A/N: I actually had two ideas for this next chapter, which I shared around with two of my oldest readers. I ultimately decided to go with this one since I felt it flowed better, although I will probably use the other one for a later chapter.

So here we go. This chapter is a prelude to one of three big moments in this fic that I had planned from the very beginning, none other than Mike Schmidt's backstory. Kids are naturally curious, but they should care that they don't go too deep into certain topics…

Trigger Warning: Child abuse (only towards the very end)

EDIT: Had to re-upload because the site decided to pull a new type of stupid shit on my fic and pretend that the newest chapter didn't exist.

Chapter 12 – Pictures of the Past

"I'm gonna miss you guys!" Meghan lamented as she and Alex said their good-byes at the front door of Mike's house. The two of them had talked with their new ghost friends deep into the night when they weren't watching movies or playing video games, and it wasn't until around 2 am that they all finally went to sleep. Both the Marshall and Schmidt kids had begged Mike for the Marshalls to stay longer the next morning, but unfortunately neither Ryan nor Mike were able to accommodate that request.

"Can't, kiddos," Ryan shook his head. "Mom's coming back today, and you guys both have school tomorrow."

"I've got to leave the house today to take care of some things," Mike added. "I make it a policy not to have anyone else in my house when I'm gone, Mary and you guys being the recent exceptions."

"Awwwww…" both groups groaned, but in the end there was nothing to be done.

"We'll keep in touch!" Alex promised. "And we'll try to come back as soon as possible!"

"You can count on it!" Fritz insisted. "You're the first friends we've made in years! We definitely have to do this again some time!"

"Wish we could tell other people about you guys," Meghan sighed, "but we can't, and we all know why."

"It is what it is," Gabe shrugged. "We're just glad to have met you guys."

"Hope to hear from you soon!" Alex replied as he and Meghan both waved at their new friends. The ghosts gave their final farewell, and none of them stopped watching or waving until the Marshalls' car left the driveway and disappeared from sight.

"So what'd you think, guys?" Mike asked once they were back in the house.

"That was the best thing that happened to us in over 30 years apart from you adopting us, dad!" Jeremy exclaimed. "I can't even say how happy I am!"

"100% in agreement with that!" Susie added, and all the ghosts made similar affirmations.

"I'm glad that worked out so well," Mike commented. "Man, I thought that problem was going to be the harder one to solve out of the two I was working on. Even though two new friends admittedly doesn't sound like very much."

"Two new friends are better than none," Mary replied. "We'll never have the same number of friends that we used to have when we were alive, so with that in mind, this was definitely a success all around."

"Glad to hear it," their dad replied with a smile. "Now then, I've got some things I need to take care of for the day, so I'll be out for the next couple of hours. Think you guys can handle being here without me?"

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Gabe replied dryly.

"All right, guys," Mike opened the front door. "Try not to destroy the entirety of my house while I'm gone," he said jokingly.

"We won't unless I find a way to do it that's hilarious enough to justify it!" Fritz cheerfully assured him.

Mike snorted and closed the door behind him, leaving the ghosts to themselves. For the next couple of hours, they predictably did what any kid that was home alone would do – video games, movies, all the fun stuff. After a while, however, they were starting to get bored with their repetitive routine.

"Ugh, we've been doing the same crap for hours now," Jeremy groaned. "Things are a lot less fun now that dad's not around."

"Maybe we should read some of the books that Alex and Meghan suggested?" Susie suggested.

"Not a bad idea. Problem is, we don't actually own any of those books," Gabe replied.

Jeremy suddenly perked up. "I think I have an idea!" he declared as he rushed out of the room.

Gabe facepalmed. "Dammit, Jeremy…" he grumbled.

"He's going to do something really stupid, isn't he?" Liz asked.

Gabe sighed. "He's usually fairly serious, but honestly right now he's pulling a Fritz."

"Hey!"

"I think the boredom's gotten to his head," Gabe continued, ignoring Fritz's protest. "At that point he gets even crazier than Fritz does."

They waited for a few seconds and Jeremy returned, carrying a binder. "Found this on Dad's desk," he explained. "I thought it would be interesting to go through it and see what's inside."

Mary's mouth hung open. "You STOLE that off Mike's things?" she spluttered. "This is already a terrible idea!"

"Look, it's not like I went digging through Mike's desk to find it," Jeremy protested. "I just found it sitting there on his desk and it looked like worth looking at. Besides," he added, I'm bored! I want to do something else that doesn't involve us staring in front of a TV screen for hours and hours!"

Susie took one look at the folder, a seemingly innocuous thing with only the words "My Life" scribbled on it. "To be honest, I'm kind of curious too," she pleaded. "Mike really hasn't shared a lot of details about his life to us yet, and I kind of want to know more."

Mary groaned. "Not you too, Susie!"

"C'mon, Mary," Cassidy pleaded. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"As much as I hate to admit it," Gabe finally confessed, "I'm just as curious as the rest of you. If this was something that Mike had carefully hidden away, I wouldn't touch it. But it must not be something he's desperate to keep secret. Just a simple look, that's all. I promise, Mary, we won't look any deeper into any of his things."

Mary sighed. "Fine," she relented, "But I'd rather he not know that we've been through his things. Do not take too long."

Jeremy grinned and opened the binder. Inside were a series of pictures that had each been magnified to fit an entire sheet of printer paper. The divider on top of the first set told them that the newer ones were higher up near the front.

Cassidy turned the page. "Oh, wow!" she exclaimed. The first picture was a group of five adults sitting at a large table. The kids could clearly recognize two of them as Mike and Ryan, though they had no clue who the other three were. All of them were holding two playing cards, with four more cards face-up along with the rest of the deck. There were also a group of what looked like plastic coins in the center of the table and in front of all five adults. It seemed like quite an intense competition, but all five of them were grinning cheerfully at the camera, their game forgotten.

Gabe couldn't help but sigh. "It reminds me of us," he said wistfully. "Before everything went to hell."

"It took us 30 years, Gabe," Jeremy replied comfortingly, "but the nightmare's over. Living or dead, we can pick up where we left off. With Dad, Mary, Liz, Alex, Meghan, and any new friends we make."

Gabe smiled at his best friend. "You're right, Jeremy," he agreed. "At long last."

Susie looked at the picture again. "I wonder what game they're playing," she commented.

"Yeah, and who those other people are," Cassidy added. "Maybe they also have kids that we can be friends with?"

Mary shook her head. "Unless you want to give away the fact that we went through Mike's things, we can't ask him that yet. You'll have to restrain your curiosity for the time being."

Liz shrugged. "I'm sure he'll tell us eventually."

Jeremy flipped over to the next page. This time, it was Mike standing on a stage in front of a large robot carrying a wrench in one hand. He was shaking hands with an important-looking business executive, both of whom were smiling proudly at the camera. Behind them, a large banner with the words "EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR" on it hung in the background.

"Dad has a job?" Susie asked in shock.

"Until about a year ago, yes," Mary explained, "and even now, he occasionally does some freelance work as a hobby more than anything. He is a robotics engineer, if you can believe it. Ironic, considering…" she let her words trailed off, but everyone knew what she would have said if she had continued.

"Why'd he get fired if he was Employee of the Year?" Fritz asked, trying to steer the topic away.

"He didn't get fired," Mary clarified, "he chose to retire from full-time work."

"That early? I know he's not a young guy anymore but isn't it a bit too early for that?"

To their surprise, Mary chuckled. "He doesn't need revenue from a job to get by, I can assure you."

"You said Dad still does freelance work," Liz suddenly asked. "Does he still have any of his tools and stuff?"

The mouth on Mary's mask smiled. "He has a workshop building next to the house."

"REALLY?" the ghosts exclaimed. "How come we never saw this?" Jeremy demanded.

"Because you haven't actually left the house yet," Mary answered smoothly. "Just ask Mike if you can leave the actual house. So long as you don't leave the property entirely and can keep yourself invisible, I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Now I'm REALLY curious," Liz replied. Jeremy turned the page over. There were several more pictures of Mike either by himself or with his friends in different environments. Similar to the Marshall kids, there were also a few pictures of some very beautiful and interesting vacation areas, though there were surprisingly little of these considering the many years in Mike's adulthood. One picture that particularly caught the kids' interest was a wedding photo. The ghosts could see Ryan in a garden dressed in a tuxedo, arms gently holding a beautiful woman in a wedding gown. Mike was standing respectfully to the side, smiling contentedly at the couple. Both Ryan and Mike looked significantly younger, suggesting that this picture had been taken a few years back.

"Aww, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall look so adorable!" Cassidy cooed.

"Dad must've been the best man for their wedding," Gabe observed. "No surprises there, considering that he and Ryan have been best friends for a long time.

"I wonder why Dad isn't married to anyone?" Susie wondered aloud. "I think he certainly deserves it. Besides, it would be nice for there to be a Mrs. Schmidt who we can call Mom."

They all turned to Mary, who they expected to have the answers. But to their surprise, she shrugged. "I honestly have no idea," she admitted. "I never really asked him that."

"That's one question we can ask him when he gets back," Fritz replied. "I mean, we didn't need to have seen these pictures for this particular question."

Jeremy snorted. "Maybe we should ask that a little later, Fritz," he deadpanned. "Seems like a rather sudden thing to ask out of the blue, especially since we've only been here about a week."

"That's true," Fritz conceded. Jeremy flipped over the next few pages, and the ghosts made some offhand comments until they reached the end.

"Dad seems like he had a very fun and happy life," Cassidy said happily. The other ghosts agreed, though none of them noticed the Marionette lower her head slightly. She was very glad that she couldn't express emotions through her mask, because otherwise they would have seen the sadness on her face.

"This one's marked College Years," Jeremy read the title as he flipped the divider over. He smiled. "Well, this one doesn't really surprise me at all." He showed the rest of his family a graduation picture. A much younger Mike was grinning and waving, with several friends of both genders standing beside him. All of them were wearing ornate graduation gowns and holding diplomas in their hands. There were a few others following just like it, including some with a younger but still very recognizable Ryan.

"After four years of hard studying, he definitely deserves it!" Liz commented, and everyone agreed.

"Both of them do!" Jeremy added as he flipped the next page. Immediately, he exploded into laughter. "Pfffftttt! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

"What?" Fritz asked as he looked at the picture. He too instantly burst out laughing. "Oh God that is so funny!"

The picture was of a dance party of some kind. Mike was standing in the middle of a circle formed by other dancers. He was in the middle of doing a solo routine of some kind, and it was clearly a big hit, considering that the others surrounding him were cheering and whooping at his moves. "Oh God, I wish we were there to see this!" Cassidy choked out when she'd caught her breath.

Even Mary couldn't resist a snicker. "Unfortunately, there are no video recordings of this. So I guess we'll never know."

"Man, I need to ask Dad what dance he was doing," said Gabe of all people. "It looks like he's definitely got some moves!"

Still chuckling, Jeremy turned to the next page. This time, Mike was leaning on a different machine wearing workshop clothes, putting a thumbs-up in front of the camera. "I guess even back then Dad was pretty interested in robotics stuff," he commented.

"I wonder when that got his interest," Susie pondered aloud. "Whenever it happened, he seemed pretty invested in that career path."

"Yeah…" Fritz muttered, "if I were him, I'd stay the hell away from anything to do with animatronics after…well…"

The ghosts shuddered. "I'm glad that, despite the terrible things that we put him through, it didn't kill his passion for this stuff," Gabe finally replied, "I'd feel even more guilty than I already do if I learned that Dad abandoned one of his favorite interests because of me."

"Same for me," Susie murmured, and the other ghosts made varying noises of agreement. Jeremy turned the page and started laughing again.

"This is just too good," he chortled as he showed it to the rest of the ghosts. It was a picture of Mike holding a large mallet as he prepared to smash it against a machine that, even to the ghosts, looked more like a pile of scrap than anything. It wouldn't have been nearly as funny, and might've even been a sign of a tragic failure, if it weren't for the banner that proudly displayed the words "DEMOLITION DAY" in the background.

Liz couldn't help but laugh. "That looks like a lot of fun," she said with a grin. "Just as long as nobody gets hurt."

"Hey, I guess even Dad needs to vent sometimes," Cassidy replied. "I wonder if he got to do something like that in his job."

Mary shook her head. "In a professional work environment, Cassidy? Not likely."

Jeremy continued to flip through the pages, which showed Mike at various points in his college career generally enjoying himself with his friends. It was quite similar to the pictures of him as an adult, factoring out the obvious age difference. As the ghosts expected, Ryan periodically showed up in these pictures as well, taking part in whatever fun activity Mike was participating in at the time.

"I guess that's that," Jeremy said as he turned aside the last picture, which showed Mike and his hallmates piled up in a dormitory hallway smiling at a camera. He turned the picture over to see the headline on the next divider…

…and instantly, any smile or trace of happiness was wiped off his face. "Oh, God…" he breathed. "Please tell me this isn't what I think it is…"

"What's the matter, Jeremy?" Fritz asked. The rest of the ghosts read the title and they immediately understood Jeremy's sudden gloom.

The divider was marked with a single word. "Freddy's."

"I don't want to look anymore," Cassidy murmured.

"We can't run from this," Gabe said assertively. "We can't just flee from our mistakes and our crimes, pretending they never happened. The sooner we can confront them, the sooner we can rise above the sins of our past and focus on becoming better."

"Well said, Gabe," Mary agreed.

Liz sighed. Even though she'd never done anything to harm Mike, she didn't feel any sort of relief from that. How could she, knowing that at one point her own intentions had been so much worse and she'd outright embraced the path of evil, something that the other ghosts had never done even at their worst. "I'm not going to judge you guys for whatever we see here," she murmured. "I definitely don't have that right."

"Maybe it's not what we think it is?" Susie hopefully suggested. "Maybe all this means is that Mike went to Freddy's a lot as a kid and had a lot of fun there?"

Jeremy turned the divider and Susie's hope was instantly dashed. Unlike the pictures from college and beyond, these were not photos but rather drawings that Mike had made of the pizzeria. The artistic quality was quite good, really good actually, but the ghosts were so absorbed in the subject of those drawings that they barely noticed.

The first drawing was that of the West Hall Corner, where the ghosts remembered there being a Let's Party! Freddy poster. But this particular poster had Freddy grabbing the upper part of his head and pulling it to the side, as if he were trying to rip his own head off.

"Oh God…" Gabe breathed. "I remember trying to spook out the Night Guards with these hallucinations. Was I seriously this messed up in the head?"

"No more than the rest of us," Fritz replied, all humor gone. The rest of the original five wordlessly nodded in agreement as Jeremy turned the page. The next one was a drawing of the backstage area, with all the various animatronic heads. But every single head was staring straight at the camera, including the Bonnie head on the table and even the exposed endoskeleton.

"It feels like they're looking right at my soul," Susie murmured nervously.

"Now I know how I all the Night Guards felt," Jeremy shuddered. "And we can't blame anybody but ourselves for this."

He turned the next page, revealing the East Hall. The kids remembered that there were three posters of Bonnie, Freddy, and Chica on the wall, with the lines "Eating Time, Fun Time, and Party Time" respectively. But instead of those posters, the only thing left was "IT'S ME!" scrawled multiple times on the wall.

"I can't even remember why we kept using that phrase over and over again," Cassidy mumbled. "Was it to mess around with the Night Guards we thought were our killer, or were we trying to tell the story of what happened to us to somebody, anybody who would notice?"

Fritz shuffled uncomfortably. "I sometimes changed the sign to IT'S ME when I ran out of Pirate's Cove," he admitted. "When I did it, it was definitely meant to be a threat."

He flipped over to the next drawing, one of Pirate's Cove, empty with the curtains hanging wide open with the sign reading IT'S ME! instead of the usual SORRY OUT OF ORDER. "I guess Dad noticed that too…" he muttered. "Thank God he was quick enough to block me."

The next two pages were disturbing images of Bonnie's and Freddy's heads, both with the words IT'S ME in the center. The heads were large enough to cover most of the page, and while Bonnie's eyes were black with tiny white pinpricks, Freddy's were wide with bloodshot eyes. "This was a hallucination we used as a scare tactic to freak the Night Guards out," Gabe confessed.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Jeremy murmured. "This is bringing up some bad memories about stuffing Night Guards in suits."

Mary put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered comfortingly. "Everything's okay now. You've been forgiven. We all have."

Jeremy took a deep breath and nodded silently in thanks. He turned to the next page and gasped in shock. It was the East Hall again, but this time instead of the regular posters or the graffiti, it was the paper pal-like faces of three crying children, mouths open in a soundless scream as tears erupted from their eyes. It was the most vivid and life-like picture Mike had drawn so far, and unlike the other pictures, Mike had written something on the back. "This can't be normal. There's no way this can be normal. These poor kids…what the hell happened to them? And what the hell is wrong with this pizzeria?"

"Oh my God…" he breathed. "This...this is meant to be us, isn't it?"

"I can't believe it…" Gabe murmured. "We thought everyone had forgotten about the tragedy that had happened to us back in 1987. How did Dad know something was wrong?"

"He must have paid attention to the hallucinations," Liz surmised quietly, "during his hours as the Night Guard. But I don't understand how he was able to pay attention to all this while effectively fighting for his life."

"I don't get it either," Susie replied solemnly. "But I'm just glad he did. Even if all of this is making me feel worse about what we almost did to him, part of me is glad to know somebody cared even back then."

"It makes you almost wonder if Mike was destined to be our future parent," Fritz added. "The one guy who paid attention to what was going on just happened to be the same guy to adopt us decades down the road?"

Mary shrugged. "I couldn't possibly tell you that," she answered, "but I wouldn't be surprised if that was true at this stage." She reached out and turned the page. Unlike every other page in the binder, it was not a drawing or picture at all, but rather several paragraphs in the style of a news article. The headline read "Kids vanish at local pizzeria – bodies not found." The next three pages were also transcripts of news articles. "Local pizzeria threatened with shutdown over sanitation." / "Five children now reported missing. Suspect convicted." / "Local pizzeria said to close by year's end."

"Hold on a minute," Mary read the first article, then the second, then the third, then the fourth. She gasped. "Impossible," she whispered.

"What's wrong?" Liz asked.

"Mike copied down every single one of these articles, word-for-word, with 100% accuracy," she explained.

The ghost kids sat bolt upright. "No way…" Gabe replied shakily. "That's…that's impossible. He must have found them somewhere and gotten transcripts of them. There's no way he actually took the time to write this stuff down while he was actually AT the pizzeria while we were trying to kill him."

"We would have ended up catching him if he ended up that distracted," Susie mused. "This must have been done sometime afterwards."

Mike had left notes on the back of these articles too. "What the hell! FIVE children were murdered in this pizzeria? Their bodies were stuffed in the goddamn suits, weren't they? How the fuck has anyone not figured this shit out already? Are the police or management that fucking incompetent? Oh wait, yes they are, considering how many Night Guards have gotten stuffed in suits here. God, no wonder people are afraid of this place, I'd be too if I knew exactly what the hell was going on. Hope those poor kids are resting in peace…"

"If only you knew, Dad…" Cassidy murmured.

"He DID know," Gabe added. "He knew about the murders, and he even knew why nobody ever found us. The only thing he was wrong about was the fact that…"

"…we were never able to find peace." Jeremy finished. He looked up at his friends "Until now. Even though we're not in Heaven yet, being here with Dad and the rest of you is good enough for me."

"Amen to that," Susie affirmed, and all the other ghosts made varying noises and gestures of agreement.

"We're getting close to the end," Liz pointed out, and Jeremy turned through the last five pages. Each one was dedicated to a different animatronic, but all of them were disturbing and scary. Bonnie was standing at the left door gazing soullessly into the office, Chica was staring into the office from the right window with her mouth open in an eternal scream, Foxy was out of Pirate's Cove with his head titled, as though he were pondering whether or not to attack the office, Golden Freddy was sitting in front of the office desk with pinpricks of red light in his eyes, and Freddy was on the stage, gazing at the camera with a hate-filled glare. All of the ghosts shuddered again, knowing that unlike the past hallucinations, these images were VERY real and had almost certainly happened to Mike at some point or another.

"Is that how Dad thought of us back then?" Cassidy whimpered. "Did he only see us as monsters?"

"We didn't give him much reason to think otherwise," Fritz replied. "And back then he didn't know we were the ones in the suits."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Gabe muttered. The Freddy picture had been the most terrifying one of them all to him, especially since it was a living reminder of his misguided desire for vengeance.

"Dad might have forgiven us, but it doesn't change the fact that we might have ruined the image of Freddy's forever," Susie murmured. "Both through what the Purple Guy did to us and what we did to the Night Guards. Would there have been a Fazbear's Fright if we hadn't gone so overboard in killing the Purple Guy and getting our revenge?"

None of the ghosts could answer her question. As most of them began to ponder what they had seen, Liz noticed a smaller picture that was hiding in the folder on the back of the binder. She took the picture out of its covering and turned it around to look at it.

And screamed in horror as she threw the picture down.

"What is it, Liz?" Fritz asked in concern as all of the other ghosts snapped out of their introspection.

With a trembling finger, Liz wordlessly pointed at the small picture, and once the other ghosts saw what she was pointing at the felt their essences go cold.

It was the picture of a teenager. He was facing away from the camera, his back exposed to them. A back filled with countless scars and wounds. Many of them were shallow and thin, a sign that they had healed properly and that the worst was behind them. But there were still far too many that had been made deep and wide, grotesquely discoloring the skin, and they were still very clear long after they had been made. The worst part was the fact that these scars seemed to have been layered on top of another, a sign that this child had been beaten and abused for years.

The grotesque and dreadful image stunned the ghosts into a horrified silence. Even though they themselves had been brutally murdered, they couldn't fully process the fact that someone this young could possibly have undergone this much suffering at such an early age.

Gabe was finally the one to find his voice. "Is that…Is that…Mike?" he dared to bring up the question.

"That would be correct, no matter how much I wish it wasn't," a familiar voice answered him.

The ghosts' heads all whipped around towards the entrance to the living room. Mike was standing there, gazing down grimly at the grisly reminder of his own childhood abuse. "Fucking hell…" he muttered, rubbing his forehead with his hand. "This wasn't how I wanted you guys to find out about this. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever did want you guys to find out about this."

Jeremy fidgeted guiltily. "I'm sorry, Mike. I was the one who convinced the rest of the guys to go through your pictures. I thought it would be fun. This is my fault.," he confessed.

"I should have kept that picture away from the rest of them," Mike muttered. "I'd have been completely fine with you going through my life if it weren't for that one. So, how did you like the little summary of my life?" he asked with a smile, though it was clearly forced. "Get a good laugh out of some of them?"

"I can't laugh or even smile after seeing…seeing THAT!" Liz exclaimed. "Dad…what…what happened to you?"

Mike sighed. "I guess you might as well learn the whole story about my past," he answered. He suddenly seemed older and more exhausted than he had been seconds ago. "I know all about what happened to you guys, I guess it's only fair that you learn about my past." He took a deep breath. "To be honest, kids, I relate to you more than you think. Especially you, Liz. I might still be alive and I'm not going to compare what I went through to what you suffered, but the truth is…my childhood wasn't much happier than any of yours."

/

A/N: And here it is. Mike is going to be revealing his backstory in the next few chapters. This is going to be some of the darkest material I've ever written, and I will also reveal why Mike's life seemed to suddenly do a complete 180 flip from tortured childhood to successful college student and engineer. And yes, this will indeed cover Mike's shift at the 1993 Freddy's location and how he was able to survive when so many others failed.

Hope you guys are ready, because there's a lot that's going to be covered in the next few chapters.