A/N: Hey guys! I'm going to have a lot more going on in my summer vacation from late June to early July and I can't guarantee that I'll have time to write chapters. Maybe I'll be able to keep my regular update schedule of (at least) 1 chapter a week, maybe I won't be able to write for the next couple of weeks at all.

I have a couple of big plot advancement / lore exploration ideas that I'm juggling with, but I want to make sure that (a) I have the time to write them in the first place and (b) when I DO write them, I give them the time and thought that they deserve. I'm going to use this idea here instead since it won't require multiple chapters that could potentially be interrupted by my summer schedule. Hopefully you guys have fun with it regardless 😊

Guest: I do acknowledge that the books are an entirely different continuity from the games, but at the same time they do share a lot of elements, and I think it's entirely possible that the name of Golden Freddy's ghost could be one of those. Also, I didn't really think about the Mary-Charlie transition, since it's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

Jacko: Yeah, there's no easy answer to this question, that's for sure.

Chapter 39 – Winter Wonders

"Dad! Dad!" Cassidy grabbed at Mike and began trying to shake him. "Wake up!"

"What's up, Cass?" the man murmured sleepily.

"It snowed!" the ghost girl pointed at the nearby window. "It snowed last night! Look!"

Mike's brain was still recovering from sleep and didn't properly process her words. "Say that again?"

"Cass is right!" Jeremy phased through the wall in the room, a silly grin on his face. "I can't believe it! It's actually snowing!"

"Wait, what?" Mike shot out of bed and joined his two kids at the window. His eyes widened as he took in the surrounding landscape, which was covered in a white coat of snow. "What the crap?" he gaped. "It never snows here!"

Cassidy laughed. "I can't remember the last time I saw snow!"

"Not just a weak little flurry, either!" Mike commented, shocked at what he was seeing. "Holy crap. I've NEVER seen snow this heavy in the forty plus years I've lived here. Hell, I've barely ever seen snow at all!" He shook his head in amazement. "Snowfall in Southern Utah, who would've fucking thought."

"Can we go out and play in the snow, dad?" Jeremy asked eagerly.

"Get all the kids down in the living room and we'll take things from there," Mike instructed. Both Cassidy and Jeremy acknowledged the order and left to gather the rest of the family. Mike quickly freshened up and climbed down the stairs to the living room, where the rest of the ghosts were already waiting.

"So…" Mike began as he sat down, "there were always one of two things that I did on winter-y days like this, depending on the level of snow, my mood, and how healthy I was feeling at the time. The first thing was just sit around in my house, wrapped up in my blankets like a couch potato, and basically watch TV and video games all day."

He was interrupted by several boos. "That's boring!" Gabe complained. "We've been doing that for months!"

"Yeah, dad!" Liz added with a frown. "That sounds like such a waste!"

"Boooooo!" Fritz made a thumbs-down gesture. "Boooo!'

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Mike agreed. "If I was sick or heavy snow was still falling I'd have an excuse for that, but it seems to have stopped during the night and I'm just fine right now. So hunkering inside the house would just be more of the fucking same. Which leaves option number 2, which I think you guys will like a lot more." The kids leaned forward eagerly. "We go outside and have some wintery fun. Snowmen, snowball fights, sledding, all that fun stuff. What do you guys think?"

"LET'S DO IT!" the ghosts shouted.

"Thought you'd say that," Mike smirked. "Let me just get some winter gear on and then we can go out and have some fun." The ghosts cheered as Mike got up to change. When he came back down, he was wearing a heavy brown winter coat and black winter pants that covered the entirety of his body between the two of them. "All right, I haven't done this in a while, so let's take things a bit easy."

"Sure thing, dad!" Susie replied as they made their way to the kitchen and the door leading out to the backyard. She eagerly slid it open…and was immediately blasted by a huge wave of icy cold air. "Eeeeeeeeek!" she shrieked as she slammed the door shut. "It's cold!"

Mike raised an eyebrow. "Huh. I didn't think you'd actually have to deal with the issue of weather as ghosts."

"Well, we're still wearing clothes, aren't we?" Jeremy pointed out. "And while we might not be harmed by very high or low temperatures, that doesn't mean we can't feel them."

"Fair enough," Mike agreed, then he sighed. "All right, let me get some of my spare winter clothes out and you can do your little transformation thingy from there." He palmed his face. "Almost half a year with these kids and I still have no fucking idea how ghosts work," he muttered. A few minutes later, the kids had all "dressed" themselves in various winter clothes of different sizes and colors. Mike still didn't know how these ghostly clothes would help insulate his kids against the weather, but when Susie opened the door a second time she was much less drastically affected by the cold. Mike put on some snow boots and stumbled out the door, his children following close behind.

"It's sooooo pretty…" Susie gushed.

"It's like that night when we saw the sky together," Gabe added with a wistful smile.

"I could just lie down in this forever," Liz murmured.

"It would almost be a shame to ruin the look," Fritz commented. "Too bad we're gonna have to if we want have any fun in this."

"Not that I'm an expert at this, but I think the snow's the right consistency at least," Mike tested it experimentally with a few stomps. "Good for making snowmen and snowball fights. I'm not sure if I'd ride on it for sledding if I was a living person, but you guys are ghosts so getting hurt won't be an issue. So…what do you guys want to do first?"

"Make a snowman!" Cassidy immediately exclaimed.

"Screw that, I want to have a snowball fight!" Fritz countered.

"Why can't we go sledding first?" Jeremy challenged.

"You guys do realize you don't have to do all this at the same time," Mike interrupted. "It's not like the house where there's just one TV."

The ghosts looked at each other sheepishly as they realized their dad was right. "All right, then," Charlie addressed her friends. "What do you guys want to do first?"

A few minutes later…

"Urrggghhh, this is actually really hard!" Gabe grumbled as he tried to roll a snowball large enough to make the base of a snowman out of. Even though Mike had told him that the snow was the right consistency for making a snowman, it kept falling apart before he could make a snow ball of the right size.

"Don't give up!" Cassidy encouraged him as she rolled a somewhat smaller snowball. Unlike Gabe's attempts, this one actually stuck together the way she wanted it to and would make an excellent upper body for the snowman. "You can do it!"

Gabe grunted as he gave it one last shot. To his surprise and relief, he finally managed to create a snowball large enough that didn't crumble apart a few seconds after he had made it. "Oh, thank God!" he declared. "Finally it worked out! Took way too damn long…"

"See?" Cassidy giggled. "If I could do it, so could you!"

Gabe shrugged as he finally pushed the snowball up to where Cassidy's smaller one was waiting. "Ready?" he asked. When his sister nodded in confirmation, they lifted the smaller snowball together and placed it on top of the large one he had created. With the two big ones out of the way, it was a simple matter for them to create a small snowball head and plop it on top of the upper body ball, creating a distinct snowman shape. Gabe and Cassidy grinned at each other as they studied their handiwork.

"Alright, got the other things ready?" Gabe asked. Cassidy nodded and picked up a couple of buttons, raisins, and two branches. She gave half of them to her brother and they started placing buttons and raisins on the snowman. Gabe placed several buttons on the snowman's bellies in a vertical line while Cassidy put two buttons for eyes and raisins on the snowman's face to give him a smile. Once they were done creating the details of the snowman, Gabe took the two branches his sister had given him and pushed them into either side of their creation's body to give him the semblance of arms.

"And now, for the final touch!" Cassidy exclaimed. She took the carrot and carefully inserted it onto the snowman's face, while Gabe bestowed the top hat onto the snowman's head. "We're done!"

The two of them floated back a few inches to properly study their creation. "You know…" Gabe finally said after a few seconds. "Considering that this is our first try and the first time we've ever even seen snow…all in all, I don't think we did a half bad job here!"

"Yeah!" Cassidy agreed as she held her brother's hand. "I don't think we could have done much better than this!"

"Maybe we could get Charlie to give this snowman life too?" the former Freddy inhabitant joked.

"Oh, God no! Especially not if it turns out like that one Calvin and Hobbes comic I stumbled across in Dad's library," Cassidy shuddered. "That would be a disaster." She suddenly looked around and noticed that Mike and Charlie were nowhere to be found. "Speaking of which, where are Dad and Charlie?" she asked.

"They're out in the front," Gabe explained. "Dad's gonna try and shovel some snow out of the driveway."

Cassidy started at his answer. "Just the two of them?" she asked, concern in her voice. "Are they gonna be okay taking care of all that snow?"

Gabe shrugged. "Eh, it's not like Dad's weak or an old man," he replied. "I'm sure they'll be fine."

Meanwhile at the Front…

"Oh, you have got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Mike's shout of frustration echoed into the gray sky. The entire driveway had been covered by inches of thick snow, which was already bad enough. But the real problem was that a huge chunk of that snow had fallen off the roof of his workshop…right in front of the only door. "Just look at this mess!"

Charlie pat her father's shoulder sympathetically. "Sorry, dad. Guess everyone gets hit with bad luck eventually. What do you want us to do? Do you want me to get the others to help you snow shovel?"

Mike shook his head. "Nah," he replied. "I'm not going to ruin their fun. The way I see it, I've got two choices." He picked up his phone and quickly checked the weather. The forecast for tomorrow was supposed to be sunny, but given how snow had fallen today he had serious doubts about the accuracy of that prediction. "Either wait for a few days and hope the snow melts by then, or just get to work clearing all this shit out." He groaned and buried his face in his hand. "Except both options suck ass."

Charlie sighed. "I know this doesn't help you at all, but the sooner you get started the sooner it'll all get cleared out."

Mike's eyes suddenly caught a hulking shape of a snow plow truck coming up the driveway. "Actually, you know what. Fuck this." He waddled over to the snow plow truck as Charlie hid in the shadows of the house to avoid being seen in detail. She watched Mike talk to the driver, and her eyelights flickered in shock as Mike suddenly swung the gate open and waddled back to Charlie as the snow plow started digging away the snow in front of the house.

"What did you just…?" Charlie asked blankly.

"I offered the guy five hundred dollars to clean out the road in front of my house and all the snow in front of the garage," Mike explained with a satisfied smirk. "200 now and 300 on completion."

"Must be a nice feeling when five hundred dollars is your definition of chump change," Charlie deadpanned.

Mike's smirk grew as he watched the plow do its job. "This is gonna make me sound like such an asshole, but I'll say it anyway. God, I love being rich."

Beyond the Backyard…

"Ready to try this out, Liz?" Jeremy asked as he plopped the plastic sled on the top of a hill just beyond Mike's backyard wall. He and Liz had decided to test out Fritz's "short-range" anchoring to see if they could follow the movement of a sled down the hill and essentially "ride it." Both kids were eager to carry out the experiment because the implications spread far beyond a simple sleigh ride if they managed to succeed.

"We won't get anywhere until we try," she replied. "Let me test it at this length, and…" she got on the sled (relatively speaking) and gave it a push forward. The two ghosts gave disappointed sighs as the sled slid out from under her and down the hill. It wasn't until seconds later that Liz began to feel the tug of the anchor pull at her soul, and she quickly severed it so that she wasn't dragged down the hill along with the sled against her will. "Dang it…not close enough," she muttered.

"Let me give it a shot," Jeremy replied. Liz nodded at him and began moving down the hill to recollect her sled as he tried to give it a go. His attempt to anchor himself to the sled was more successful than Liz's since there was less time between the sled's movement and his, but it was still an overall failure in terms of getting the effects they wanted to achieve.

"No luck, huh?" Liz asked sympathetically once she was back at the top. "It's been so long since we've been in dad's car that I've kind of forgotten how to anchor myself properly."

"Maybe we're overthinking this," Jeremy realized. "I mean, anchoring ourselves to the car has been working out pretty well for us, right? Maybe all we need to do is just the same thing, only a little tighter on the range since the sled's smaller."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Can't be that simple, can it?" she asked. Nevertheless, she took her brother's advice and anchored herself in the way that he had suggested. Once she was on top of the sled, she gave the back a push like she had done before. To her surprise and delight, she and the sled began to move at the same time as each other and, more importantly, the same speed. Liz screamed in joy as she slid down the hill as effectively as any ghost possibly could, exulting in the exhilaration of a sleigh ride for the first time in living memory. "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" The sled stopped at the bottom of the hill and she rushed back up the hill, eager to start a second ride.

Jeremy grinned as she saw her approach with a huge smile on her face. "Didn't I tell you?" he asked triumphantly. "Sometimes, the simple solution is all it takes to solve the problem." He got on his own sled and pushed himself off the same way Liz had done, and the girl couldn't help but laugh as she heard his excited shouts echo as he slid down the hill. "That was so exciting!" he declared as he floated back up the hill with his sled. "I forgot just how much fun snow can be!"

"We've only got a part of the year to enjoy this," Liz replied. "Better make the most of it while can." She suddenly gave him a challenging look. "Now the real question is…who's going to reach the bottom of the hill first between the two of us?"

"Are you challenging me to a race?" Jeremy asked as he met her gaze.

She smirked in response. "What do you think, Jeremy?"

"No way you're going to beat me!" he declared. The two of them positioned themselves on their respective sleds and anchored themselves. "Ready?"

"Three…two…one…"

The two of them pushed themselves off the hill and the race began. "WHEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Back in the Backyard...

"Think this will be enough?" Susie asked as she made the finishing touches on her snow mound. Fritz eyed it critically for a few seconds before shaking his head.

"Needs to be a little higher," he decided. "Right now you can barely duck under the top. Even a drunken monkey could throw a snowball over this."

"This is hard!" Susie complained as she started piling more snow onto the makeshift barrier."Now I see why Gabe was complaining so much while he was trying to make that snowman body."

"And dad said that this was the right kind of snow for this kind of thing," Fritz commented as he started building up his own snow barrier. "Just imagine how much of a pain this would be if it WASN'T the right kind of snow."

"Don't even think about it," Susie shuddered as she and Fritz got back to work on their mounds. The two of them had decided to prepare defenses for the upcoming snowball fight they wanted to have, and both wanted to make sure that the mounds were just high enough that they could block snowballs effectively without being downright impenetrable. It wasn't after a few minutes that they were both satisfied with the work that they had done.

"All right, I think we're…" she was suddenly interrupted as she caught something white in the corner of her eye. Realizing what it was, she ducked just in time for a snowball to come sailing past her head. "WHAT THE HELL?" she shrieked.

Fritz grinned cockily as the remains of the snowball he had thrown fell from his hand. "Almost gotcha, Sus!" he called out.

"That wasn't fair!" the ghost girl complained. "We weren't supposed to throw snowballs at each other until we both agreed we were ready!"

The former Foxy inhabitant laughed. "Come on, Sus. You know me. I couldn't resist getting in a cheap shot first. It's what I do! And besides," he smirked, "the look on your face was hilarious!"

Susie's eyes blackened in dark voids and a surprisingly dark grin stretched across her own lips. "Well, if THAT'S the way you want to play…" Her hands moved with surprising speed and now it was Fritz's turn to dodge a snowball aimed straight at his head.

"I'm gonna hit you first!" he declared as he ducked behind the barrier he had made, while his sister did the same. For the next couple of seconds, the two of them tossed snowballs at each other, throwing a volley back and forth while successfully evading snowballs that either crashed into the barrier mounds or sailed uselessly past them in the open air. Susie laughed as she ducked a snowball with a trajectory that was painfully obvious even to a kid.

"Ha!" she taunted as the snowball flew harmlessly next to her. "Come on, Fritz, that was…"

WHOOSH!

A snowball sailed right at her, too fast for her to dodge in time. Fritz had used the first snowball as a diversion to catch Susie off guard, and his plan had worked perfectly. The former Chica inhabitant could only watch as it flew through her body and into the snow beneath. Both she and Fritz stared at the ground where the snowball had landed.

"Oh, right…" Fritz finally muttered after several seconds. "We're ghosts. So that means…"

"…we can't actually get hit by snowballs," Susie finished for him. She looked up at her brother. "But you know what?" she grinned. "Who cares? The fight was what really mattered. You might have gotten me once, but don't think you're gonna win again! Best two out of three!"

Fritz smirked. "Think my victory was a fluke, eh? I'll show you luck had nothing to do with it!" he bent down to pick up another snowball, only to have to duck behind the fort as Susie through a snowball where he had been standing seconds earlier. "You're on!"

/

Mike watched contentedly from a chair in his patio as he watched the ghost kids play out in the snow. As the minutes passed, they began to alternate what they were doing so that everyone had a chance to fully enjoy the unique activities that winter had to offer. Eventually, Gabe suggested that they all have a massive snowball fight together, 3v3, with Charlie as the ref. It was this fight that Mike was now witnessing.

"Jeremy!" the Marionette called out to him. "That snowball hit you, and it's your third time. That's it for you!"

"Aww come on, Charlie!" he complained. "I didn't feel anything!"

Charlie had to resist the urge to palm her face. "Of course you can't, Jeremy, you're a ghost. Doesn't change the fact that the snowball flew right through your arm. You're out."

Jeremy groaned but conceded defeat by dropping his snowball. By now, two members of each team had been knocked out, and it was down to Liz against Gabe.

"Kick his ass, Liz!" Fritz cheered. "Show him who's boss!"

"Don't you dare, Gabe!" Jeremy shot back. "We need to win this!"

The two opponents eyed each other warily as they tried to anticipate when the next snowballs would fly. Both had already been "hit" twice, meaning that whoever got the next hit would secure victory for his or her team.

Liz threw the snowball that was still in her hand, but Gabe saw the attack coming and dodged it easily. He then tried to trick Liz by faking a throw twice before tossing his snowball properly, but Liz was able to see through it and ducked behind her team's mound to avoid defeat. In the meantime, both teams' players that had already been knocked out rapidly started making more snowballs so that the survivors could start firing again as quickly as possible.

"Ready for your secret attack, Liz?" Cassidy asked. "I can't believe we didn't come up with this a lot earlier."

"Got caught up in the moment, I guess," Liz replied. "Hope this works,"

"You got this!" he told her encouragingly as he pat her own the shoulder. Giving him a smile in return, she got up and threw two snowballs at once, one aimed straight at Gabe and one to the side at an area where she predicted he'd dodge to.

Only to realize that Gabe had had the exact same idea and thrown his own two snowballs at the exact same time. The two of them were taken completely by surprise and their minds were thrown for a loop. Liz was too stunned to react at all and Gabe's snowball flew right through her, while Gabe had gathered his wits just enough to try and dodge…except he had moved right in the area Liz where Liz had predicted. Everyone could only stare as the snowballs passed through their ethereal forms, still processing what had just happened.

"It's a tie!" Charlie finally declared as she raised the Puppet's long, spindly arms.

"That was unexpected," Gabe said appreciatively as he floated through the barrier and over to Liz. "Good game, eh?"

Liz smiled back at him and shook his hand. "Yeah, good game," she answered. "We definitely need to do a rematch later."

"Looks like you guys were having a good time," Mike commented as he got up from his chair.

"Heck yeah we did!" Fritz declared, his happiness mirrored on all the ghosts' faces. "That was so much fun! I think winter might be my favorite season now!"

"Eh, every season has got its ups and downs," Mike replied. "If you have the resources and know what you want to do with the time you have, summer can easily be even better than winter. But there's definitely a lot of things that you can only do in the winter cause of the snow and all that."

"Did you like our snowman?" Cassidy asked excitedly as she pointed at the snowman she and Gabe had earlier.

Mike gave her a thumbs up in approval. "A lot better than anything I ever made, that's for sure." His gaze moved over to Jeremy and Liz. "How'd that whole anchoring thing work out for you?"

"It worked great!" Jeremy answered. "And it was surprisingly simple to pull off too! All we needed to do was anchor ourselves like we do to your car and then tighten the range a bit, and we were sledding almost like living kids!"

"Maybe you'll be able to ride roller coasters and things like that after all," his father smiled. "Of course, we won't be able to test that until we ACTUALLY go to an amusement park, but at least it seems like you're making good progress."

"So what should we do now, dad?" Liz wondered. "As fun as this was, I kind of need a break after all the stuff we did."

Mike thought for a moment. "You guys feeling cold at all?" he asked. "I know you aren't all that affected by temperature, but you have been out here in a while."

"It is getting kind of cold," Susie admitted. "I could use the warm, cozy comforts of home right about now."

"Which I have plenty of," Mike gestured towards the house. "How about we all gather in the living room under a blanket and watch the next two Kung-Fu Panda movies together in a row?"

"Uh…" Jeremy interrupted. "We can't wear a blanket, we're ghosts,"

"Maybe not, but I can spread a blanket over the sofa, keep it propped up with my body, and you guys can huddle under the open space," their father pointed out with a grin. "Why don't you guys set up everything while I make a cup of hot chocolate for myself?"

The kids all nodded in affirmation of his directive and rushed into the house, eager to start the second part of their fun wintery day. "Tis the season to be jolly, after all," Mike thought with a smile as he closed the backdoor behind him. "If they're having this much fun now, then I can't wait to see what Christmas has in store for us."

/

A/N: And the kids get yet another piece of their lost childhood returned to them. It might not be a huge plot advancement chapter, but who doesn't love feeling some warmth and fuzziness at seeing the ghost kids laugh and play together without a care in the world? I decided to pair the kids differently than how I normally do, that way it didn't seem like they were hanging out with some of their family constantly at the exclusion of others.

But as fun as it is to write about the ghost kids' new lives and how they're enjoying the present and the future, I think three chapters in a row of that is plenty. It's time we move on to bigger things, and I think now's as good a time as any to implement one of the big ideas that I've been having in my head for a very long time now. Which one, you might be wondering? The only hint I'll give you is that there have been hints in the past leading up to it.

But that's all I'll say for now. Hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope you have a wonderful summer!