She kept a good hold on Kitty in case the cat tried to follow Spring.

"Who's first?" Teddy asked as Ruby just...opened the door and walked out. Like it was nothing.

She held the door open for them, looking half irritated that this was taking so long and half excited.

Jeremy chuckled and grabbed the nearest bot by the sleeve, which happened to be Puppet.

"Hold on..." Puppet snapped.

"Oldest goes first. Human sibling rules," Jeremy said, to Hedy's annoyance.

"In that case, make Toby. He's the oldest at the moment."

"Are you seriously scared? It's sunlight, Puppet."

"Of course not! I just..." Puppet flinched. Maybe he was. The last time he was outside, it was dark. And raining. And he lost...

Puppet shook his head. He was fine. It was a nice day. It wasn't raining.

Someone took his other hand.

"Come on, Puppet," Goldy said with a knowing look.

Puppet yelped as Goldy suddenly sprinted, dragging him and a startled Jeremy the few last steps outside.

Foxy was outright snickering at them, dragging a nervous-looking Bonnie after him.

"I don't like this," Freddy muttered, but he followed them without further complaint.

Chica took a bit longer, looking anxious.

Ruby looked at the Toys expectantly and then rolled her eyes when they started pushing at each other to go first.

"Honestly," she linked her arm with Spring's. "Come on Spring."

The twitchy bot followed easily, looking only mildly petrified.

"Well I'm not going to be last!" Mantle insisted. And yet instead of pushing ahead she grabbed her fellow Toys, and BB, and shoved. They all fell out of the door in a heap with angry shouts at her.

"Hey watch for bruises!" Harrison huffed from inside.

Ruby just rolled her eyes. She saw enough of this at home.

She shoved her 'big sister the brats are misbehaving' instincts down and strolled over to Jeremy and Mike. Mike was trying really hard not to laugh at the Toys.

He had his hand covering his mouth, struggling to hide his smirk.

Jeremy seemed mostly resigned as he watched the Toys stand up.

"Where first?" he asked with a sigh.

Amelia was being such a mom as she briefly demonstrated to the Toys how to brush themselves off and straightened Teddy's shirt. She mentioned the sensitivity of human skin and gently rubbed Chi's palm when the bot complained of the stinging from smacking her hand on the asphalt.

Hedy, still watching from the doorway, wondered if the bots realized she and other humans were being careful with them, treating them almost like children. It was hard to avoid, but they'd quietly protest when they realised it.

Right now though, most of them were looking around in wonder and shock as they took in how big the world was beyond the walls of the pizzeria.

Hedy couldn't help but notice the flicker of panic in Puppet's eyes before he squashed it and went back to staring at the sky with Freddy.

"Be careful, guys," she warned with a smile, waving goodbye before she closed the door.

Kitty squirmed off her lap and sat in front of the door. She pawed the door and let out a pitiful meow. She tried again, looking back at Hedy.

"Aww," Marco cooed.

"Shh shh," Hedy said, reaching down to pet the cat, grateful that Spring was already far enough across the parking lot with the rest that he couldn't hear. He would refuse to leave if he had. "It's okay baby girl."

Kitty didn't leave the door and whined again as Hedy backed up to leave. If Kitty stayed there too long, Hedy would go find a few of the cat's toys to distract her with.

Hedy paused just inside the lobby and looked at the staff.

"Why do I feel like I just dropped my kids off at kindergarten or something?" she asked with a slight whine.

They laughed at her.

"It sucks," Oliva said sympathetically, looking behind Hedy to check on Kitty. "I remember that."

"They're like adults in their own right, aren't they?" Jerry asked. "Or at least, they're definitely not kids."

Hedy shook her head. "Forget it."

"What are we supposed to do now?" Andrew asked.

Hedy shrugged, not too sure. All she really wanted was a proper nap. "Well usually, they'd be working. As it is, we can just hang out and watch movies and mess with the Manager..."

That idea seemed to please quite a few of them.

"I would like to stay on schedule with some of my work so I need to look at most of you. The bots are due for a checkup."

All of them might have blanched at that.

"Can't you...um...put it off?" Jerry asked, shifting on Puppet's "feet." It was a wonder he wasn't having more trouble balancing.

Hedy frowned. "Maybe. I do need to look at Foxy and Spring at least, though. Spring because I really need to stay on schedule for him and Foxy because he's a little bitch about his checkups, so this is probably the best chance I'll have to look at him in a while."

Marion didn't look too sure but he didn't dare argue with the mechanic.

"Foxy doesn't like his check-ups?" Jerry asked in surprise and amusement. Since the fox was the boldest of the bots, that did sound a bit odd.

"No," Hedy smiled a bit and wondered how the bots would handle everything humans accepted as normal and took for granted. "He really doesn't."