A/N: Y'all I cannot believe I had the next few chapters half-written when I posted the first one, only to get hit with the combo sinus infection/allergies/family chaos and get taken out of commission for over a MONTH.
(on a more positive note, a webseries I was watching went straight off the rails about a week after I posted Chapter 1 and that also ate a hole in my brain for weeks.)

Anyway, second chapter! There will be a small timeskip of about a week between this one and the next, and we'll switch between the two guys' POVs about every chapter (though there are a few chapters that will probably be split between them! I won't fuss too much about routine if it gets in the way of telling the story the way I want to.)

Anyway, uuuh... I think that's it! Let's see how someone's handling his near-death experience, shall we?

For what felt like an eternity, all he saw were the fractured, malformed remains of Fredbear. The vacant eye sockets stared back at him. The foam of the costume was mutilated by the springlocks forcing their way through.

Even when someone dragged him away, he couldn't get the image out of his head. He would close his eyes, try to imagine he was anywhere else, but all he saw was the animatronic that had nearly been his grave.

He shouldn't be alive. He knew that. He couldn't have spent hours in that suit and still been intact enough to remove.

But he didn't feel any blood. His limbs were stiff, but they didn't seem to be broken. He could still force air in and out of his lungs. He was alive. He was in one piece.

And he was very, very tired.

"Sir?"

Thomas blinked, trying to force his mind into focus. The room was bathed in a soft white glow, and his body was weighed down by something. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear footsteps, light enough that he knew they were human.

He was in the hospital. He thought he remembered that, but it was hard to think of anything after that backroom.

Thomas rolled his head to look at the nurse, who smiled as she closed the door behind her. "Good to see you're awake!"

"Y-yeah, good to be awake…" He forced a smile, but looked away again while the nurse fiddled with some machines at his side. Instead, he turned to the window. The blinds were shut, but he could only see darkness through the cracks. "Uh, wh-what time… how long was I knocked out?" Nobody could've come to save him before six, by definition, but if it was dark out…

"Three something…" There was a pause, then she said, "3:47 in the morning. So, a little over twenty hours since you got here. You've been drifting in and out of consciousness basically the whole time."

"M-hm." Past midnight, then. Thomas wondered if Freddy's had assigned a pre-existing employee to work his final night in his stead. He hoped not.

Thomas was given some water and a bit of time to mentally wake up before the questions started. And there were a lot of questions: personal information, medical history, things like that. How he'd ended up in the shart his coworker had found him in. That one he lied about, of course. Was asked to check on some equipment. Got stuck. The same cover story he'd decided on months ago, in case he ever got injured in a way that couldn't be explained by human violence or his own stupidity.

"And what day?"

"Hm?" That was the first question to catch him off guard, and he turned to the nurse. "Uh, wh– what do you mean?"

"Do you remember what day you got trapped in the equipment?"

"Agh, November… seventh? Eighth? It was after midnight, anyway, so…" It hadn't been his last day. At least, he was pretty sure. The whole night was in jumbled pieces in his mind, so he couldn't really swear to anything.

The nurse nodded to his answer, though Thomas could tell something was wrong. With a deep breath, he asked, "Uh… what day is it today?"

"November 15th."

The 15th.

A week.

He'd been trapped in a springlock suit for a week.

By all accounts, he should be dead.

"Certainly explains why you're in such rough shape… we're going to keep you on the I.V. and keep putting nutrients and fluids in you. Hopefully we can get you out of here in a few days…"

Oh, he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about the fact that he knew, knew almost better than anybody else, that there was no way he could've survived a week in a springlock suit. He would've twitched, perspired, something. He couldn't have. He didn't.

He faintly heard the nurse speak again, and he turned back to face her. "Is there anybody we should notify of your condition?" she repeated.

"Yeah." It came out mostly as a whisper, before he repeated louder, "Y-yeah, uh…" The comment made him suddenly aware of something, and his hand traveled to his collarbone. Somehow, he hadn't noticed that he'd been stripped of the sweat (and probably other bodily fluids)-covered uniform he'd been wheeled in wearing. Which meant–

"Don't worry," the nurse interrupted his half-panicking thoughts. "We have all of your belongings stored safely in a locker."

Right. That made sense. He took a deep breath, then muttered, "Uh, yeah, c-could you… bring me some paper? I– I'll write down her number."

"Of course." She hesitated on her way out. "Do you need anything else? Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah." He forced a smile again, nodding even as he felt his nails rake over the months-old scar on his wrist. He watched the nurse leave, then leaned back on the pillow as his chest seized up.

There probably wasn't enough water in his body to cry. He was too tired for it anyway. So all he could do was close his eyes, count to himself, and hope his breathing would calm down sooner rather than later.

There were no puncture wounds, no broken bones, no dislocated joints. Just the aftereffects of being trapped in place for days. The dehydration wasn't even as severe as expected, given he'd been trapped for a week.

After all, he was still alive.

Thomas managed to not break down in front of the nurses or doctors who cycled in to check on him. He didn't want to explain any more than he had to. Didn't want to lie any more than he had to.

Nobody would believe the truth.

So he told anyone who asked that he'd went to check a piece of equipment at work. Nobody in the hospital knew what the suit looked like. Nobody could poke holes in his story.

Well. There was one person out there that could.

Thomas remembered it, somewhere deep down. Past the dark empty eyes that stared back at him and the pain in his chest as he tried to breathe and the certainty that there had to be a catch, that he wasn't just going to escape. He remembered a person, a living and real person. A person who had grabbed Thomas by the arm and told him "you're going to be okay." A person who had thought to save him, days after he should've been dead. How?

A knock on the door pulled him back to the present.

"Mr. Phillips?"

Thomas felt nauseous, even while he nodded and agreed to let the visitor in. It was one thing to lie to the doctors. This was going to be so much harder.

When he saw her in the doorway, the word that sprung to his fractured mind was beautiful. Because even now–scared, hair a tangled mess, face flushed and damp–she was still beautiful. Maybe it was because of that: the fact that she still came to see him, after what he'd done to her, the way he must have hurt her.

"Carmen."

He could see the words bubbling in her chest, but ultimately, none of them made it out before she ran to his side. Thomas pushed himself upright, just in time for Carmen to wrap her arms around him. Given the way she trembled, Thomas thought she might collapse onto the mattress, and despite knowing he was too weak to catch her he still put his hands on her waist.

She didn't fall. Eventually, Carmen let him go, sitting in the chair beside the bed. She wasn't crying, though he could tell she had been earlier. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't speak at all.

Thomas led. "H-hey, sweetheart," he whispered, suddenly remembering how gravelly and broken his voice was.

Carmen stared for a moment. Then she laughed. She ducked her head, putting one hand over her face, a laugh filled with anxiety and exhaustion and pure relief bubbling out of her.

Thomas pushed himself forward. He reached out slowly, unsure if he was welcome, but offering his hand anyway. Carmen clumsily grabbed it, her fingers jabbing his as she did. Her skin was dry and rough (that rash on her hands always flared up when she was under stress), and brushing her thumb with his own, he felt how bitten down the nail was. Pulling her hand to him and cradling it against his chest, Thomas said, "Hey, it's… it's alright. I'm… I'm okay."

She was wearing her ring. They were supposed to save those for the wedding, though Thomas carried his with him most of the time. It kept him grounded. Maybe that was why Carmen had hers on today.

"I know." Carmen sniffled, turning her hand so she could hold his properly. "I know. I missed you so much."

"I-I missed you too."

"You scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Under her breath, she added, "Please."

"Alright." Thomas cleared his throat. "I know… y-you probably want to know what happened, huh?"

"Don't." Carmen's voice was strained and a bit cold, and Thomas looked down at the sheets between them. "Don't worry about that now. You're not gonna want to be honest anyway."

That sent a chill down Thomas's spine, and he felt his hand tremble in hers. Before he could protest or deny, Carmen tilted his chin up, locking eyes. She looked so tired, so afraid, and it killed Thomas on the inside that he was the reason.

"I won't push you now," she continued, "because god knows you should take the time to recover first, but I'm going to need the truth out of you at some point, alright?" Her voice trembled as she spoke, and she leaned her head against Thomas's shoulder. Her free arm wrapped around his waist, while her hand in his dropped to sit on the mattress.

Running a hand through her hair, Thomas struggled to answer. "I–" He dropped his eyes, not able to look at her, even though she wouldn't notice one way or the other. "I-I'll try."

"Good" Taking a deep breath, Carmen pushed herself backwards, cupping his face in one hand. "Listen to me. I don't care what all happened, or who did this to you, or how much they've been paying you– please, never do something like this again."

Thomas almost laughed. "Uh, wasn't planning to. Promise."

It took Thomas longer than he'd like to admit to remember that last message.

He was lying back, staring up at the sterile white ceiling tiles. Carmen had left not long ago. She'd wanted him to get some sleep, though he knew that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Hopefully he'd sleep for at least a little bit before midnight.

The doctors and nurses were leaving him alone too. He'd been led on a walk around the hospital, helped to the restroom and allowed to get some fresh air. His muscles and joints ached, and there were sores on his thighs and lower back from being pinned inside the suit. The professionals reassured him that, as long as he minimized the pressure on them and got up and moved every so often, they'd clear up without issue.

Thomas was alone again, with fresh bandages on his sores, a fresh gown, and time to think.

He had time to piece his last night back together, at least a little bit. He'd ended up hiding under the desk; desperately hoping that, when the power inevitably ran out, that would buy him at least a little bit of time. Time for what, he wasn't sure.

He'd forgotten to record his instructional message that night. Not that those were doing much good at this point, he'd run out of useful things to say by the third recording. But in the middle of his second-to-last night, he'd picked up the phone anyway. Just so someone would know what had happened to him.

He'd asked his replacement to look for him. He'd asked them to check the backroom. Despite how certain of his own death he'd been, despite the fact that he didn't remember saving the message, despite the fact that he was fairly certain the guard would start ignoring him after the second message…

They had gone backstage.

That couldn't have been pleasant. Thomas hadn't liked the idea of sticking his head back there even early on in his time at Freddy's, with only rumors and old memories to work off of. But the new guy would've had warning, would've known what might be back there–disregarding the fact that Thomas had outright requested that the guard find his corpse. And they actually did it.

Well, not his corpse, as it turned out, because he'd somehow survived being trapped in one of those things for a week–

Right. Focus.

It was just… They went looking for him. They'd saved his life. It didn't matter how he'd survived as long as he had, it didn't matter if the suit had been broken and completely nonfunctional; at some point, he would've succumbed to dehydration and starvation.

(And the suit was very much functional.)

Thomas attempted to replay the events of that morning in his head, but what he could remember was busted and distorted. Even if his memory was fully accurate–and he couldn't really prove if it was, or if it was muddled by his imagination and confusion–it did him no good. He couldn't recall the face of his rescuer, their voice, even though he knew he'd seen and heard them. He could almost find the answers on the edge of his memory, just out of his grasp.

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. Darn it.

Well, add that to the pile of things from that morning that made no sense. Here he was, after all, having survived a week in a springlock suit. He didn't even know that suit still existed; he'd assumed both the springlock suits were scrapped entirely after 1987, but that was giving Fazbear Entertainment too much credit, wasn't it? It was apparently still intact enough for the animatronics to shove him into it. Those things had always been horribly, gruesomely unreliable, and it had been… what, more than fifteen years since they'd seen the light of day?

Well, since Fredbear had seen the light of day, at least.

In any case, why hadn't it triggered while he was in it? How had the animatronics even gotten him into the suit without it tearing him apart halfway through?

Unless…

His mind went back to that shadow he'd seen, right before waking up. Something much too human to be one of the animatronics, but not human enough to be the night guard. That would explain it, but…

Thomas groaned at himself. No. He refused to even entertain the idea that his dream had been anything else. Just a dream. A manifestation of the stress he'd been under. That was all. It wasn't real.

Perhaps his luck was just better than he'd expected. Perhaps the locking mechanisms had been rusted shut by time. Perhaps the reports of fatalities had been somewhat blown out of proportion–he knew that they were dangerous, but maybe the warnings about breathing on the darn things were excessive. He supposed it didn't really matter, not now. He was out. He'd never have to work another night shift again. He wouldn't even have to step foot in that building.

Except…

His hand drifted to his wrist, his thumb running over the scar on it. It was midday, judging by the way the sunlight shone through the half-open blinds. Whoever was on the night shift was back home by now. (At least, that's what he told himself, ignoring the part of his mind that suggested otherwise.) The thought of some poor soul, most likely the same person who'd saved his life, suffering through that made him sick to his stomach.

'What if something happens?' asked a horrible little voice in his head. 'What if they disappear someday? What if they don't leave behind their own cry for help? What then?'

Thomas had stopped carrying his wallet with him on his way to Freddy's. While he'd mostly lied about getting mugged to explain his past injuries, there were some genuinely shady and dangerous people on the streets between his apartment and the pizzeria, and the last thing he wanted was to lose what little money he had. There hadn't been any form of ID on him when he was brought to the hospital, he'd had to answer that himself. But what if the new guard didn't wake up? What if they were never found? The thought made him sick to his stomach, but it wouldn't leave him alone.

Maybe… maybe it would be a good idea to just… check. Not check the backroom, that seemed excessive, especially since they'd been doing well so far. But surely there were some employee records he could look through, right? Just to find their name, maybe an address or phone number. Some way to keep track of them, just enough to notice if they were reported missing.

Thomas sighed, closing his eyes in another pointless attempt at sleep.

Maybe that was a good idea. Just to check.