A/N: It seems you guys really liked the reunion between Michael and Liz! I'm glad I delivered up to your expectations 😊
I was originally going to have this be a light, non-plot important chapter, but the last chapter didn't really feel like it had the closure that I wanted for the transition in Liz's character development. So that's what this chapter will be focusing on instead. Plus, I haven't had Charlie and Liz interact with each other in a heart-to-heart yet and I think it's way past overdue for them to have their own moment together.
I have revised any chapters involving the MCI to have it in 1982 instead of 1987, since there is a lot more convincing evidence to suggest that the MCI happened before 1987 in a Freddy Fazbear's location before the FNAF2 one, since the FNAF2 one was a RE-OPENING of Freddy's. Most of the chapters are pretty much the same, but the storytelling of the MCI in chapter 17 has been retconned into being completely different.
Also, we hit over 150 favs and follows! Thanks for all the support everyone! :D
Chapter 45 – A New Resolution
"You can't stay?" Liz tearfully asked her brother as she righted herself off her bed. Henry, Oskar, and Michael had all been allowed to spend the night with them before being forced to return to Heaven in the morning, and Michael had joined his sister on the bed and slept next to her just like they had used to so many years ago. For one night, Liz could forget about all the years of pain and loneliness, and pretend she still lived in the happiest moments of her life before Mike had adopted her.
Then, the morning had come, and with it the harsh reality that her brother would soon be leaving her again.
Michael shook his head. "I can't, Lizzie. The rules of the afterlife are very strict, and souls who pass on are almost never allowed to return. It took a lot of convincing for God to allow us to come here, and I do not think violating the terms of his generosity would be very wise." He smiled tiredly. "Besides," he added, "you have a new family now. You should be focusing all of your attention on them."
"But…"
"But nothing, Lizzie. This is a new chapter of your life, and the less you focus on the old chapters, the better. Trust me on this."
Liz sighed in defeat. "O…okay…"
Michael let out a dry chuckle. "It isn't easy, Lizzie. I know that better than anyone. But it's for the best." Before he could say anything else, a faint glow began to emanate from his body. A brilliant blue aura that was growing brighter by the second. The two siblings knew what it meant – Michael's time on Earth had come to an end.
"Come back next year…" Liz tearfully begged and reached her hand out towards him. "Please, come back…"
Her brother winked at her and grasped her hand gently. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, sis," he promised. There was a brilliant flash, forcing Liz to turn away to prevent herself from being blinded. When the light faded and she could finally turn back, Michael was gone.
She sat there silently for several moments, her mind still caught up in her emotions as she felt another presence join her. "So…" Fritz finally called out to her after several seconds of waiting, his voice devoid of its normal mischief and humor. "He's gone?"
Liz wordlessly nodded, and her new brother sighed. "Yeah…Oskar and Mr. Emily got taken back to Heaven too," Fritz told her. "And Melody left a few seconds ago after saying her good-byes, since she didn't really expect to stay the entire night," he shook his head. "Way too many good-byes for the day after Christmas if you ask me, even if I know all of them aren't going to be forever." He looked over at her worriedly. "You all right?"
His sister managed a weak smile. "I'll be fine, Fritz," she assured him. "Just got a lot to think about."
"Don't we all," Fritz replied dryly. That familiar grin was beginning to return on his face, something that Liz was glad to see. "So!" he reverted to his normally cheerful tone. "Wanna come down? The others are waiting for us to join them so we can go looking stuff up on iTunes together!"
Liz got up off her bed. "Yeah, let's go," she agreed, and she followed her brother out of the room. "Focus on the new," she thought. "Just like Mikey told me."
/
The next few days seemed to pass by in a blur. Even though Michael had given her the keys to the future with his guidance on redefining who Scrap Baby was, Liz had decided to follow a different piece of advice he had given her and simply try to enjoy herself with her new family. At first, it worked, and more than one of her brothers and sisters had commented on how much happier she seemed.
But eventually, the question that would lead to one of the most important decisions of her life began to resurface. Who or what would Scrap Baby become now that she was the one in control?
"Liz? Hey, Liz!"
Liz jolted out of her thoughts to see that Susie was giving her an annoyed look. "You completely blanked out in the middle of our game! I was basically 1v2ing that Smash fight the entire time!"
"Oh, uh, sorry…" she shook her head. "Just was thinking about something."
Susie's annoyed look slowly morphed into one of mild concern. "Are you all right, Liz?" she asked. "You've been spacing in and out a lot lately. Some of us are starting to get a little worried."
"I'll be fine, Sus." She promised with a small smile. "Sorry about that."
The former Chica inhabitant shrugged. "If you say so." She gestured towards the kitchen. "Cassidy and I are gonna make dinner for dad today, if you want to join us." She made a face. "I still haven't forgotten that disaster of a meal that Fritz made."
Liz giggled. "I don't think I'll ever be forgetting THAT anytime soon," she commented, and both ghost girls laughed for a few seconds. Then, Liz's smile faded a bit. "But I think I'll pass today. I actually want to talk to Charlie right now."
"Charlie?" Susie repeated. When Liz nodded, she pointed upstairs towards where they knew Mike's study would be. "She was reading some books in dad's study last time I saw. Maybe she's still there?"
"Thanks," Liz gratefully replied before heading off. She passed by the living room, where Gabe, Fritz, and Jeremy were feverishly dueling each other on the stage of Final Destination, with Mike watching and occasionally dropping a sarcastic comment whenever one of them screwed up particularly badly. She floated up through the ceiling and into the second floor hallway, stopping in front of the closed door to Mike's study. "Charlie?" she called out after a second of hesitation. "Are you there?"
There was a shuffling sound for a few seconds and then the door slowly opened, revealing the Marionette's mask. "Liz?" Charlie gave her sister a puzzled look. "Do you need something?"
"Yeah…" Liz admitted after several seconds. "There's something I'd like to talk with you about privately. Do you have a few seconds?"
Charlie shrugged and pulled the door open wider. "Sure, I'm just killing time right now. Come on in."
Liz followed Charlie into the study and to the two armchairs inside. Charlie sat on the one that was normally occupied by Mike, while Liz took the other. "So what can I do to help you, Liz?" Charlie asked.
Liz didn't answer immediately. Several times, she opened her mouth as though about to speak, but closed it again silently as though she were having second thoughts. It took an entire minute before she finally found her words.
"I think I'd like to start by saying that I really admire you a lot, Charlie," the girl finally began. Charlie's eyelights flickered in surprise at the praise, but she waited for Liz to continue. "It isn't just because you're the kindest and most selfless person I know apart from maybe dad. You've been through so much pain and struggle because of what my…old dad…did, even more than the others. And yet you still did it. You gave it your all. You watched over our family for 40 years, and you didn't let anything get in the way of that?" She looked up at the one who all the ghost kids considered their older sister. "How?" she asked, and Charlie could tell that Liz was desperate for an answer even if she didn't know why, "How do you have a such a strong sense of purpose? Even now, after all the bad things that have happened are finally over and we have a new dad to watch over us, you're still trying to take care of him and us to this day! How do you do it, Charlie?"
Now it was Charlie's turn to be silent for several seconds, since she knew that what she said would be very important to Liz and she didn't want to disappoint her sister with a thoughtless response. "I guess…the biggest reason why would be because it was just part of who I am," Charlie answered carefully after several moments. "I hate seeing people be unhappy. I hate seeing people suffer. And every time I see someone crying in pain or sadness, I want to try and comfort them as much as possible." Her eyes shifted downward towards the floor for a second, where the other ghosts were playing or cooking, before returning their focus on Liz. "Our family…they've suffered more than anybody should ever have to suffer in an entire lifetime. And I wanted to do everything I could to help them get through the last few decades."
Liz smiled. "You're like our family's guardian angel," she commented warmly. "You're the big sister we all need."
She was surprised by the defeated, almost bitter laugh that came out of the Marionette's mouth. "Big sister? Maybe. Guardian? Sure. But angel?" Charlie retorted with more guilt and self-loathing than Liz had thought possible from her. "That's not even close to the truth. I'm guilty of the exact same thing that everyone else is, Liz. There's innocent blood on my hands, just like there's blood on theirs. It doesn't matter that I've killed less people than they have. Angels don't kill innocent people, Liz. I barely even consider myself a hero, no matter what my two dads or the others say." She looked straight into Liz's eyes. "Please don't think of me as some shining light that can do nothing wrong. I know better than anyone else that that's a lie."
"I don't think there's a single person in this entire family who's proud of the person they used to be," Liz replied pensively. "I'm definitely not for obvious reasons, I knew the others didn't, and from what he told us dad honestly sounds more relieved than anything that his life didn't end at Freddy's thirty years ago." She allowed some surprise to enter her tone now. "But I had no idea that you were feeling that way too, Charlie! I had no idea that you were dealing with guilt and self-esteem issues like the rest of us."
Charlie sighed. "I try to hide it as best as I can, Liz," she admitted. "The others have enough baggage to deal with without me adding more onto their plates. Dad's the only one who really knows everything about my past and what I think about it." She shook her head. "I'm still not entirely open to the idea of sharing everything I'm feeling to the rest of the family. If I ever feel overwhelmed by it all, I promise I WILL share. But right now, I'm okay with who I am now and I don't feel right adding my troubles to everyone else's."
"I guess that's fair," Liz conceded. "I wish I had all my own issues settled as easily as you do."
Charlie reached out and put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Liz, you shouldn't put the blame on yourself for what your father did to you. The girl sitting in front of me is the real you, not that insane robot crawling in the vents of the trap pizzeria. As far as I'm concerned, Liz Schmidt and Scrap Baby are completely different people."
"But that's just it!" Liz protested. "They're NOT completely different people. Scrap Baby IS a part of me, Charlie. I can't run away from the truth anymore." The Marionette's mouth widened slightly and Liz could tell that Charlie was about to say something, and she raised a hand to interrupt her. "I'm NOT saying this because I still hate myself over the past, Charlie. Or at the very least, I'm trying not to. I promise. But I AM Scrap Baby. I can still turn into her. I still see her in me. And the only way I can feel better about myself as Scrap Baby is if I can transform her into someone completely different from what she used to be."
"This is what you and your brother were talking about a few days ago, isn't it?" Charlie realized.
"Yeah, it is…" Liz admitted. This would be the first time she opened up about her conversation with her brother to another person – not even Mike knew the full details yet. "William Afton wanted Scrap Baby to be a monster," she continued. "A murderous, robotic monster who tore innocent children to pieces with a giant claw. There's no way I'm ever going to let her be what he wanted her to be. Not now, not ever." She slumped over and sighed. "That's the easy part, Charlie. What's harder is trying to figure out who she should be instead."
Charlie nodded and wrapped Liz in a light hug, trying to cheer her up. "Did you ask Michael what he thought she should be instead?" she wondered.
Liz nodded. "I did," she replied, "but Mikey didn't want to give me a direct answer. He said it would be better for me if I figured out the answer by myself."
"I think I can give you a little more help," Charlie offered, to which Liz perked up slightly. "I do agree with Michael that it's best if you figure out the final answer for yourself, but here's the thing. I think you already know what you want Scrap Baby to be. Look back at what you've already accomplished with her. You've already defined who she is." Even through the Marionette's relatively fixed mouth, Liz could see her knowing smile. "You just don't know it yet."
And then, like a brilliant light being turned on inside her head, she did know. She did know what she wanted Scrap Baby to become. Liz suddenly leaned forward and wrapped her sister in a tight hug, catching Charlie completely by surprise. "Thanks, sis!" she nearly shouted in delight. "You're the best!"
"Uh…you're welcome," the girl haunting the Marionette replied. "Seems like you've got an idea of what you want to do. So…what's the next step?"
Liz got off the chair. "I'm going to have to talk to dad after he eats dinner," she replied, and Charlie immediately noticed a sense of purpose and confidence that had been almost nonexistent in her seconds before. "I wonder if I can still help Susie and Cassidy with it." She waved at the Marionette. "See ya, Charlie!"
"See ya!" Charlie replied, letting out a small laugh as Liz enthusiastically floated out of the room. Once she was gone, Charlie felt her contentment at seeing her sister happy fade slightly. She put her book down and went over to Mike's desk. Opening a drawer, she reached in and took out the picture of her and Liz that Mike had found back when they were still alive.
She had found that picture entirely by accident and had confronted Mike about it afterwards. The man had admitted that he had found the picture in Henry's house and had held onto it because he felt that it was too significant to just simply leave behind. "I didn't mean for you to find that picture so soon. Until I can find a way to break the news to Liz in the right way, showing her this picture will just do more harm than good right now," had been Mike's answer when she had asked him why he had kept this a secret, and Charlie had to admit that the man was right. Right now, the only thing this picture was doing was reminding her of what had been lost. And though Liz was noticeably improving, her adoptive sister still had less control over her emotions than she did.
Charlie sighed as she looked at the picture of her past self and Liz smiling at the camera. "To think that so many things could have gone so horribly wrong," she thought as she slowly lowered the photo. Two innocent girls, completely ignorant of the decades of terror and tragedy that would shape their futures. Even after things had finally turned out all right, now that William Afton was in Hell and they were all under Mike's care, Charlie knew that whatever relationship she and Liz once had in the past was gone and could never be fully reclaimed.
"But that doesn't mean we can't make something new," Charlie thought as she lowered the photo into the desk and shoved the drawer shut. Her mind reflected on the conversation she'd just had with Liz, and her eyelights flickered with hope for the future "All we can do is try our best."
A Few Hours Later…
It wasn't often that any of the ghost kids visited Mike when he was in his workshop. This was time that Mike spent working on any projects that caught his interest at a given point in time, even though he very rarely worked on anything major nowadays. It was also one of the few times that Mike preferred to be by himself, an observation that had quickly been recognized and respected by the children.
Which was why Mike was surprised to see Liz floating a few feet away from him, looking at him with a sense of uncertainty. He quickly turned off the blowtorch he had been using, set it down, and lifted his protective faceplate so he could see Liz more clearly. "Liz?" he asked, puzzled. "Did you need something?"
The question seemed to give Liz the courage she needed to proceed. "Yeah, dad…" she responded. "I…I wanted to talk to you about something really important."
Mike took off the faceplate and maneuvered around the side of the table to get closer to her. "I'm all ears," he said once he was close enough to Liz.
Liz took a deep breath before beginning. "When my brother was here, we talked a lot about a lot of things, dad. And towards the end, he gave me some advice on how I can feel better about myself and Scrap Baby."
Mike nodded. Judging by how much happier Liz had been over the past few days, he had suspected that whatever Michael had told her had cheered her up considerably. "And what was that advice?" he asked.
"He said I should change who Scrap Baby is," Liz explained. "Make her into something different than what William Afton wanted her to be. And I think I have the answer." She looked straight into Mike's eyes, and the man was taken aback by the sudden determination and sense of purpose in them. As far as he could remember, Liz had never exuded this type of confidence so far. "I want to be this family's protector," she declared. "I want to keep the people I care about safe. You, my new brothers and sisters, even people outside our family like the Marshalls and Melody if I have to. And I have the power to do it," as she spoke this last sentence, her form began to shift and change until the now-familiar phantasmal Scrap Baby was in front of Mike. Liz gazed down with her claw. "I have power with Scrap Baby that the others don't. I can fight anything or anyone that tries to threaten us, I know I can because I've already tried with Nightmare. Everyone in this family has been hurt so much, in different ways. Charlie's the one who helps them through the bad times. I want to be the one who stops them from happening." She looked back up at Mike. "I'm not stupid enough to think that I can solve every problem by fighting, or that I'll be able to stop all the bad things or people that life throws at us. But with Scrap Baby, I can at the very least say I tried my best." A pleading look entered her eyes, begging him to accept her new self-imposed duty. "I don't know what else Scrap Baby can be, dad…I don't know what else I can be…this is the only thing I can think of that will truly make me feel better about every part of myself."
Mike opened his mouth, about to say that she didn't need to put this burden on herself, that she was his daughter, and that was good enough for him. But the words died in his throat as the realization suddenly crashed into his mind.
This was not about what he wanted. This was about what Liz wanted, no, needed. Having her as a daughter might be good enough for him, but he couldn't dare to impose his perspective on Liz when his own trials and struggles were laughably insignificant compared to hers. She had set her sights on a higher calling as their family's protector, a new identity that would allow her to fully redefine who she was and finally put her tainted past behind her. But even though she had crafted that identity for herself, she still looked to him for validation and approval of her choices. And his acceptance of her decision was possibly the most important gift that he could possibly give her, more than all the money in the world or even the new purposes he had given Scrap Baby when he had taken her out to the abandoned pizzerias.
Up until now, he had been focused on what he thought was best for the kids. And that might have been and might still be successful, for the most part. But for the first time, Mike realized that he needed to pay attention to what they believed was best for themselves, and balance that with his original perspective, before he passed his guidance or his judgment.
To deny Liz was utterly unthinkable, and he silently cursed himself for not seeing the truth sooner. Thank God that there had been no negative consequences because of his lack of foresight.
Mike bent down slightly until he was looking Liz in the eye. She might have been much larger and taller than she usually was in her Scrap Baby form, but Mike was still taller than her. "If this is something that you really have your heart set on, Liz," the man spoke with all the candor and appreciation he could muster, "then I won't stop you. But don't ever forget that when it comes down to what really matters, I want you as a daughter, not as a servant."
He didn't have any time to say any more, as he found himself buried in the biggest hug that Liz had ever given him in living memory. "Thank you so much, dad!" she praised, her eyes flashing joyfully with the knowledge that her father had accepted her newfound dedication and purpose. "I love you so much! I won't let you down!" she promised.
Mike chuckled. "If you want to disappoint me, Liz, you'd have to work pretty hard to find a way," the words were spoken as a joke, but Mike and Liz both knew that he meant every word. Liz opened her mouth to say something else, but then suddenly stopped and shuffled uncomfortably. Mike raised an eyebrow. "Something else on your mind?"
"It's kind of dumb to ask, but…uh…can you teach me how to fight?"
Mike blinked several times. "…what."
"I know, I know, but I remember what you told us about your past, dad," Liz quickly explained. "Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but it sounds like you had to fight in the streets to survive. And I was wondering if you could teach me something."
"Well, I only fought when I absolutely had to, which thankfully almost never happened," Mike corrected. "And even if I was as good of a fighter as you think I am, my ability to help you is rather…limited." A wry smile stretched across his lips. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly a freaky robot clown ghost with a giant claw for a right hand," he added dryly.
"Har har…" Liz replied with equal dryness, but Mike knew she wasn't bothered by his joke. Which, by itself was a good sign of her improving self-esteem.
"Still," he continued after a few moments of thought. "I might be able to give you a tip or two." He walked towards the front of the workshop and beckoned at Liz. "Over here."
Liz eagerly floated over to her father, who was pulling out and setting up a cheap, run of the mill plastic table. Once he was done, he turned to face his daughter. "So here's the thing," he began. "I'll start with the positive: you seem to know how to use that claw pretty well. You cut the chains on the abandoned pizzerias cleanly and from what I can tell you know how to use it as a weapon too. Otherwise, I don't think you'd have been able to so much as touch Nightmare before he beat you down."
"It's probably not a good thing that I know how to use this claw so well," Liz muttered.
"Well, considering the plan you've set up for your future, it is now," Mike grinned encouragingly, and Liz returned with a smile of her own. "Now for the critiques." His eyes traced over the claw. "The easiest way for me to say it and for you to understand it is that you're too dependent on that claw."
"Too…dependent?" Liz asked, puzzled.
"Yep," Mike confirmed. "Too dependent. That claw is pretty much the ONLY way you attack anything or anyone. Yeah, you'll deal some major damage and probably win most fights you're caught up in if you can get a hit with that pincer, but that's not a guarantee in the slightest. Maybe ghostly physics works different from real physics but trying to claw your enemy with something like that is bulky, clumsy, and not too hard to avoid if your opponent can see it coming."
Liz thought back to how Nightmare had effortlessly blocked off her second claw attack. Granted, he was much more powerful than any opponent she would probably have to fight in the future (and she hoped that there would never be one to begin with), but she could see his point.
"You have more tools to fight with you than you think, Liz. Your other hand is a metal one with sharp fingers, which are great for scratching and are a lot easier to use." He gestured towards the table. "Take your hand and scratch it from one side to the other."
Liz stared at her one free hand, which suddenly looked a lot more menacing and vicious with the razor sharp metal fingers that she hadn't noticed before. "My old dad really did want every part of me to be a monster, didn't he?" she inwardly sighed.
"Liz?"
She shook herself out of her thoughts. "Nothing," she quickly replied. She approached the table and, channeling her focus, she began to slide her claws across the table's surface from the left side to the right. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but when she had finished doing what Mike asked, there were five deep gashes on the table that stretched from one side to the other.
Mike raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Power is right," he whistled. "I didn't expect you to have this kind of strength as a ghost. Now I'm curious to see what'll happen with my second piece of advice."
Liz wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, having this kind of destructive power scared her, especially since she knew how easily it could be used for evil. On the other hand, she now knew for sure that she could live up to her own expectations as her new family's protector. "Second piece of advice?" she repeated.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "I think it'll be a lot easier to use your claw as a bludgeon instead of a pincer. You know, beating something with it. It's also big enough to make for a decent shield, but I won't attack you to test that because it doesn't feel right to attack my own daughter and because I literally can't. Anyway," he gestured towards the damaged table, "hit the table."
Now it was Liz's turn to blink. "What?"
"Hit the table," Mike repeated, "so that you see what I mean."
Liz still looked confused but shrugged as she approached the table. Lifting her claw, she maneuvered it until it was a few inches above the surface. Then, she gently banged the table with a small THUNK.
Mike stared at the spot where she'd hit the table, completely unimpressed. "Okay…" he drawled, "why don't you go ahead and try that again? And, uh, hit it a little harder."
Liz gave her father an annoyed look. "You stole that straight out of Kung Fu Panda, didn't you?" she complained.
Mike smirked and wordlessly knocked on the table. Liz rolled her eyes and looked back at the table. Focusing all her energy just like she had with earlier, she raised her claw and smashed it downward onto the table. There was a loud CRACK as the table broke apart and the pieces collapsed onto the floor. The table, cheap and shoddily made as it might have been, had been split completely in half by the force of Scrap Baby slamming the weight of her claw onto it.
"That's better," Mike smiled knowingly. "Power by itself doesn't win fights, Liz. If that was all it took, I would have died in Freddy's forty years ago. Efficiency and versatility matter just as much as raw strength and can even outright beat it. Sure, crushing something with that pincer will do a lot more damage than a good ol' whack, but wasn't doing the second so much easier?"
"Yeah…" Liz agreed. "Yeah, it was!"
"It also comes with the benefit that you're less likely to kill someone if you want to win a fight without hurting them," Mike added. "That pincer will almost always kill, or at the very least seriously injure someone. And I'd like to try and avoid that if possible."
"Not gonna argue with you there," Liz shuddered at the possibility of killing someone with the sharp edges of her claw, even if it was for a nobler reason. She looked up at him curiously. "For someone who claims not to be a fighter, you sure know a lot about battle strategy and how to beat your enemies," she noticed.
Mike snorted. "Most of that shit came straight out of hours of video gaming," he retorted. Liz got the impression that there was more to it than what her father was letting on, but she didn't say anything to challenge him. Then, the humor in his voice faded. "To be honest, Liz, I hope we never have to worry about this," Mike reluctantly admitted. "If we all just carry on with the rest of our lives, with you being a regular ghost girl happily breezing through the daily shenanigans of her new family life, that would make me so very, very happy. But," he sighed, "as Oskar once told me, any plan that doesn't account for when things go wrong, no matter how genius it is otherwise, is automatically a fucking awful plan."
He straightened himself until he stood tall, and in that moment Liz saw him as the splitting image of the general who had raised him. "If there ever comes a time when I need to fight something that threatens our safety and well-being, Liz, I can't think of anyone better to fight alongside me than you."
Liz raised her claw and placed it over her chest in what was clearly meant to be a salute. "I said it before, and I'll say it again, dad," she swore, "you can count on me. I won't let you down."
Mike smiled and ruffled his daughter's ethereal, wiry hair. "I know you won't," he answered, returning the salute. He and Liz hugged again silently, the former showing his acceptance and the latter expressing her gratitude. Then, once their shared moment of solemnity was over, Mike made his way over to the back of his table where he had been working and Liz shifted back into her normal human form. She noticed for the first time a set of blueprints that was on the table to the side, a safe distance away from the pieces of metal that her father had been working.
"What are you making?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Mike smirked and wagged his finger at her. "Ah ah ah," he chided mischievously, "I'm not spilling the beans. It wouldn't be fair if you knew about my little project but the rest of your brothers and sisters didn't. Or am I wrong?"
"Awww…" Liz murmured in disappointment, but she couldn't help but giggle. She knew that he would reveal what he was working on sooner or later.
Mike looked at the jumble of pieces strewn across his table, then suddenly snorted. "What the hell am I even doing here? You know what, screw this. It's New Year's Eve, I should be spending time with you guys." He took off his apron and stashed the blueprint away. "Let's go back to the house, Liz," he suggested. "The apple will be dropping soon and I'd have to be an idiot to miss it."
Liz tilted her head in confusion. "The apple?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
A Few Hours Later, 11:59 PM
Mike and the kids were all crowded around the basement TV. They had spent the last few hours watching a review of the year (even though most if not all of it was largely meaningless to the ghost kids), and now they were eagerly watching the apple beginning to fall and mark the dawn of a new year.
"It's almost time!" Susie shouted excitedly.
"I can't wait to see what the new year's like!" Jeremy added eagerly. "With all of us together, it can only be even better than this year!"
"Maybe we can actually see it in person some day!" Gabe suggested, eyes fixed on the slowly falling apple.
Mike chuckled. "Considering that you guys are ghosts not bound to the laws of gravity, you'll probably get a much better vantage point than I ever could," he commented.
"We're only a few seconds away!" Cassidy exclaimed.
As one, Mike and the ghosts began counting down the last few seconds. "10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!"
The apple hit the ceiling of One Times Square, triggering a shower of fireworks and a roar of delight as the crowds on the TV went wild. The ghosts themselves were no less excited, floating around in a celebratory frenzy as they cheered on the coming of the new year. Mike couldn't help but laugh at the craziness – it was a good thing they were all incorporeal right now; otherwise, his entire basement would have been a complete mess.
Besides Charlie, who was restricted by the physical body of the Puppet, only one ghost child remained calm and collected. Liz had stayed in the same position she had been while watching the apple fall, and while she was certainly happy with the coming of the new year, she wasn't caught up in the same ecstatic rush that the rest of her family was. Instead, she stared contentedly at the 2026 brightly displayed on the building.
"A new year," she thought, with a smile on her face that would have been enigmatic to the others if they had been paying attention, "and a new me. Just like you'd have wanted." Her eyes lifted upward to the ceiling, where she knew far away her brother was watching over her. "Happy New Year, Mikey."
/
A/N: And there we go. I think this rounded out the transition phase for Liz's character development much more nicely.
Now that this arc has been concluded in a manner that I find much more satisfying, I'll be going back to lighter, more fun chapters for a bit before I move on to the next plot arc.
Did you guys like the little bonding moment between Charlie and Liz? I just realized I didn't have a single major interaction between these two characters, something that desperately needed correcting. They may not ever have the kind of relationship that they used to back when they were alive…but that doesn't mean they can't make something new instead.
The thing with my fic's version of Liz is that, at her core, she really isn't all that different from the game or even the book versions of Elizabeth if you think about it. She wants love, affection, and approval from the person she looks to as a father in all three. The difference here is that instead of a remorseless, murderous sociopath, she now has a father figure who freely gives her all the love she needs and has a strong moral compass, and it's amazing how much her character transforms because of that one change. And you can bet that Liz's new self-appointed role as a guardian and protector will absolutely come into play in the future, even if I'm keeping the details secret for now.
Anyways, that should be a good spot for now. Hope you guys enjoyed!
