And now we take the next step in the long-awaited adventure...

Chapter Seventeen

Unforgiven

Hurricane was at least an hour's drive from Beaver. Which meant no back and forth just to save on gas.

She and Mike mutually agreed they tell Jeremy and Melinda, but without mentioning the spirit world and supernatural stuff. It was sickening to keep these secrets from them, even though their friends were better off being safe from this mess.

"The puppet from Fredbear's and Freddy Jr.'s...it was sent to your mom's house without a return address," Jeremy had said the first time. "And now you guys have decided you're gonna burn William Afton to the ground when, all these years, no one's pinned him entirely down? You know what you sound like?"

"Yeah, like kids, but what else is there, and why would we get the security puppet?" Michael pointed out. The four of them were at the bar and grill for dinner one Friday night. "We talked about it with Mom and Henry, and we're all in agreement. We're still working out details, but we've decided to take one location at a time, take our time in between - NOT make it years - and include talking to the families of the missing kids."

"But how do you want to do this, and did you think for a second that Afton wouldn't catch on at some point?" Melinda questioned harshly, freaked out beneath the logic.

Kaleia pursed her lips. "We thought about everything, Mel, but it's not like we're God, and you know it. They let him go from everything he built, but who's to stop him from slipping further under the radar?"

There was a hard pause, and after a long moment, Melinda spoke again, this time suspiciously. "There's more you two aren't telling us. There a reason? Don't bullshit us, because we both know you better than this."

"...it's better if we show you guys. Come by my mom's house just before midnight," Michael said, looking in Kaleia's direction, and making the decision for the both of them. Seeing was believing.

~o~

Jeremy and Melinda both nearly fell to the floor, his bro just about semi-fainting while his woman stumbled back and hit the backs of her legs against the sofa armrest. They were understandably just as scared as him and Kaleia, until they as well as Uncle Henry and Mom calmed them down and told them everything, Charlie even showing them what she showed the family.

"Repulsive...disgusting...heartless..." Melinda couldn't even form the right words except those.

"Man," Jeremy said, holding out his hand in the familiar way, "you're not gonna deal with that asshole without bigger numbers and the power of friendship." And he said that as if they were kids again when things were much simpler. But he was damned right in every sense. "So, how do we find Afton Robotics?"

~o~

They spent weeks tracking down the families of the missing children before they could go and question them. Jeremy had a hand in that because he learned a thing or two thanks to his late dad who had been a private investigator. And knew damned well when to cover his tracks since he wasn't a professional.

The children's ages were as listed: Susie, eight. Gabriel, eleven. Jeremy and Fritz, both nine. And Cassidy, ten.

They started with Susie Stampler's family. Aside from her, they had another child who had been a toddler at the time of her disappearance - a little boy who was now either seven or eight years old. Ethan and Chloe Stampler were advocates for children's safety which had begun to become a sure thing that hadn't been taken too seriously in the past. Thanks to the murder of young actress Rebecca Shaeffer by a stalker in the 80s as well as other normal, shocking cases across the country, the innocence and protection of young children and teenagers needed to be taken into consideration, which was a very clever thing. These two want to help prevent what happened to their daughter from happening to another child. And since they have a son, they must have gone to great lengths to make sure he was kept close and observed at all times, Kaleia thought, heart cracking a little. Just like her grandparents did for her after losing Mom and Dad.

The other families weren't so lucky to survive together in the aftermath of losing the lights of their lives. One example was Liam O'Neill, father of Jeremy. There wasn't anything to find on the mother, except that she dumped him in the arms of his dad - her husband, boyfriend? - right after he was born, and she was a drug addict. Much like Fritz Wilson's mom after losing her child. Father and son had each other until one day, the boy just vanished with his friend, Fritz, and they were both never seen again.

Mr. O'Neill had taken too many prescription pills and died in his bed, hoping to reunite with his son again. Something Henry had once considered if he still didn't have people who loved him.

Gabriel Grace's family was similarly fractured in the sense that his parents and elder sister, now a young police officer in the local force, were estranged from each other. It had been listed in one article which she'd solo interviewed some months after the case went cold, when she was sixteen at the time and had been forced to babysit at the pizzeria, that Clair Grace hated herself for this, for taking her eyes off Gabriel so she could busy herself with Packman.

There was nothing on Cassidy Landis's family, consisting only of a mother and maternal grandmother. The only one of them who truly, devastatedly, pleaded for her safe return was Aria Landis, as her own daughter Harper never showed concern.

"Goddamn," Kaleia hissed when Jeremy showed her all of this. It was just the two of them at the hospital when he visited her on his day off. Michael was still at the garage, Melinda swamped with four surgeries today. "What kind of mother doesn't give a shit about her own child's disappearance?"

"The kind who got stuck with the kid because she never asked for her, never wanted her, but no one else would take her," Jeremy answered disgustedly. "Could say I'm surprised with the Graces, but at the same time, I'm not. I'm no psychiatrist, but everyone grieves differently. We were kids in those days ourselves, but you, me, and Mel? We were only kids, Mike wasn't. He'd know the feeling of not wanting to babysit but HAD to. Point is, Kaleia, her parents blamed her for taking her eyes off him for just a game or two of Packman. Things were never good between them, but she did wind up doing well for herself at the police academy. Mr. O'Neill had nothing else to live for; Jeremy was his entire world. At least we could probably ask the Stamplers as long as we choose questions carefully, and approach gently. But the family of Cassidy..." He paused and swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing once.

"I don't expect a change of heart for her mother, but I do know her grandmother is still alive and in a rest home."

~o~

Michael saw no harm in seeing the woman along with his wife. This was one of the few times they had a day off, and it was perfect timing to fill up the car tank and drive down to the town they never wanted to come back to again, but the invisible thread of fate compelled them. This nursing home for the elderly, known as Wiltzfal - something someone HAD to just randomly throw together - hardly looked like much on the outside, being dingy and peeling in several places, the windows needing a scrub, but once you got inside, it was crispy white and polished. The various colorful flowers and faux plants gave character the exterior lacked as well as a homey vibe. But I wonder how many of those flowers are real and which are fake, to save money like this place looks like it does.

He and Kaleia asked for Aria Landis, saying they were old friends of her granddaughter from childhood, and it had been a long time. When they saw her in the room she shared with a roommate, she was equipped with a television that had good quality and a signal, the building and its patients' residences sterilized, and the healthcare wasn't perfect, but it would do.

Ms. Landis looked like she'd seen better days. She went by the title his mom did because it was mentioned her husband, Harper's father and Cassidy's grandfather, had taken off when Harper was still young, but no details were disclosed to the public. Everyone's business was their own. Anyway, the old lady had gray hair short and ending just around her ears, dark eyes bearing deep crow's feet, and a mouth in a neutral line, the lips long since thinned from too much pursing. She was someone who had seen too much suffering to last a lifetime, and it showed.

When she first saw them, she narrowed her eyes in scrutiny until Kaleia took the initiative and said why they were here: "We're sorry to bother you, Ms. Landis, but we...well...my husband and I wanted to ask you a few questions about your granddaughter."

"And why should I tell two strange youngsters about my Cassidy?" Aria snapped, wrinkled fingers clasped tightly around the wrestling magazine she'd been reading. "I've been in here since I lost her, put in by my own daughter who couldn't bear to have me around anymore. Seemed I'd outlived my usefulness after everything I'd done for that woman." She scoffed and shook her head. It was then that Kaleia clicked and took the next bit of control of the situation.

"Ma'am, you say your daughter abandoned you, and it seems you loved Cassidy more than her. Or am I reading too much into that?"

Aria's eyes widened. "My, my, you're quite the little reader, aren't you, Mrs...?"

"Schmidt. But call us Kaleia and Mike," he chimed in, closing the door behind them. The nurse had left them in for half an hour at most, or prolonged or lessened if the old woman said so.

"Mike. Kaleia. Feel free to have a seat, both of you. I have to be honest, I haven't spoken to anyone else other than my roommate and these nurses and doctors for years." Aria then smiled, though it looked more sad. It was enough to tug at the heartstrings. Michael and Kaleia sat down before her, on the navy blue lounge in this big room filling up maybe a quarter of the space and reserved for visitors. In the center of the windowsill was a glowing, watery blue vase filled with whimsical lavender daisies, sweet pale pink miniature lilies, and rich peach roses. "Oh, those things there?" Aria noted when she caught him looking, chuckling. "Those are given to me by that handsome young orderly who can't get enough of my stories. One of the things I used to love sharing with Cassidy when..."

She trailed off then, the mood shifting once again from nice and easy to heavy and grim. "I had a stroke by the time it happened. As a consequence, my granddaughter was stuck with her mother. Perhaps if I'd been there, I would have been able to protect her. That damned Harper..." Aria then shook her head, clearing her throat. "She's still my daughter and I love her, but at the same time, I wish things had been different. It wasn't her fault she became what she is now. Ever since her father left us when she was old enough to walk and talk. Harper wouldn't ever remember a damned thing except for the photographs I wish I'd thrown out. That man was just a pathetic excuse of a husband and a father." Like Mom always said of William, and it's all true.

"I made the mistake of not being the best mother to her since then, watching her despise marriage while sleeping around with one man after another. She didn't have a child until Cassidy came along, and that girl was a blessing. Except I couldn't prevent the abuse. Harper would just dump her onto me. I told that woman she had that baby, and therefore it was her responsibility to take care of her. What does she do in response? Keeping up her lifestyle and leaving parental duties on me." Aria sighed. "I thought I did right by Cassidy until we got the calls from school and heard neighbors gossiping."

"What was wrong?" Michael asked, feeling his blood go cold after it was at boiling levels. He knew what it was like to have a parent to bring you into the world only to neglect you.

Aria looked surprised. "You never heard around? Not surprised, I suppose. But I was told, never having seen it myself, that Cassidy wasn't...well-liked, for lack of a better word. She'd do anything for her amusement, even manipulate other children to get what she wanted. Sometimes adults, but that was few and far between compared to when I fell to her charms. I feel I've spoiled her too much, let her have her way, and didn't discipline her enough. I had feared going too hard like I did with her mother."

Cassidy hadn't been a nice kid as a result of being neglected, and sometimes abused by her mother whenever she was in Harper Landis' presence, so she took it out on everyone else to amuse herself and make herself feel better, even using the grandmother who LOVED her the most.

Kaleia leaned back, exhaling. "I'm sorry, Ms. Landis. I wish I could say I understood, but I had a different life than that."

"Not your fault, child. No one helps how they were born, or what they're born into. I wish I never fell ill and lost my grandbaby. Perhaps I could have prevented Harper from dropping her off at that place."

They caught the poison in her tone at "that place". She could only be mentioning one in particular. "Freddy Fazbear's, ma'am?" Michael asked, thinking, This is it.

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Precisely. That's why you're really here, isn't it?" She shook her head and leaned back. "Unfortunately, no information on that, except that I, too, thought it would be a safe haven for families and children. I'm certain everyone here in this ghost town thinks the same. I wish that place had been burned by vandals, or shut down immediately after Cassidy and those other children were taken. Should have been cause for complete shutdown, but someone just up and bought it after that murderer was booted."

"You believe William Afton was responsible despite no full evidence?" he pressed on.

"Oh, everyone knows it, as far as I know. You can ask anyone. I only wish I could have seen it myself, but after all this time, I know in my heart the children are gone. I hope to see Cassidy again up there with the angels." Mist came over Aria's eyes. "She was a troublemaker, like her mother, but still, I had hopes she'd become a better person."

~o~

"Yeah, my wife and I know Afton is responsible, but to this day, the case is still cold, and Susie is still gone," Ethan Stampler told her and Kaleia when they visited the family home in New Harmony, three-quarters of an hour from Hurricane. It was just him and the little boy whom he said was playing in his room. He was quite the good-looking one, but that didn't mean she had her eye on him. His face had no lines despite grieving the loss of his eldest child, though his platinum hair was flat on either side of his scalp and parted down the middle, and his green eyes were alight in the center, symbolizing a brighter future he could only hope would come from all of this. "That's why we decided to keep Avery close to us every time we took him anywhere. Sometimes he complains, but it's for his safety."

New Harmony was protected by mountains and canyons, making it much safer than Hurricane living. This house they were in showed some window views of the landscape, painting maybe prettier pictures than the ones that were on the walls - two bamboo-framed ones of an idyllic hand-painted palm tree against lapping ocean waves and their sunset on either side of the big window in this living room which looked out at the street of passing cars, and another atop the fireplace, which was crafted metal richly and intriguingly embossed with half a sun and half a moon. There were other pictures, crudely and clearly drawn by a child's hand and in some frames on the fireplace mantle, a few being a brightly hued lion face, a few fishes from the tropics, and the Cat in the Hat. Clara figured little Avery had done them himself, and it made her smile...

...before it was gone as soon as her eyes landed on the focal point of that red brick fireplace.

In Blessed Memory of SUSIE, the simple black frame's pewter plaque said at the top and bottom, the latter bearing the capitalized name of the little girl with long sunlit hair in two pigtails, smiling brightly with nearly all her dainty white teeth in place, save for one missing second to the bottom left. It was enough to make Clara's heart break. Not even the calming bamboo-printed carpeting beneath her feet could calm it down.

"Believe me when I say I understand what it's like to lose a child," she told the man who stopped before that picture, turning his back to her and her daughter-in-law. "I had three children, but two died a long time ago."

Ethan snorted. "Forgive me for being cold, Ms. Schmidt, but I don't know if that's the same thing. We never found out what happened to our daughter. She and those other kids are still believed to be dead after no traces were found; we had hope in the beginning but now know we have to move on for her sake, our sakes, and Avery's."

"But you both still have a child still alive," Kaleia cut in. "Sorry to be cold, too, but it's true. You and your wife are also advocates for children's safety in Susie's name, helping bring awareness to this. I bet she'd be proud of you guys."

He now turned back around to face them, a warm smile present, which he turned onto Clara and further softened to sympathy. She understood his previous anger and frustration; it was a sensation she still knew too well. "She would, but I wish I could speak for the other parents." He shook his head. "Not like the lawsuits would ever bring them back. My wife and I knew it even back then."

~o~

"Of course, lawsuits were filed," Henry grumbled when they all got together back at the house, to put everything they found together. "You're never gonna believe what I've found myself after getting in touch with an old friend who is still part of the company, now raised to the higher-ups. The new board. But before we get into that, the updates with the families?"

Kaleia fiddled with the golden fox pendant around her neck. "The Stamplers seem to be the only family out of all of them that remains strong and knitted despite the tragedy, even doing something good out of this. Except Cassidy Landis's case looks like the grossest out of all of them, the Graces coming second." She snorted, sounding almost like a pig. Michael wanted to chuckle.

"Yeah, old lady loves her granddaughter more than her own daughter, 'cause Harper Landis is still a slutty bitch -"

"Michael!" Clara scolded with no merit. Jeremy sniggered behind his hand.

"- to this day. Kaleia and I talked to her after we spoke to her mother in the rest home. Couldn't care less about Cassidy after being told her kid was missing from the place she dumped her off at for a new john, and that she had less of a burden to worry about. And once she left Aria where she 'belonged', she was free to do whatever the hell she wanted and was glad she had no more kids. No wonder Cassidy was the way everyone said she was, and I don't wanna think about what she would have been if she'd grown up." Maybe worse than I was before Evan.

"It's a shame we can't speak to Liam O'Neill," Melinda said somberly after a sip of her Pepsi. "But in terms of his son and the others, we can at least give their souls a rest and then he and Jeremy are reunited."

"Shocker you believe in heaven, Melinda," Kaleia told her with a smirk.

"What about Gabriel Grace's family?" Henry asked.

Michael rolled his shoulders, popping the bones. "Got a hold of their phone number in the yellow book, talked to the mother myself. Don't even remember her name because of the way she spoke about her daughter. The one still alive. Just said if Clair hadn't taken her eyes off Gabriel, he'd still be there. Wish I could tell Clair myself I know what it's like, and then maybe we'd have a conversation." If only it was that easy because this was personal. He got it with the neglectful parent case, but this time pushed it.

Henry got their attention again. "Speaking of conversation, I have good news. I have found out where Afton Robotics is." But he wasn't smiling.

My boyfriend came up with the name of the rest home Aria Landis, grandmother of Cassidy, now lives in. XD Just randomly arose, he said. I'd needed help with a name, and he came up with it. Speaking of Aria, the conversation with her was based on the Law and Order: Special Victims episode, "Denial" (season 3, episode 21).

The AO3 fic that played in what happened here and what will transpire in the future was "Leave the demon to his demons" by Solani; it covered in the first chapter, still ongoing, that Cassidy tortured William in UCN and mentioned her being a bully in life only to be reduced when she was murdered. Safe to say William is no longer amused by the memory of making her cry for her life and then...you know.

The items in the Stampler house, once more from Midnight Velvet: Bamboo Framed Palm Tree (two of them), Sun and Moon Wall Hanging, and a bamboo mat I forgot the name of.

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