A/N: You guys all seemed to really enjoy Dark!Mike! Which, considering what I have planned very soon, makes me VERY happy…heh heh heh…

But that's for later. Right now, it's time to start the Summer Vacation arc! Which is really ironic since right now it's wintertime/Christmastime, but whatever :P

DeathTheWolf: That is basically how Rockstar Golden Freddy works in ONaM.

Sandshrew master 317: "Mike's New Ghostly Family" is a very slight AU to "A Legacy Laid to Rest" where Jeremy Fitzgerald doesn't exist. In this continuity, Mike found Charlie and adopted her alone. Everything else from "A Legacy Laid to Rest" remains true though. I address this in the first chapter if you want more details.

BlueJay: Dammit, every time I think I got all of them I always end up missing one. Thanks for the tip!

JustAesthetic (and everyone else): Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year! Also, William isn't ever going to repent, find forgiveness, or be forgiven. It's not in his character.

Hello: I've had my fair share of Korean snacks but I don't recall coming across something like THAT before.

Chapter 62 – Tragedy and Travel Plans

Jeremy yawned as he flipped through the channels on TV. He had gotten up a bit earlier than the others today and was a bit curious to see what was happening in the outside world.

So far, he hadn't been impressed.

*click* "boring…" *click* "who cares…" *click* "whatever…" *click*

He was about to turn off the TV when something suddenly registered in the back of his mind. Picking up the remote, he turned back to the last channel that he had skimmed through. Featured on the screen was a large industrial building, a large chunk of which had been utterly consumed by a vicious and raging inferno. As it was nighttime on the screen, the fire must have died down by now. Jeremy didn't even want to think about what the building must look like in the present time.

"Jesus Christ, what the hell happened…" the ghost muttered as he watched the smoke and the fire blaze the building. His eyes fell on the headline for the news broadcast…and his jaw dropped.

"EXPLOSION OF FLAME IN EISENSTEEL ROBOTICS BUILDING!"

Eisensteel. The name of the company his dad had used to work in.

"DAD!" he shouted frantically, and Mike rushed into the living room. His eyes widened in horror when he saw the news on TV.

"Oh my God…" he breathed, and Jeremy was stunned by the look on his father's face. Up until this point, Mike had always approached the majority of bad situations that came his way with nonchalant acceptance, calculating coolness, and a smidgeon of deadpan humor thrown in. But now he was pale as death, his expression contorted in pure horror, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.

"Are you all right, dad?" Jeremy asked worriedly, trying not to hide his own rising fear. He knew that Mike had used to work there, but what could have shaken him so badly?

Unless…

"Melody sometimes works the night shift there!" Mike quickly explained, and now his son understood all too well. Mike whipped out his cell phone and frantically punched in Melody's cell number. By now, the other ghosts were starting to phase into the living room, and one quick look at the TV screen, Jeremy's terror, and Mike's ashen face were enough to clue them in that something terrible had happened.

"Come on, Melody, pick up!" Mike pleaded frantically as the phone started ringing. "Goddamn it, Melody, pick up! PICK UP!"

It wasn't until the sixth ring that the phone finally answered. "Hello?" a male voice that was decidedly not Melody's answered. But it was a voice that Mike recognized.

"Mr. Santor?" Mike's shock at hearing his former boss's voice temporarily replaced his panic. "Is that you?"

"Indeed, son. I take it you've seen the news," Mr. Santor sighed and shook his head. "I don't know how this could've possibly happened…those poor souls…"

"Where's Melody?" Mike asked frantically. "And why are you using her cell phone?"

"Ah, so that's why you've called her," despite everything, Santor couldn't help but chuckle. "You can rest easy, Mike, she's fine. She wasn't in the building when everything went to hell in a handbasket."

A wave of relief washed over Mike and he mouthed to the other ghosts. "She's fine." Everyone immediately and noticeably relaxed at the knowledge that Melody hadn't been harmed by the fire, although they were all still looking at the burning building worriedly. Even if Melody had survived, it was more than likely that a good number of people hadn't. "But why are you using her phone?"

Mr. Santor sighed again. "Melody is currently in a meeting with the other board members. She had a feeling you'd call and she asked me to answer for her while she was busy. It's not all good news for her, Mike. The sad truth is that while she may be just fine, her projects…weren't so lucky."

Mike let that sink in without a word. The last time she had been at the house, she had been eagerly talking to him and his kids about the project she had been working on for years now. All that work now gone forever, burning away to oblivion in the flames… "she's not getting fired, is she?" is the only thing he could think to ask.

"Oh, absolutely not!" Mr. Santor exclaimed. "None of this mess was even remotely her fault, and a chief engineer like her is too valuable to be replaced. I just…don't want to think about how she'll react when she learns the unpleasant news from the board about what happened to her work…"

Mike shuddered. "Tell her that if she needs any help, my door's always open," he assured his former boss. Santor gave a brief reply in the affirmative and then hung up, as some of his subordinates had found him and started asking him questions.

"What happened?" Susie asked, clearly worried about Melody.

Mike took a deep breath and shook his head. "She wasn't in any danger, but all of her hard work from the last two years went up in flames along with the building. I didn't work on any special specific projects like she did, but I know I'd be devastated if something like that happened to me."

"I hope she's okay," Cassidy murmured.

It wasn't until several hours later that Melody finally called Mike. The man immediately noticed just how exhausted and empty her voice sounded, and when she asked if she could come by the house he immediately accepted without even a second thought. When Mike left to pick Melody up at the gate and brought her back in, the ghosts were stunned by how utterly broken she looked. Even Bonnet, the pink rabbit puppet who was normally so cheerful and giggly, was uncharacteristically silent, moving only to peer worriedly at Melody's face. Mike guided Melody over to the table in the dining room as the ghosts followed behind at a respectful distance.

"Are you all right?" was the first thing Mike asked once they had both sat down.

Melody shook her head. "No…" she confessed, and it was clear that she was trying desperately not to cry. "So many things going so horribly wrong. I…I had a friend I made…after…after you left…she…she…."

The woman burst into tears as Mike held her gently to him. "I'm sorry…" he murmured. "I had no idea it was that bad. When I talked to Mr. Santor earlier, he mentioned your projects being destroyed but he never mentioned this."

"So…so many people who worked the night shift there died…died horribly, millions of dollars' worth of machinery and projects being de-destroyed, it's all spiraled down into a g-gigantic nightmare!" Melody sobbed out. "Eisensteel was my home away from home, and seeing…seeing what happened to it…and to learn that my…my projects, on top of all of every…everything…"

Mike nodded silently, not knowing what to say. It was painfully clear now to him that, apart from her being alive and unharmed, everything that could have gone wrong for Melody had indeed gone horribly wrong. Bonnet wrapped her tiny arms around Melody's cheek in an attempt to comfort her, but it wasn't until several moments later that Melody finally managed to collect herself. "What's happening now?" Mike asked quietly.

Melody sighed as she wiped away her tears. "It's a real shitshow over there, that's for sure. All I know is that almost everybody's on leave for at least a month, including me, while the board is trying to figure out this whole mess." She shook her head. "I don't know what I'm going to do …I don't know what to do…"

Mike comfortingly pat Melody's shoulder, but he was at a complete loss as to how he could make things better for Melody. Sure, he had started out with nothing, but life had been comparatively and consistently easy once he had found the means to secure his future. Melody had been living a stable life that she had enjoyed…a huge part of which had now been brutally ripped away from her.

Before he could think of anything, he could feel one of his kids' voices in his head through their mental link. "Dad?" Cassidy called.

"What is it, Cass?" Mike asked, a little more brusquely than he intended.

"I…I have an idea for how we can make Melody feel better," the former Golden Freddy inhabitant suggested.

"More than what I have right now. Let's hear it."

"We're going on our out-of-country summer vacation soon, right?" Cassidy asked. When Mike replied in the affirmative, she continued. "Maybe…maybe we can bring Melody along with us? I think it'll be a good way to keep her mind off all the bad things happening to her."

Mike's eyes widened as his mind processed Cassidy's idea. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. Melody clearly needed some kind of distraction from how badly things had gone to shit for the company that she worked at and loved, and it would be easy for Mike and the family to accommodate her. Not to mention the fact that the kids would love to hang around another adult figure that they liked and trusted besides him for an extended period of time.

"What do you guys think?" he asked mentally.

"Definitely," Gabe replied. "I think it's a great idea, especially if it makes Melody feel better."

"She needs this vacation more than we do," Fritz added.

"It'll be so nice to have someone else we can talk to besides you!" Susie chimed in.

Mike nodded at Cassidy and the girl floated forward until Melody could see her. "Melody…I think we can think of a way to help you. We're going on our first summer vacation soon, and this one's going to be longer than the one we had earlier. Why don't you come with us?"

Melody's jaw dropped. "Wh…what?"

"You look like you could really use a break from all the crap that's happening to you," Fritz added. "And we'd love to have you around!"

"But…" she stuttered, "I…I don't…"

"The whole burden excuse isn't going to work on Dad, Melody," Charlie interrupted gently. "If he can take care of all seven of us for a year, adding you to our vacation for a month will literally be nothing to him."

"I don't think I could say it any better than they are right now," Mike added with a finality in his tone that brooked no argument.

Melody sat silently for a few seconds as she took in the family's generosity. Then she wrapped her arms around Mike in a tight hug and buried her face in his shoulder. "You guys…" she sniffed, "…you guys are the best people I've ever met in my entire life! None of you…none of you ever deserved any of the bad things that ever happened to you!"

"But would I be the person that I am if all that shit hadn't happened to me," Mike wondered in his head as he and the ghosts returned the hug to Melody. She couldn't feel the ghosts' presence like Mike could, but there was no mistaking the kindness and warmth that each of the ghosts had for one of the very few adults they ever trusted.

"Now I feel terrible," Melody muttered once she had collected herself again. "You guys were probably spending your day just fine and dandy, and then I had to just trample my way in here and probably ruin your day."

"That's not ruining my day," Mike retorted. "What would ruin my day is learning that a friend's life had suddenly gone to shit and that I didn't do a goddamn thing about it." The noises and gestures of agreement from the ghosts made it very clear that they felt the same way.

"So where were you planning to go?" Melody wondered. "I didn't know you were planning a second vacation."

Mike grinned, happy to change the subject away from the Eisensteel explosion. "We are going to try a vacation out of the country this time!" he declared. "I was thinking a flight to a tropical resort in a Caribbean country somewhere. Don't have the details finalized, but…"

"Can I…can I make a suggestion?" Melody asked tentatively. "I know I don't have any right to suggest anything, all things considered, but…"

"Go right ahead," Charlie invited. "It's not like we have anything solid planned out right now."

"There's an island in South Korea that I think would make for an amazing vacation spot," Melody explained. "It's called Jeju Island, and it's almost like its own little world. Not only does it have the really fancy beach resorts that you were looking forward to with your original plan, but it's an absolutely beautiful hotspot of nature. Part of that is because it was actually once a volcano!"

The kids' jaws dropped. "A volcano!" Liz gasped.

"Yep," Melody smiled for the first time since she had arrived at the house. Already she was starting to forget the troubles that had befallen her beloved robotics company. "It might not be active now, but it left a HUGE impact on how Jeju shaped up into what it is today. There's quite a few tourist sites and landmarks that only exist because of that volcano."

"I wanna see this!" Jeremy crowed excitedly.

"There's also a lot of other tourist attractions that I think the kids would enjoy," Melody added. "Rail bikes, a maze park, a glass castle, I could go on and on and on!"

The kids all looked at Mike with excitement showing in their eyes. "Can we go there?" Susie begged. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeassssssssseeee?"

Mike smirked. "Well, this sure beats the everloving crap out of anything I had planned!" he commented. "This sounds like a hell of a good time! Fuck yes I'm down!"

The ghost kids all cheered, Bonnet joining in as she giggled and wagged her little arms around. Her master seemed happy, and that made her happy too. Though the mood faded a bit when Mike suddenly frowned. "Although there is a slight problem…"

"What is it, dad?" Cassidy asked worriedly.

"I don't know how to say one fucking word in Korean," Mike answered dryly. "Which MIIIIIIIIGHT be a problem."

It was Melody's turn to smirk. "Oh, don't you worry about a thing, Mike," she interrupted. "You and your family were kind enough to invite me to your first summer vacation, and I absolutely refuse to be, as you would put it, a useless fuck who doesn't do a goddamn thing except mooch off another person's generosity."

Mike laughed. "Well, that might not have been EXACTLY how I would word that particular phrase, but I will admit it does match my style. You know me so well."

"I've been your work trainee and later partner for years, Mike," Melody deadpanned. "It'd be a problem if I didn't. Anyway, as I was saying, I'll be your translator so you don't accidentally make a fool of yourself in Korea and have a better understanding of what's going on around you."

"Not making a fool of myself is always a good thing," Mike agreed dryly, earning a few giggles and eyerolls from the ghosts.

"And I'm going to be paying for my own expenditures," Melody continued. "My own shopping, my own plane ticket, my own food. I know you can technically pay the price for all of that easily, but I don't care. I'm not negotiating on this, Mike."

Some of the ghosts looked like they wanted to argue, but Mike knew and understood what Melody was saying. This wasn't just Melody refusing to be a charity case or a burden. This was her way of proving to herself that she had some control of her life after a huge chunk of it had taken a massive blow. And he knew that the real way to help her was to let her take care of what she saw as her own responsibilities.

"Only if you let me pay for the hotel rooms and the car rentals," Mike answered, his acquiescence going unspoken.

Gratitude flickered in Melody's eyes for the briefest moment, before they sharpened into focus. THIS was the Melody Mike knew from his days at work, a woman with a mission and the drive to get shit done. There was a reason she'd been promoted to Chief Robotics Engineer after Mike had retired. "All right, guys, we need to start planning this vacation," Melody began to address the kids, who felt relieved that Melody's demeanor had changed from its earlier depression.

"This is your first summer vacation and your first vacation ever outside of the country, and I'll be damned if I don't make it the best I can possibly make it. But before we begin, I would like to say that Jeju Island actually only an hour's plane ride from Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Which by itself has quite a few tourist attractions of its own. Do you guys want to visit Seoul as well as Jeju? We could probably cover most of what you'll want to see in Jeju in about a week if not less."

The kids looked over at Mike, who shrugged. "I don't have a problem with that," he answered.

"Perfect," Melody grinned. "Then let's get down to business!"

/

A bit of a shorter chapter since I've had a busy weekend (ironically busier than my med school weeks lmao). This'll set up the next vacation arc, which will most certainly be longer than the last one.

I've noticed that, Dark!Mike section in the last chapter notwithstanding, things have been a bit too calm, happy, and peaceful lately. So I figured I'd throw in a bit of darkness into the mix in the form of tragedy, albeit tragedy doesn't directly affect Mike and his family. But perhaps that might not be enough for some of you.

Well, don't you worry. I believe the next major arc that I have planned after this one will fulfill your desires and then some.

But that's for later. Right now, Melody, Mike, and the ghost kids have a vacation to enjoy! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!