Author's Note: Not much of a note today! Those of you paying attention to the main story know about my mother's cancer. We've raised over $7000 with a majority of the donations seeming to be directly from readers like you. My mom is shocked and I am grateful. Thank you so much. We still have a good ways to go but everything helps.

What if...Ruby was Being Rhetorical

Part 14

Steve

Ruby wasn't really paying attention to where she was going, so she found it very ironic that she ended up at the guard office. She didn't know if that was a coincidence, or if the building had done that, but she didn't really care. Rubbing her eyes, she moved over to sit down in the strangely familiar chair. Did they just move the chair to each location? How old was it? She shook her head, too tired to really care. She dropped into the chair, foot hitting something.

Ah. Conveniently, her bag was already under the table. That was definitely the building. She was almost certain she left it somewhere else in all the chaos.

The teen slumped in her seat and sighed. "What a fucking day," she muttered, staring at the ceiling.

"Tell me about it," Scott deadpanned from the doorway.

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

Steve dove out of the way when she jumped at the sound of his voice, expecting her to throw something at him again. He threw his hands up. "I come in peace!"

He was impressed by how high she jumped though. That was some proper 'startled cat leaping straight up' energy.

"Steve?!" she yelled, glaring at him as she scrambled back into the seat.

"...I guess you never grow out of the name thing, huh?" Scott, or he supposed he was Steve now, chuckled awkwardly. "Saw you heading this way. I just wanted to check on you before I take Jeremy to the hospital." He was looking at her with a mix of amusement, wariness, and curiosity.

Ruby dropped her head into her hands, a stream of swear words leaving her in a mutter.

"Thought everyone had left by now," she sighed. "I'm fine. Just had a conversation…with my… mother who isn't dead yet at this point." She let her head thud against the table. "I'm great," she mumbled. She eyed the man. "Take Jeremy before he implodes from worry over his sister. And give Hedy a plushy." She snickered to herself like that was funny. "I'm such a bitch," she whispered. "No, that's bad, not funny. Don't take the plush. Does she have the plush aversion yet?"

Scott snorted although he had no idea what was so funny. "I'm not sure what you mean," Scott admitted. "She loves plushies. I've been trying to hunt down an old one of Spring for her."

He eyed the boxes that he had not so carefully tossed around the place. His office was a mess. " And yes. Jeremy has been pissed at me for the last hour but he'll be okay for a few more minutes. He knows Wiggy is going to be okay and that I have to make sure everyone else is okay before I lock up the place." He shot her a look.

"I'm fine," she snapped.

He wasn't bothered by her tone. Puppet got the same way when upset. Actually, Foxy reacted similarly as well, especially lately. Must be a teenager thing. He raised an eyebrow at Ruby instead of backing down.

"Ugh, Hedy got her stubbornness from you, didn't she?" Ruby asked with a scowl.

Steve/Scott laughed."Hm. I'm flattered but I'm going to share the blame with Foxy. He's the one who sided with her when she refused to eat her veggies. And Chica. Ms. Chicken was firmly on our side but I think Wiggy enjoyed arguing with her a bit too much."

Ruby snorted. "Okay, that I can't argue. I got some of my stubbornness from Foxy too probably." Her tone was nostalgic there with a tinge of sadness. "It's weird. They're babies right now. I mean Puppet won't even insult me back. It's weird and I don't like it."

"Puppet can be snippy. But it's odd picturing him insulting a child," Scott chuckled. He looked at her for a long moment. "You're very close with them," he said, leaning on the door. "It's good to hear they have human friends, to be honest. They are fairly isolated. They love their work, but they rarely make actual friendships with the customers. I don't think it's healthy at their age. Humans ten and six years of age would be in school playing and making friends at this point. The Toys are nearly two and they're still figuring out basic social skills. They sure can talk just as well as any adult, but up here?" He tapped his head. "They're still babies. It's so hard for anyone to grasp that because they can talk like adults, so parents try to talk to them like adults, if they talk to them like people at all."

"They don't like adults," Ruby told him. "My bots anyway. Michael made that worse. The management screwed it up even more. The Originals are better now about adults but the Toys still don't like them. And Puppet is more likely to snap a man's neck than make friends with anyone over twelve. Even with the kids, he's distant. Keeps the prize corner counter between him and them more often than not."

She twisted to lie on the chair with her legs over one arm. It didn't look comfortable in the least but she seemed happy.

"Teenagers still trip them all up though. Until we opened Fazbear's Fright, they barely had to interact with teens. Now it's hilarious to watch them try and categorise people into 'child? Adult?!'" She laughed. "Puppet tends to view me as an adult, I think. The Originals met me as a kid first so they still lean towards that. The Toys generally hate my existence and I delight in their dislike of me being the 'Night Guard'." He could practically hear the capital letters on the title. "They would swear up and down, left and right that they are not my friend and in fact hate my guts. Except Mangle. She likes me. Toby broke my arm once you know? I've got a lot of baggage with some of them."

She was tossing a bobblehead Foxy up and down and Scott wasn't sure how she wasn't breaking her back with that contorted position.

"I want a bobblehead Foxy," she mused, studying the toy.

If Scott was alarmed by what she was saying, he didn't look it, except for a raised eyebrow at the mention of broken necks and broken arms. If anything, he looked… sad.

"Things really got worse for them..." he said. It wasn't really a question. There was so much guilt in his voice.

Ruby stared up at the ceiling blankly for a moment. "Yeah," she breathed. She couldn't really tell the bots about it. It would just depress the hell out of them. But Steve? Hedy had trusted Steve. And the guy seemed like a blast.

She'd trust Hedy's judgement in this case. Or else she was going to explode from keeping her mouth shut around all the babies.

"They tossed the Toys and Puppet into storage," she said. "I think they only got... two weeks? Something like that. They were sent off pretty soon after the murders- After today. I never met them again after the deal until recently. Didn't remember them and they didn't remember me either. It was... hmm, explosive." She grinned nostalgically to herself as she thought about those first few weeks. "This place closed down after a few night guards got murdered." She started throwing the toy again. "The kids went really hard on the murderous ghost angle. And the Toys, well, they're babies and way too easily influenced. Puppet went off the deep end and everyone was in on the killing thing."

She paused briefly and squinted at the ceiling.

"Except BB. Little shit was good at being annoying but he never killed anyone. No one ever realised it though. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he was somehow the most put-together of the bots up here," she tapped her temple. "And I don't know how to deal with that because he's a certified menace. Adorable though. Well, now I think he is. At the start I thought he was worse than Toby and Puppet together and locked him in the crafts box for most of the week."

She twisted in the chair to look at him more directly and Scott was nearly certain spines weren't supposed to bend like that.

"I helped him steal the battery out of Hedy's car. That was hilarious. She was pissed." She smirked at the memory. "Stole the one out of Jeremy's police cruiser too to force him into a game of hide and seek. He was trying to chicken out of it because his twins were there. He didn't want them to see how badly he was going to lose."

Scott perked up, highly focused now. He had been paying attention to her words but now he looked excited. "Twins? Jeremy's a father?!" He was grinning like a proud fool. Leave it to him to focus on the positive parts of that info dump. He shook his head, knowing he should give more attention to the awful stuff.

It was a lot. He had a lot of questions. BB still had his battery addiction. Puppet well and truly went insane. The bots killed people. Human beings with loved ones and entire lives of their own. The kids were stuck in torment as ghosts. Little children. It was heartbreaking.

The world she was describing sounded bleak and very painful to live in. The idea of that timeline hurt something deep in him.

But he could find a little joy in knowing his nephew had a family.

"Did you say 'police cruiser'?"

"Yup," Ruby popped the 'p'. "Happily-sappily married with twin kids, a boy and a girl. His daughter looks a lot like Hedy does right now, actually." She paused at the reminder, better empathising with why the ghost kids had freaked out upon meeting Mercy the first time. She continued. "He ended up becoming a detective, still will probably. My- my dad trained him. They were actually pretty close for a while, although dad messed with him a lot apparently. He had the whole picture-perfect thing. Pretty impressive considering his trauma as a teen when the bots tried to kill him," she mused.

"He's his own brand of stubborn," Scott said, pleased, although a little disturbed. "They...they tried to kill him?" He swallowed. "They aren't close, but they know each other. He's practically grown up with the bots. And he babysits for Hedy's friends all the time. They...still tried to hurt him?"

Ruby hummed. "Yeah. The kids blamed him for not being there which is bullshit. And then the others just... he wasn't a kid and they decided to blame him when he worked as a night guard. He was smart though, faked his death to save himself. You really could have told him about the doors though. He was making do with a Freddy mask and flashlight. They didn't put too much thought into their targets honestly. I mean, they tried to kill me and I was just a random teenager who took the job out of boredom. I hadn't even been to the pizzeria in six years by then. They went after anything that fit into the 'night guard' or 'adult' categories. There wasn't really any thought or anything to it."

Scott glanced up at the doors with an odd expression. He had his reasons for not telling staff, or anyone, about the doors. He already got an earful about what a lawsuit nightmare they were from Henry. Multiple times when they were building the old place. But they were cool ! Will thought so too.

If he knew they would have helped Jeremy, he would have told him.

"Jeremy was supposed to take over the night shift for Michael tonight..." he murmured.

The way Ruby was talking, she was implying that Jeremy still came to work, even with everything . Then the kids, if they were supposed to be ghosts by..."now," then they would have attacked him. That's what he was gathering. Where was he in all of this?

"Why wouldn't he tell me? Why wouldn't he just quit?" He wasn't really asking her. How were any of them supposed to know what they were thinking during a series of events that won't even happen now. Thank goodness.

"Hmm? I dunno. Jeremy's got a real 'lawful good' character but I kinda tune out a bit when he really gets going," she admitted. "But the kids were declared missing and certain cops were trying to pin it on him since that was faster and let them take bribes easier. Plus he wasn't allowed to see Hedy cause of it. Jeremy's super noble but Hedy got all the brains between the two of them. He's an idiot sometimes. Maybe he didn't want you to worry. Pretty sure you were stuck doing damage control and also didn't know about the whole bots trying to kill him thing. Poor guy still jumps when Foxy turns a corner too quickly. It's hilarious ."

Scott didn't seem pleased but he just nodded thoughtfully. Normally he might have chuckled at the imagery.

"You said I made a deal. To save people, I think. Somehow. I'm still confused on that part. I'm assuming it's magic or something. Because that's a thing." He glanced up at the ceiling again and snorted. "Apparently. So I'll put a pin in that weird idea for a minute." He took a breath.

"So the kids possessed the Originals to kill people. I get that part. And I guess I can only do so much. Which...sucks..." he trailed off lamely for a moment. "And I'm not able to stop Marionette and the Toys from being sent away or the company from sticking their grubby fingers into shit to screw with my family..." He was sounding more upset but still kept his voice even as he stared at her. "And you don't know me." His frown deepened but he still seemed curious despite the blunt question he asked next. "So who killed me? Or kills me. Or would kill me?" He rolled his eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I won't tell them. I just want to know for myself. Although I suppose it doesn't really matter in the end."

"It doesn't. Cause you're safe unless you go and do something dumb yourself now." She paused. "It was Ginny. She possesses Goldy." She stared ahead for a moment before shooting upright in the chair in a move that should have broken something but the teen was apparently a snake or something because she seemed just fine. She looked him in the eye sharply.

"The Originals always cared about you. They never stopped. They never recovered from killing you. They get... really sad when anyone mentions you. So, you're not allowed to die for a very long time Steve. Or I'll find some way to kick your ass." She slumped back in the chair. "They need you. And yeah, they're gonna have Puppet this time too cause he really destroyed his own relationship with them in my timeline, but he's fine here. But they need you too. So, stick around for a good long while Steve. And teach people about the cool doors you got here. They're better than the ones at the next place."

She stared at nothing for a moment before letting out a whine.

"Aww damn, Fazbear Frights won't be a thing... Okay, Steve, you gotta start a horror attraction here. Cause Goldy needs to spend time with kids and Spring has the best deadpan humour with teenagers I've ever seen in my life. He also needs a pet."

"A pet? A horror attraction?" Scott blinked. "I don't know about the pet…" He shuddered at a memory that Ruby wasn't privy to. "But that other thing... actually sounds like a fun idea. And Goldy's... condition would work with it I suppose." He stiffened. "Wait a fucking second. Does a horror attraction get made because of what happened today?!" He sounded pissed. "That's actually sick. I mean...I would think it's funny if it was about my death. But not about the kids."

Ruby blinked in surprise before answering. "No, not really. It sort of happened because of the urban legends about night guards dying. They decided to lean hard on that and... cause Spring looked like a zombie rabbit." She squinted at him before her eyes widened. "Oh... I didn't mention... the part about Michael's corpse being inside Spring for decades and then the bastard possessing him, did I?" She grimaced. "Or the amnesia..."

For maybe the first time, Scott actually looked shocked. His tolerance for existential crises did have some kind of limit apparently.

"Michael was left... inside Spring?" he asked, unsure if he actually heard that right. He looked a little ill. He didn't throw up this time though. He just stared at her in horror and sadness.

Ruby nodded, grimacing. "Yeah. Hedy had to pry him out–"

"She had to what?"

"-after I beat him at the game. I kinda start one every time a new set appears. They get a week to kill me or they've got to behave while I work there. Michael lost." Her expression darkened at the memories. "He crossed a line again."

Scott hummed. "More than today?" he asked with a hint of stunned disbelief. "What you say he would have done today is so...repulsive and evil. And he would have been willing to violate the bots, his family , by hiding those little bodies..." He couldn't finish the sentence, choking. "I'm frightened to imagine what kind of line he could cross after all that. "

It was so very clear that Scott was angry with Michael. Maybe anger was too weak a term. But there was an undercurrent of despair there too.

Ruby knew Steve was responsible for getting Michael a job when he had nowhere else to go. He cared about the monster.

And Michael took that chance, and spat in his face.

Ruby sighed. "Okay, look. I'm not right in the head okay? I haven't been for a very long time. Hedy mentioned that she's pretty sure I'm a sociopath. But the point is, I don't like a lot of people and I can be pretty ambivalent about people I don't give a fuck about. But people touching my people? That doesn't fly. Michael almost killed Hedy during that week and Hedy is mine . So, he crossed a line. And I made him regret it." She looked away. "The bots are mine . The ghost brats are too. Jeremy, Mike, Timmy... you with your terrible sense of humour on the tapes. Mine . I get a little mean when someone touches what's mine."

Steve seemed to understand what she meant at least. And he didn't look horrified. Maybe a little surprised to hear the word "sociopath", but applying that word to the little girl he knew didn't seem to frighten him.

He nodded, maybe relieved the line she described was a bit more personal.

"I see," Scott said. "I was worried. For my own peace of mind, Michael never...h-he never touched the kids or Hedy. Inappropriately I mean. Right?"

He looked sick even asking.

Ruby blinked, as if the horrible idea had never even occurred to her. "Fuck no. He's sick, but... No . Fucking hell. I'm pretty sure he cared way more about hurting Spring and the others through the kids than anything like that." She was worried now. Was she going to have to ask Hedy about that when she got home?!

Scott nodded. "I had to ask." He sighed. "As for you being a sociopath? Frankly I'd be shocked if there wasn't some deep rooted issue coming out of whatever all of this turned into. "

Ruby shook herself out of disturbing thoughts. "Oh nah, I was messed up before the whole bots tried to kill me. And I didn't remember any of this cause of the deal. Parents died in front of me and something snapped up here," she tapped her head again. "I'm functional though. Violent, sadistic and aggressive to most, but functional. Lacking in self-preservation skills and far too much of an adrenaline junkie but, I've got rules I don't break. That keeps me semi-normal. Plus Hedy helps. She's stuck as my moral compass and the building's moral compass. She fucking hates it."

She snickered as she remembered the moment Hedy realised that particular fact. It was hilarious.

"You know Steve," she mused after a moment. "You're exactly how I pictured you."

"And how's that?" he asked, lips quirked up in a tiny smirk as he raised an eyebrow.

Jeremy and Hedy both made that face when they were amused but desperately trying to pretend they weren't, usually failing. Jeremy especially did it a lot when Ruby corrupted the twins.

"You're adorable with a questionable sense of humour and too much love in your heart. You also still look like a Steve and your parents clearly didn't know how to name you correctly."

"I'm flattered," Steve/Scott chuckled with sarcasm, but mostly amusement. He thought for a moment, still leaning on the door. "You're a good kid, Ruby. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even yourself. And you're brave. I know I probably can't know everything you've done, or even fully understand it, but I'm grateful either way. Try to be a little kinder to yourself okay? It's pretty obvious your life has been hard."

Ruby scoffed softly, but he had a feeling it was more her automatic response to emotional conversations.

"I'm fine," she told him, but maybe this had helped. She looked less tense than when he'd found her.

He afforded himself a moment to look at her before shoving off the wall. "I should go," he said. "Jeremy has been waiting long enough. Do you need me to bring you anything back?"

Ruby shook her head. "I'm fine," she repeated. "I'm just going to sleep now."

He likely wouldn't win an argument of any kind with the teenager but it still sat wrong with Scott to leave a sixteen-year-old all by herself like this. He imagined it must be worse for her parents.

She wasn't going to budge though, so he just wished her goodnight and headed to where Jeremy was impatiently waiting.

Ruby looked around the office for a moment before deciding that sleeping in the chair would be fine. She felt more at home in the security office than the staff room anyway. Before she let herself drift off though, she scanned the security cameras again. Old habits died hard and she liked checking that everything was okay.

She was asleep five minutes later.