A/N: Well, now that things have calmed down a bit. And with the crisis over (at least for now), I think we could appreciate a good filler chapter right about now to distract us all from the lore-heavy stuff that's been going on for the past few chapters.
Nothing like celebrating the days surrounding Christmas with a chapter about Thanksgiving, am I right? :P. I got this idea from a reviewer who was kind enough to provide some ideas on some "wholesome" filler chapters. I do have an idea for a filler chapter for the next chapter, and it's going to be another chapter on the more serious side as well.
ThePencilDude: I didn't realize there would be a FNaF movie, and I'm certainly interested in its potential. Although they're gonna have to limit the scope of how much it covers, cause if they try to incorporate all or even most of the complicated lore the whole thing's just gonna end up as an incomprehensible mess.
Also, let's not get ahead of ourselves. While your suggestions would be in-character for how the kids would react, I haven't even finished addressing Special Delivery yet let alone Security Breach (although the most important parts of Special Delivery) were completed with the end of the last few chapters.
FakeDaVinci: I'm pretty sure I wrote somewhere that Mr. Averus knows about Mike's past, and so would Fazbear Entertainment by extension. However, they are (rather wisely, I might add) not bringing it up because that would kick up a major hornet's nest for no good reason. They are under the impression that Mike has let bygones be bygones if he's willing to keep their asses out of the frying pan multiple times, and Mike is content to let them believe that since it suits his family's purposes.
Ripped-NtrippsMo: The Schmidt family know that Glitchtrap's possession victim is a woman because they heard her voice in the VR Game. Unfortunately, that's literally the only thing they know about her. And there will be no FNaF fan games incorporated into the lore and timeline of MNGF, I have enough to worry about regarding this story as it is.
Chapter 174 – Day of Gratitude
"Home sweet home," Charlie sighed contentedly as the family arrived back at the house. "After dealing with everything that's going on with Fazbear Entertainment and that Special Delivery project, makes you really appreciate coming home and relaxing for the rest of the day."
"Amen to that," Gabe agreed, flying over to the living room to turn on his laptop. "Was this what it felt like coming home after work every day, Dad?" he asked curiously.
Mike shrugged. "I mean, the Special Delivery factory's got a lot more shit to deal with than Eisensteel ever did, but the basic sentiment is more or less the same," he replied nonchalantly, before letting out a yawn. "Now if you expect me, I'm going to go upstairs and go to bed early. You guys can do whatever you want, just make sure you go to bed early enough so that you're not super tired when we go off to the factory tomorrow."
"See ya, Dad!" the ghosts cheerfully called back as Mike forced himself up the stairs, no doubt to change into his pajamas and get ready for bed. They knew their father well enough to know that he wouldn't want to be helped unless he was certain that he needed it, so Charlie and Liz simply kept an eye on him while he slowly advanced up the stairs and made it safely to the second floor.
In the meantime, Susie had already opened up her phone and was texting to Alex. "Hey, sorry we haven't talked for a while, there was a lot of crap going on in the past few days. How're you guys doing?"
"We're doing great!" Alex replied through his own text. "We just got back from the vacation we went to for Thanksgiving!"
The former Chica inhabitant's eyes widened as she read the last word. "Wait…Thanksgiving?" she repeated the word numbly.
"Yeah!" Alex eagerly replied. "Dad took us to New York to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, it was amazing! What did you guys do?"
"Uhhhh…" Susie was completely at a loss for words for a few seconds. "We, uh…we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving."
"Wait, WHAT?" Alex exclaimed. "Why not?"
"It's been a really busy past couple of weeks," Susie admitted. "First, Dad got caught up in that accident I told you about. The one with the animatronic?"
"Oh, right…" Even through the text, Susie could see Alex cringe at the reminder. "How's he doing?"
"He's doing fine right now, but that's not the end of it," Susie replied, sighing as she did so. "Did you see that announcement Dad made on the news about being the new head of the Special Delivery project?"
"I did," Alex affirmed. "He must be really busy if he's in charge of everything."
Susie let out a dry, humorless laugh. "You've got no idea," the former Chica inhabitant replied, ignoring the confused looks she was getting from her siblings. Susie was honestly tempted to tell Alex everything about what had happened, about how her father had been attacked by over twenty animatronics on his first day and how they had spent the entire day systematically dismantling and neutralizing the threat without a single person getting hurt.
But something inside Susie stopped her from doing so. It wasn't because she didn't trust Alex; if she couldn't trust Alex, then she probably couldn't trust anyone outside of her own family. It was because the last time she had blabbed excessively about a sensitive and important topic like this, the former Chica inhabitant had inadvertently set off a chain reaction that, to this very day, she couldn't tell if she had done more harm than good because of her rant to Nightmare.
Granted, Alex and Nightmare were two very different people. But things had spiraled out of control the last time she had talked too much, and Susie couldn't bring herself to make that mistake again.
"But yeah, things have been pretty busy," Susie continued, after realizing that she had been completely silent for a few seconds. "We haven't really had time to take a break and do things like celebrate Thanksgiving."
"Damn, that sucks," Alex commiserated. "Hopefully you'll at least be able to celebrate Christmas soon, right?"
"Yeah…" Susie answered with a sigh, before brightening considerably. "Christmas is always great, though!"
"Yeah, maybe we'll be able to celebrate it together if your dad isn't busy with whatever he's got going on," Alex suggested.
"I hope so," Susie replied wistfully as they finished the conversation. Behind her, Cassidy had snuck up on her sister and was reading the messages the two had shared.
"They went to see the Thanksgiving Parade at New York?" Cassidy asked curiously. "Dang, I wish we'd gone there when that was going on!"
"Yeah, and if they told us then I must've forgotten about it," Susie mumbled. "I mean, we were dealing with so much crap the past couple of days that I barely remember anything else."
Cassidy suddenly smiled as an idea popped up in her head. "What if we celebrate our own belated Thanksgiving?" she suggested excitedly. "It doesn't have to be anything super fancy, we just can just make a dinner with some food you'd find in Thanksgiving and celebrate it together! It'd be a great way to give Dad a break from all the crap he's been dealing with!"
Susie's reaction was a bit more tempered. "I get that, Cass, and I'm not saying I don't want to do it, but do you think Dad's going to have the time?" she questioned. "He's been super busy working at the factory, and we usually don't get home til later at night. I know he's trying not to show it, but I think he's super tired."
Cassidy wasn't fazed. In fact, her face was breaking out into a grin. "That's why I think we should call Melody!" she exclaimed. "We can ask her to get some food from the supermarket that would make sense for Thanksgiving, and then pay her back later for it! And then we can all have a nice late Thanksgiving dinner together!"
By now, some of the excitement was catching on to Susie, and some of the other ghosts had overheard their conversation and were coming over. "That's actually a pretty cool idea!" Fritz complimented. "Especially if Dad doesn't have to get the food for it!"
"I don't see a problem with this idea, as long as Melody isn't too busy," Gabe added with a note of cautious optimism. "It wouldn't be right for us to drag Melody out of her schedule if she's busy with her own job at Eisensteel."
"Only way to find out, right?" Jeremy asked, holding up his own cell phone. He glanced over at Charlie, asking for permission with just a single raise of his eyebrow.
"…Is this meant to be a surprise for Dad, or not?" the former Marionette inhabitant asked. "Cause if it's not, you really should be asking him for permission before trying to rope Melody in all this."
"I think we should do it as a surprise," Susie replied firmly. "Dad's had to go through so many bad surprised lately. I think having a good one would be a nice change for him."
"I'm down with that," Liz agreed, with several expressions of agreement coming from the other ghosts.
"All right," Charlie nodded her assent, "as long as Melody isn't busy."
Jeremy finished dialing the woman's number and brought the cell phone up to his ear. A few seconds later, Melody's voice rang out through the device. "Hello?" she called.
"Hi Melody!" the former Bonnie inhabitant greeted her. "It's me, Jeremy!"
"Oh, Jeremy, hey!"Mike's old friend answered cheerfully. "Good to hear from you. I can't remember the last time we talked ever since…" the woman's voice sobered considerably, "ever since Mike had that accident with the animatronic.
Everyone winced at the reminder and the unpleasant memories it brought. "At least he's doing better," Jeremy answered, turning the conversation to a more hopeful note. "Still on a wheelchair for now, but he's been training to get moving more and more every day. Hopefully he'll be able to get out of the chair and just go on crutches soon."
"The sooner the better," Melody commented, and not a single person in the room was going to disagree with that comment. "But from what I've heard, it sounds like he's being really active already."
"You've got no idea," Jeremy dryly commented, a perfect mirror of Susie's own words to Alex a few moments ago. And again, only the need for confidentiality prevented the former Bonnie inhabitant from giving a full account to Melody of the events that had transpired in the Special Delivery project's factory. "Does Eisensteel know that Dad's taken up that job?" he suddenly asked, the thought suddenly appearing his mind and refusing to go away until it was properly addressed. "What do they think about it?"
"They're not exactly happy that Mike took on a job with a company that they rejected for lying to them," Melody answered solemnly, "but I made it clear to them that he was only doing taking on that job out of principle, that he was refusing any pay for it, and that his first and absolute priority was to clean up the mess that Fazbear Entertainment made when they sent him an animatronic that ended up nearly killing him. Mike's a reasonable guy, and everyone at Eisensteel knows that he wouldn't have done something like this unless he had a very good reason for it."
"Let's just say that lives are at stake and leave it at that," Jeremy replied, his voice carrying a subtle warning not to press the topic any further. If his father wanted to disclose the full details to Melody, then that was his decision to make. "But I actually called you for a completely different reason," the former Bonnie inhabitant declared, his voice shifting to a more cheerful and excited tone to match the change in subject.
"Oh?" Jeremy could hear the curiosity in Melody's voice. "I'm listening."
"We missed out on celebrating Thanksgiving because of all the crap that's been going on for the past couple of days," he explained. "Dad's been super busy with fixing up Fazbear Entertainment's mess, and we were thinking that we could celebrate with our own late Thanksgiving dinner one night to help him relax and get his mind off all his work. We want to do it as a surprise, and we were wondering if you'd be down to join us."
"Oh!" Melody clearly hadn't been expecting that kind of answer, as her surprise was obvious to everyone there. "I mean, I wouldn't mind celebrating Thanksgiving a second time. You're lucky my schedule for the month hasn't been too busy. Does Saturday sound good to you?"
Gabe glanced at the calendar, where he could clearly see that Saturday would be merely 2 days away. He turned back to Jeremy and silently gave him a thumbs-up. "Yeah, Saturday works out!" the former Bonnie inhabitant confirmed.
"Great!" Melody declared happily. "I'll be sure to pick up some Thanksgiving-related food from the grocery store before I come over to Mike's house. Don't worry about arranging how I'm going to get in there, I have a spare key that Mike gave me in case of emergencies."
Jeremy grinned. "Perfect, Melody. Thanks for doing this for us!"
"No problem!" Melody reassured him. "If anybody deserves a break for all the hard work they've been doing, it's definitely Mike." And with that, the woman hung up.
Susie grinned. "All right!" she cheered. "Looks like we're gonna get to celebrate Thanksgiving together after all!"
"Shhh…" Cassidy quickly shushed her. "Do you want Dad to hear? That's gonna ruin the entire surprise!"
A look of horror appeared on the former Chica inhabitant's face, and she quickly quieted herself down. "Sorry," she whispered.
"Keep in mind, we're not doing this for us," Gabe sagely advised. "We're doing this for Dad. Heck, we can't even be the ones to cook or eat the food for this meal, since we're on bodyguard duty while Dad's in the factory and we don't have mouths to eat the food with unless we possess Dad when he's trying to eat whatever Melody's going to bring."
"I know," Liz acknowledged, "and you're right."
"This is still a great opportunity for us all," Charlie interjected encouragingly. "We all have things that we should be thankful for. And when Mike and Melody sit down and eat their meal, I think we should all at least say one thing towards God that we're thankful for. It's easy to forget after years of living with Dad, but we're all extremely lucky that we're where we are now and not still trapped in broken animatronic bodies or burning in Hell for what we've done." A solemn look appeared on the ghost teenager's face. "And now's as good a time as any for us to reflect on that."
Two Days Later…
When Mike dismissed everyone from the factory for the day, the best way to describe his thoughts was…tired but satisfied.
Mike had originally come up with a strategy where the groups of 4 would each turn on an animatronic and carefully monitor it for several hours on end for any sign of malicious programming or corruption. The moment the animatronic became glitchy or aggressive, it was to be destroyed and torn to pieces with extreme prejudice by a group of 4 working together. Mike knew that this wasn't a perfect solution, as the Toy Bonnie that had tried to attack him had waited multiple hours to do so before finally deciding to strike, but it was the best that he could come up with at the time.
And then Cassidy of all people had come up with a much simpler solution. "Why don't you just have the programmers open up the animatronics while they're off and just take the chips out?" the former Golden Freddy inhabitant had asked. "That way can they just find out if they've been hacked nice and easy without the risk of getting people hurt!"
It had indeed been a simpler, safer solution. One that Mike had outright facepalmed at not having realized earlier.
He had been forced to sacrifice about two hours restructuring the groups of 4 so that the programmers would be in the same group, but otherwise things had gone smoothly for the most part. The programmers would remove the programming chips from the animatronics, leaving them as lifeless and (more importantly) harmless metal husks, while the rest of the factory workers would relocate the animatronics over to special storage rooms that would be placed under both lock and key as well as extensive camera surveillance. Any chips that were found to be corrupted with malicious programming were to be immediately and thoroughly destroyed, to prevent any possibility of Glitchtrap's possession victim from recovering them and simply putting them in a different animatronic.
It was, overall, a much better solution than what he had originally come up with. The workers at the factory would be so much safer without the need to actively turn on the animatronics to see if they would become violent, and Fazbear Entertainment wouldn't complain since the animatronic bodies themselves (and most of the expense that came with their creation) would remain undamaged.
The only major downside so far was that so far, Glitchtrap's possession victim had so far remained completely hidden and undiscovered. Mike had hoped that these sweeping reforms would have aggravated Glitchtrap and baited him into performing a grand gesture that would immediately expose him and his "associate"…but no such luck. Whoever she was, she was likely laying low for the time being after the complete failure of her first attempt. Which meant that while it was unlikely that she would be corrupting the animatronics or trying to perform a "Round Two" of the near-catastrophe, it also meant that he had no way to uncover her identity and prematurely end Glitchtrap's plans, either.
And no, hearing her voice in the VR game hadn't helped. Even if it had, trying to accuse and incriminate someone solely based on hearing their voice in a video game was such pathetically weak evidence that he would be laughed out of a court just for bringing it up.
"I'm really glad we have a night security team now," Charlie commented as Mike wheeled himself over to his car, Hector and Colm helping him in once they had arrived. "Otherwise I feel like Glitchtrap's possession victim would try to break in at night and corrupt the animatronics without a bunch of people around to catch them."
Mike couldn't help a satisfied smirk at his other major innovation. He had managed to convince a few of the employees at the factory to take on a night shift as an overnight surveillance team, going through the cameras as the day team did to make sure that no potential intruders tried to break in at night and mess around with the animatronics. Of course, there was now a fully functioning security system (complete with its own alarm) that was present both at the entrances to the factory and could be manually triggered by the night team itself in case an intruder tried to break in. But everyone sensible would agree that the more layers of security protecting the project, the better.
"As long as some of you guys are looking through the camera at all times, I don't really care what the rest of you do," the man had told them. "You can play games, sleep overnight, do whatever the hell you want on your breaks. Just make sure that somebody is paying close attention, and if you see either an intruder or an animatronic start going apeshit, sound the alarm. It'll get the local police's attention, and they know how to deal with animatronics if you don't think you can handle it yourself."
If only Mike had had these kinds of weapons back when he had been fighting against the original animatronics back in his own night shift…or maybe not. He probably would've ended up torturing the kids who would become his future sons and daughters, and the mere thought left a very bad taste in his mouth.
"Let's go home!" Susie exclaimed as Hector and Colm said their farewells and they parted ways. "I can't wait to get out of here!"
And that was something else Mike had noticed. For the past few days, he couldn't help but get the strange sensation that his ghost kids were…hiding something from him. He didn't think it was something negative; there weren't any negative expressions like sadness, fear, or guilt like there had been all too commonly when the kids had first showed up at his house.
On the contrary, there were times when the kids acted just a little too positive. An excited giggle here, a knowing smirk there. There was clearly something going on, but with how much work needed to be done at the Special Delivery factory, Mike had decided not to pry.
"Whatever happened to those chips, by the way?" Gabe asked. "They need to be somewhere that Glitchtrap's possession victim can't get their hands on them."
Mike smirked. "After the scientists put them in separate containers so that we know which ones belong to which animatronic, I collected all of them and locked them in a safe," he explained. "The safe and my office door both have keys that I only have, so if someone tries to break in, it's going to be really obvious that the safety of the chips is compromised."
The ghost kids breathed a sigh of relief at this information. "That's good to know," Fritz mumbled. "All of this doesn't mean shit if whoever Glitchtrap's possessing can just waltz right in and fuck everything up all over again."
"Don't I know it," Mike agreed solemnly as they approached his house. As he passed the gate and made his way up the hill, he immediately noticed that something was off.
Mainly…the lights in his house were turned on.
"Uh… guys?" the man asked warily. "Did you forget to turn the lights off in the house before we left for today?"
"I don't think so?" Liz ventured, and the other ghosts made similar noises and expressions of denial.
"Could you guys check to see if there's an intruder in the house?" Mike requested, his eyes hardening. "I don't see how Glitchtrap's possession victim could've gotten here before we could, but if she's dumb enough to try and set up an ambush in my own home," his eyes noticeably hardened, "she and Glitchtrap are going to realize they've made the biggest mistake of their lives."
The ghosts already knew who should actually have been in the house in theory, but they flew out and investigated the house just to be safe. After quickly flying around the house to make sure there weren't any unpleasant surprises, the ghosts were relieved to discover that the only person in the house was Melody, who was hard at work preparing the food that she had bought in preparation for their late Thanksgiving meal.
"Hey Melody!" Susie cheerfully greeted her as she flew into the dining room, causing Melody to look up in surprise.
"Oh, Susie!" Melody exclaimed. "I didn't realize you guys were back already! Is Mike here too?"
"Yep!" the former Chica inhabitant confirmed. "He's in the car right now!"
"Does he need help with the wheelchair?" Melody asked, clearly concerned about him despite the significant progress he'd made to overcome it.
"Nah," Susie reassured her. "Dad's been trying to use it and less and less each day. I think he'll be able to get rid of it completely soon! He won't want someone to help him unless he knows he needs it."
"All righty," Melody reluctantly conceding, knowing that this was just like Mike. "If you need help with anything, you know where to find me."
Susie nodded and flew out of the room, out of the house and back to where Mike was getting out of the car with his crutches. "It's okay!" she called out to him. "The house is safe!"
"Safe, huh?" Mike repeated as he propped himself up on his crutches and slowly made his way over to the door. At least nobody was in any danger…but that still didn't explain why the house lights were all inexplicably on. Unless of course, they had left the lights on by mistake and simply forgotten about it.
He reached out to the door, undid the lock, and pushed it open…only to see Melody and the other ghost kids' grinning faces on the other side of the door. "Surprise!" all of them called out as one.
"Ack!" Mike exclaimed, shocked at the completely unexpected sight. "What the heck? Melody?"
Melody laughed at the gobsmacked expression on her friend's face. "Didn't expect to see me here, did ya?" she teased.
"I mean, I'm not gonna complain, I'm happy to see you after all the crap that's been going on the past couple of weeks," Mike answered with a chuckle of his own as he walked into his house and closed the door behind him. As he got closer to the kitchen, his nose caught wind of the delightful smell of cooking food. "Wait…is that turkey that I smell?"
Melody grinned. "You got it!" she exclaimed. "It was actually the kids' idea, I'm just the one carrying it out."
Mike looked over to his kids with a raised eyebrow, who grinned sheepishly back at him. "We realized we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving together last month," Cassidy explained. "And we decided to call Melody and ask her to make a Thanksgiving dinner so we could celebrate it now to give you a break from everything that's going on."
Mike shrugged. "I won't deny it's a little odd that we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving this late when Christmas is gonna be coming up soon," he commented with a smirk, "but I've done weirder shit in my life before. An evening where we can just sit down, have a proper meal together as a family with a close friend joining us, and saying what we're grateful for? I can definitely get behind that."
The ghosts giggled as their father turned to Melody. "How close are you with getting the food all cooked up, Mel?"
Mel smiled back at him. "I'm actually almost done!" she declared. "They didn't have turkey, so I just got some chicken at the supermarket grill instead and it was already pre-cooked. That saved a lot of time, I just need to get a few of the other dishes out and we'll be ready to eat!"
Mike grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. "Perfect, I'll be waiting for you at the dining table."
Melody went back into the kitchen as Mike shuffled on his crutches over to the dining room. Melody had already prepared two seats, one at the head of the table where Mike usually sat and another on a chair close to his, and Mike wasted no time sitting at his usual spot while the kids "occupied" the spaces next to different chairs.
After a few minutes, Melody came back out, carrying a plate covered with neatly sliced chicken breasts that had been carefully reheated and even further cooked by Melody's hand. "Smells amazing, doesn't it?" she laughed. "Let me get the rest of the stuff out of the kitchen."
"We can help!" Susie immediately volunteered. She and Cassidy got "out of their seats" and followed Melody back into the kitchen. Together, the two ghosts and their living adult friend carried out several different dishes, each holding a different food that was iconic for Thanksgiving. Stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, pumpkin pie. There wasn't a lot of food, per se, as Melody had only brought enough for her and Mike to eat. But the sheer variety of food brought out by the trio, and the delicious smells wafting through the air, were enough to make the ghosts feel physical hunger despite their spectral and incorporeal natures.
"Dang…now I'm jealous of you guys," Fritz groaned. "This all smells so delicious!"
"There's way too much for us to eat all this today," Mike assured him. "Next time I take this out of the fridge, we'll do that whole possession thing that you guys always do whenever you want to taste something new," he promised.
"Sounds good to us, Dad!" Gabe responded as Melody finally joined them at the table.
"I'm glad you guys didn't need a bona-fide turkey for this," Melody commented, "because let me tell you, this whole thing probably wouldn't have been possible if you wanted an actual, full Thanksgiving turkey."
"Wait, really?" Liz asked, confused. "Why?"
"Because those things take hours to cook in an oven," the woman tersely replied. "Literal. Hours."
The ghosts cringed at the idea of cooking something for hours on end. "Wow…" Susie mumbled. "Even I wouldn't be able to handle just floating around an oven just waiting for a single thing to cook."
"Yeah," Melody agreed. "I can tell you right now, this whole late Thanksgiving dinner idea would be straight up be impossible with an actual turkey with how both our schedules are."
"I can imagine," Charlie muttered. "I hope making this dinner wasn't a giant hassle for you, Melody."
"Oh, nah," she waved away the former Marionette inhabitant's concern dismissively. "Like I said, most of this was already pre-cooked or pre-made. Getting this set up was pretty easy. And besides, it's not so much the meal that counts." Melody gave them all a warm smile. "It's the thought behind it."
"That's right," Mike readily agreed. "And speaking of thoughts…it's time we get to the whole point of celebrating Thanksgiving to begin with." He announced. The humor slowly phased out of his face, leaving behind only a serious expression. Before the two of us start eating, we should all have one thing in our minds. One thing in particular that we're grateful for. You can share it with the rest of us, or you can keep it between yourself and God. It's up to you to decide, but if you decide to share yours out loud, the only thing I ask is that you try and pick something different from the ones who came before you. Take some time to think about what you want to give thanks for."
A silence fell on the table as each person at the table, both living and dead, pondered something that they would be grateful for. The core problem wasn't that there weren't enough things to be grateful, but rather that there were too many. Too many wonderful and positive events that had come after their enslavement and imprisonment within the broken shells that had once been their animatronic bodies and their prisons. So many that it was nearly impossible to decide…
…but ultimately, decide each and every one of them did.
"All right," Mike spoke up again after several seconds of silence. "Are you guys all ready?"
"Yep!" the ghosts all chorused.
"Then I'll start," Mike declared. He took a deep breath before continuing. "What I'm about to say is probably cliché as all hell, but it's also true so I don't really give a damn. I'm thankful that you guys came to me and we became a family together in the first place. I can't say my life was bad after I went to college and became an engineer, but I never realized just how empty it truly was living alone for decades on end until you guys came in and filled the void. So I'm thankful. To all of you for teaching me what it's like to be part of a full, loving family ever since Oskar died, and to God for making all of this possible."
The ghosts struggled to hold back tears at his speech. "Dad…" Liz mumbled, too overwhelmed by emotion to say anything else.
"That's all I have to say," Mike turned to Melody. "How about you go next, Mel?"
Melody nodded. "Well, I'm thankful that I was able to find such a good friend and boss in Mike," she began without hesitation. "I still remember when I first started work at Eisensteel. I was a nervous new hire, fresh out of college, and I didn't even know the first thing about how to actually start engineering. And then Mike came along, welcomed me to Eisensteel, and guided me along until I could stand on my own two feet as an engineer. As both a superior and a friend, I couldn't have asked for anyone better to guide me through the first few years of my job. And it's thanks to him that I was able to take his place as chief engineer and oversee a major part of the company that we both care so much about." She looked over at Mike and grinned at him. "Thanks for everything, Mike. I couldn't have done it without you."
Mike smiled fondly back at her. "It's been a pleasure watching you grow into the kickass engineer you are today, Mel," he replied tenderly.
"Aww…" Susie and Cassidy both cooed. They were suddenly reminded of their plans to get Mike and Melody together, and while now simply wasn't the time to carry them out when they had much more important things to deal with, it was clear that neither of them had let the idea die out entirely.
"All right, we've both gone. Who wants to go first?" Melody turned her head towards the ghost kids. "And keep in mind, if you want to keep your thoughts to yourselves, nobody's going to judge you for it," she added reassuringly.
"Let's wait until everyone gets a chance to speak before making comments," Mike suggested. "Otherwise we'll keep getting interrupted and the food will get cold."
"I'll start," Gabe volunteered. Everyone's attention turned to him, and when Mike nodded his head, the former Freddy inhabitant began. "I'm thankful that we all got a second chance to begin with. I'll be honest with you guys; when God was giving His judgement on us, I was terrified. I honestly thought we were gonna be sent to Hell for what we did." There was no need to go into details, for everyone knew what he was talking about. "But He sent us here, instead, giving us a second chance. And because of that, we not only get a chance to actually live, but we also have a chance to fix our mistakes and stop another Fazbear tragedy from stopping in the future. And I'll never be grateful enough for that."
Everyone nodded in agreement with his words, and then Jeremy went next. "I'm thankful that we were able to see different parts of the world so many times," the former Bonnie inhabitant declared. "For so many years, everything around us was just a few pizzerias, and I got sick of seeing and being inside the same place over and over again with no way to get out. It went on for so long that I'd forgotten what being outside looked like, period. But with Dad, we've been able to visit different cities, states…even another country. There's so much to see that we've been missing out on, but I'm happy to have seen what we already have to begin with. And I'm thankful to Dad for taking us there in the first place."
The ghosts took a few seconds to reflect on the travels they had already gone, and the wonderful sights they had seen. Fritz decided to speak up after a few seconds. Unlike his siblings, he preferred to keep things shorter and to the point. "You know, I'm thankful that we've been able to pull through all the shit that's happened since we came here," he declared. "There's still been a couple of disasters that we've had to deal with even after we finally got free. Nightmare's attack, William Afton's attack, the VR game, so on and so on. But we got through each and every one of those without a problem, and I'm just happy we've won so far without getting screwed over massively along the way."
There was truth in the former Foxy inhabitant's words that everyone had to acknowledge. The life they'd shared now was infinitely preferable to the Hell that they had once endured, but it had come with its own fair share of trials. Trials that had very severe consequences either for them or for the outside world if they had failed, one of which they were going through even now. But they had triumphed over all of the challenges they had come across so far, and would continue to do so. There was no other option, when defeat would equal catastrophe.
Susie broke the silence, diverting their minds away from the necessary but dark truths that Fritz had brought up with his words. "I'm thankful with how good life is right now," the former Chica inhabitant declared. "We're all a happy family together, we have friends outside in the real world that we can talk, and I don't need to explain just how awesome Dad truly is. I don't know what my life would've been like if all of this had ever happened, but everything we have right now?" She spread her arms out towards the rest of her family. "I wouldn't trade this for anything!"
"Life really is good, isn't it?" Cassidy agreed, deciding to go immediately after her sister. "And since Susie mentioned it, I'm grateful that we have people in the outside world that we can talk to. I love all of you guys and Dad so much, but there's only so long you can talk to the same people over and over again before you just go crazy. Alex, Meghan, Melody, even Colm…talking with them is what reminds me that there's a world outside of this house and this family. And as long as I can talk to them and hang around with them, I'm never gonna forget that!"
Melody smiled at her. "It's completely natural to feel that way, Cass. Humans are social beings, after all."
Liz was next, and for several seconds she remained silent as she tried to organize her own thoughts. "I don't think I've ever told Melody this," she began slowly, "but I don't want to hide it anymore. I'm thankful that I was given the chance to escape from the lies that my old father corrupted me with."
Melody looked at her with confusion, but the rest of the family understood what Liz was trying to say, and respectfully allowed her to continue while gesturing towards Melody to remain silent until she could finish. "I'm different from everyone else here, Melody," Liz explained to her. "Before Dad came, I was trapped in a…different…animatronic than the others. It was an evil animatronic made by the same person who murdered my siblings, a trap made to lure and kill children."
Melody's eyes widened in horror. "You're joking," she gasped. "Is it that same animatronic that…?"
"…the same name, but Mike had removed all the evil programming and stuff that made your new version of Baby so dangerous," Liz quickly reassured her. "But back then…I got killed by that animatronic and ended up possessing it, and the programming in that evil robot…it corrupted me. Drove me insane. And when the murderer who was once my Dad found me in that robot, he lied to me and tricked me into believing that we could become a family again by murdering more innocent children." Liz sighed sadly, her voice filled with guilt and resignation (though thankfully none of the self-loathing that had once crippled her soul). "I fell for those lies, and for a short time, I became genuinely evil. I wanted to kill other kids like William Afton did, because he was my father and I wanted to do what I could to please him like any daughter would. But my original brothers and Charlie's old Dad stopped us before I could cause any true harm, and they freed me. Freed me from that evil animatronic's body, freed me from all the evil that tainted my soul."
Liz took a deep breath, and then smiled. "And that's what I'm thankful for," she finished solemnly. "I'm thankful that I got stopped from harming innocent people when I was still evil. I'm thankful that I was freed from the lies and tricks that William Afton tried to enslave me with. And I'm thankful that when I told everyone here about who I was and what I'd done, they chose to accept and welcome me instead of turning me away and leaving me alone in the world."
Fritz nodded understandingly at her. "Liz, you're part of the family just like us," the former Foxy inhabitant declared. "And it's not like any of us are innocent either. We all fucked up in different ways. But that's in the past now, and it's the here and now that matters."
"I'm sorry to hear about all that," Melody commiserated sympathetically with the orange-haired ghost girl. "It sounds like in your own way you had it even worse than everyone else. And it's not your fault. The only person who deserves the blame is the sociopathic asshole who decided that killing and corrupting kids is a good idea.
"Thank you, Melody…" Liz gratefully answered, happy that Melody had chosen the same path of acceptance that everyone else in her family had.
Melody's face darkened. "Wherever he is, I hope that bastard's rotting in Hell where he belongs," she growled.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, Melody," Mike answered darkly, his eyes and tone much more menacing than they had been seconds earlier. "I can assure you that he is."
There was something…dangerous…about the way that Mike said those words that immediately set Melody on edge, a subtle warning not to press the topic any further. Instead, she switched back to the original topic at hand. "Anyways, Charlie, you're the only one who hasn't spoken yet, right?"
The tension in the room immediately vanished as all eyes turned towards Charlie. The former Marionette inhabitant had started to get nervous when Mike had given Melody his dark "assurances," and was relieved to change the topic back to something much more wholesome. "Yeah," she answered after several seconds of careful thought. "You guys have already said a lot of the things that I would've said I'm grateful for, and I don't want to repeat something that's already been said. So instead, I'm going to say this. I'm grateful that we have a chance to stop another Fazbear tragedy from happening in the future. I'm not going to say I'm happy that we all suffered so that we could get to this point, because that would be a massive lie. But we're the only ones with both the knowledge and the power to stop an aspect of William Afton that's every bit as evil and as dangerous as he is from repeating the horrors of the past. Because of the chance that's been given to us, Fazbear Entertainment isn't going to get away with a clean reputation after messing up so badly that they made Glitchtrap in the first place. We stopped them from accidentally releasing thousands of copies of Glitchtrap into the world, and we're stopping Glitchtrap from turning the Special Delivery project into another mass horror show even now." She sighed. "I'm not happy that I suffered a cursed existence as the Puppet for decades, and I'm not any happier that you guys all suffered the same. But if we can stop thousands of deaths from happening in the future because of that suffering, then maybe I can say it will have been worth it in the end."
There was silence in the dining room for several seconds as they contemplated Charlie's words. "This was one of the big reasons why God allowed us to suffer and then sent us back all along, wasn't it?" Gabe finally broke the silence. "So that we could stop another terrible Fazbear tragedy from happening. One so much bigger than what happened to us."
"It wouldn't surprise me, is all I'd say about that," Mike replied, his voice carefully neutral and empty of significant emotion. "They say that God works in mysterious ways. Stopping the mass tragedy that would be caused by a Glitchtrap able to run amuck with nobody around to stop him is a better justification than most than I can think of."
"Glitchtrap?" Melody repeated, confusion clear on her face. "What the heck is that?"
"I can't tell you the full story, because some parts of it would break the confidentiality that needs to keep as part of Fazbear Entertainment," Mike answered seriously, before his tone lightened considerably, "but that's something that can be saved for later. We've honored Thanksgiving tradition by saying what we're thankful for, and as you guys so thoroughly pointed out, we've got a lot to be thankful for indeed. So now, Mel," he suddenly broke into a grin, "let's eat! I didn't want to say anything while we were saying our gratitude speeches, but I've been hungry ever since we left the factory and this food looks so damn tasty!"
"Amen to that!" Melody answered eagerly as the ghost kids laughed. "Let's get to work before the food gets cold and we have to microwave it again."
Together, the two adults picked up their utensils and started sharing the Thanksgiving food Melody had prepared between themselves, all while the ghost kids watched contentedly as the two adults that they cared the most about finally celebrated a day that they had been forced to put aside due to necessity and prior misfortune.
Though their trials and tribulations might have been far from over, it felt right to give their father a break and reflect on all the good things that had happened to them ever since they had been freed from their own special hell.
For they all had a lot to be thankful for indeed.
/
A/N: Somehow these "filler" chapters end up being longer than the actual plot-related ones XD.
Although in this case, this was more of a "half-filler" chapter, as I had to include a few paragraphs detailing the new reforms Mike implemented in the Special Delivery project in the days leading up to the Thanksgiving dinner. Otherwise it would look like he and the ghost kids were just sitting on their asses and twiddling their thumbs for multiple days, which would obviously not be even close to the truth if they wanted to make sure Glitchtrap didn't get his hands on more animatronics.
I'm sure there's a hundred more things that Mike, Melody, and the ghost kids could be thankful for. I merely chose to write down the ones that (a) I could come up with in a timely manner and (b) would be more important to the ghost kids overall.
I hope you've all enjoyed a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, wherever you are at the moment. Hope you guys enjoyed!
