Finally, they were back home! It was just like Moon remembered, which made sense considering they had only left a week ago. There was a young woman leaning against the check-in counter and filing her nails. When she saw them, she sighed and put down her file.

"You must be the new guys."

"That's right! Brand-new! Our first day on the job! I'm Samuel, but you can call me Sam, and-"

"Uh huh," she interrupted. "Yeah, nice to meet you. Welcome to the Faz-fam, etc etc, you're working check-in with me, your brother is working down there with the kids."

Sun looked confused. "Check-in? I thought-"

"That you'd be watching little rugrats all day? What position were you assigned in the email?"

"Um, position 2?"

"Yeah, that's check-in. Oh, almost forgot." She reached under the desk and pulled out two aprons. "Your uniforms." Sun and Moon grabbed their aprons and put them on. "Oh, that concludes your 'orientation,' btw." With that, she resumed her manicure.

"Um, bye, Gabe. I'll see you after work, I guess."

"Yeah, see you after work." Moon paused, then slid down the slide.

When he reached the bottom, he stayed in the ball pit for a moment. What was he supposed to do now? Sure, Moon liked the kids, but Sun had loads more experience in dealing with them. Moon only came out during naptime. He had occasionally comforted kids who were scared of the dark, or kids who insisted they weren't tired, but he mostly just watched them sleep. Now he had to talk to them, play with them, feed them, and clean up after them with no tether, no training, and most importantly, no Sun. He was lost.

He heard whistling, then someone came in through the door. Who else would be in the daycare this early? And why would they use the door when there was a perfectly good slide? Moon stood up and tiptoed out of the ball pit as quietly as he could, but it still made a fair amount of noise. The whistling stopped.

"Hello? Who's over there?"

Moon froze. Something seemed familiar about that voice.

"Hey, this isn't funny. Come on out right now."

He peeked around the corner of a play structure and saw that there was someone new behind the security desk. Another young woman, this one with green eyes, glasses and… short red hair. That's where he remembered the voice from. Then she saw him.

"Whoah! Geez and crackers bro, you scared me! …Don't I know you from someplace? Yes! You're the guy from Walmart! How's that hat holding up?"

Moon started walking towards the desk. This was an awfully casual conversation for a security guard. "Um, pretty well. I'm honestly surprised you remember."

"You shouldn't be. It's pretty hard to forget a face like yours. I'm Ginger by the way." She held out her hand, which Moon slowly shook. "Yeah, I know, a redhead named Ginger, super original. But that's what my parents wanted, and it's not too bad compared to what some people name their kids. What's your name?"

"I'm… Gabriel." Even after practicing dozens of times, that name still felt like broken gears grinding in his head. It was fake, as fake as everything else about this nightmare.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Gabe! Can I call you Gabe?" He nodded. "Great! So, what made you want to work here?"

"Needed the cash," Moon shrugged. Technically, Vanessa was the one who needed money, but obviously he couldn't say the real reason he was here.

"I hear that," Ginger laughed. It was a nice enough laugh, and she snorted a bit at the end. "But seriously, no other reason?"

"Well, I got this job so I could be with my... brother, but so far that's not really working out."

"You have a brother? That's fun! I'm a lonely child, myself. What's his name?"

"Sam."

"Cool. Is he older or younger?"

"Uh, same age. We're twins." Yep. His twin brother Sam. Fantastic.

"Oh wait, now I remember! I think I saw him at the store. He has blond hair, right? I can see why you dyed yours. Otherwise, you two really would look identical!"

"That's what everyone keeps saying."

"Sorry, you've probably heard that a million times. So, who were those other people with you? Are they family, too?"

"That's Vanessa and Gregory. They brought us in after we lost our home in the storm." Why did he say their names? He could've said they were friends and moved on, but he felt like sharing the truth with her, maybe to feel better about the things he had to lie about.

"I'm so sorry to hear that! I heard the flood totaled some people's houses. I guess that's what you need the cash for. But I'm glad you have such good friends who would take you in like that. That's super nice."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

They kept talking for at least an hour, probably more. The weird part was, Moon liked talking to Ginger. He usually couldn't stand talking to grownups, especially for such a long time. Well, except for Vanessa, but that was different. She had earned his respect over time. Ginger was different somehow. She went on and on about things he never would've cared about, but it... wasn't annoying?

Eventually, a noise came from the ball pit.

"Sounds like the first kid is here," said Ginger. "I should probably let you do your job now. Sorry for talking your ear off."

"Don't worry, you're good."

Moon rushed over to see that it was none other than Suzy Pevinski. She seemed to be looking for something.

"Oh my stars, it's really happening. I'm not ready! Ok, Moon, you're fine. How does Sun usually do this?"

He took a deep breath and smiled.

"Good morning, Starshine!" he called out in his cheeriest voice. He winced when it sounded too much like Sun's, and continued in a slightly more subdued tone. "What's your name?"

"Suzy."

"It's very nice to meet you, Suzy! My name is Gabe, and we're going to have lots of fun together!"

"Where's Sun-Man?"

Of course she had to ask that.

"Mr. Sun? He's not here today."

"Why?"

"He's, uh, resting. But he'll be back as soon as he can."

"Ok. I can touch my tongue to my nose. Wanna see?"

"Of course I do!"

Suzy proudly touched the tip of her tongue to her nose, as she had done dozens of times.

"Wow! That's really impressive, Suzy!"

"Thank you! Can we play hide-and-seek? I'll hide and you count to-to ten."

"Sure we can. One, two-"

"Nooo!" cried Suzy. "You have to close your eyes!"

Moon facepalmed. "Ooohhh that makes a lot more sense! Like this?" He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands.

"Yes!"

"Thank you so much! I'll try again. One… two… three…"

Moon had missed a lot of things over the past week. He missed his room, he missed his body, but most of all, he had missed the kids. He never realized how great it felt to play with them, hear them laugh, put smiles on each tiny face. And boy, were there a lot of faces today! A lot of them were faces he hadn't seen before. Actually, there might have been too many kids. It was getting hard to keep track of them all. And they were still coming! Fortunately, Ginger was willing to get up from the security desk and help when they got too rowdy. Jeremy never would've done that. Together, they were able to handle the kids just fine.

Until that afternoon.

It was a little after 2pm. Tommy had just come in, and he hadn't stopped giggling since.

"Hey, Gabe," called Ginger, "we've got a situation."

Oh no. What was it this time? He ran over to Ginger.

"What's wrong?"

She pointed at one of the play structures. Standing on the very top was Connor, one of the new kids.

"Connor!" Moon yelled. "What are you doing? How did you get up there?"

"I don't know," Connor yelled back. Then he started to cry.

"Oh great, now I made him cry."

"It's not your fault, I'm pretty sure he was about to cry anyway."

"That doesn't make it any better. How did he get all the way up there?"

"I don't know! I swear I only turned my back for two seconds, but I guess it was two seconds two long. How do we get him down?"

"Easy. I'll climb up there and grab him."

"Are you sure there's not a ladder or something around here? That's pretty high up."

"I'm good at climbing."

"While holding a wiggling, crying kid?"

Moon paused. He had climbed up the play structure on the first night, but it was definitely more difficult like this. Could he really support himself and Connor? He looked up to the little boy crying two stories in the air. He had to try.

He approached the structure, shook out his hands, and started climbing.

"Be careful!" Ginger cried.

When he reached the top, he sat down next to Connor.

"Hey, Connor, you ready to go back down?"

Connor looked at him, but kept crying. He needed to try something else.

"That's fine, take all the time you need."

More crying. He needed to calm him down.

"Do you… want a hug?"

Connor nodded. Moon scooted closer and held him. His sobbing slowly turned to sniffles, then stopped. That was easy. Moon wiped his tears with his apron.

"There we go. Everything is going to be alright. Are you ready now?"

"Mmhm," Connor sniffed.

Moon grabbed him and stood up. All the children had gathered around the base of the play structure, and were staring up at them. The ground seemed a lot farther away now.

"Is he ok?" asked Ginger.

"Yeah. I'm not sure how to get down, though."

"Maybe you could come over to the edge and drop him down to me?"

Moon held Connor tighter to his chest. "Drop him? Are you crazy?!"

"Crazy?" said one of the older kids. "I was crazy once."

"They locked me in a room," another joined in.

"A rubber room," said another. "A rubber room with rats."

"And rats make me crazy," five or six children said in unison.

They kept repeating the phrase, with more children joining in each time. With each round, they grew substantially louder. The extra noise was not helping Moon think.

"I can't do this. This can't be real. Why can't I just wake up? Please, let me wake up."

Then Moon heard another voice.

"Do you need any help over there?"

Moon looked around for a second before finding Sun standing at the top of the stairs.

"No, I've got everything under control."

He absolutely did not have everything under control, but he didn't want Sun to worry.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Ok, if you say so."

"Who are you talking to?" asked Ginger. It was getting hard to hear her over the children.

"Tell you later!"

Connor was starting to sniffle again.

"Hey, it's alright, you're fine. Please don't cry. Look, we're going down right now. Hold on tight."

Connor squeezed Moon as hard as he could. It kind of hurt, but at least he felt safer. Moon climbed down as slowly and carefully as possible. Halfway down, his foot slipped. The children screamed, and his heart jumped as he scrambled to regain his footing. That had never happened before. He stopped for a second to catch his breath, then kept going. Finally, they reached the ground, and all the children cheered.

Moon put Connor down.

"No more climbing things you're not supposed to climb, ok Connor?"

"Ok. Thank you," he said before running off to do who knows what.

As the crowd dispersed, Moon collapsed onto the padded floor. His breathing was shaky, and his arms and legs felt like jelly.

"These legs seriously need to be recalibrated. Arms too, probably. What was I thinking? I could have killed us both! I should've known I couldn't climb like before, but now I can't even stand. I need to wake up. Wake up!"

Ginger sat down next to him.

"Hey, you ok, bro?"

"What? Oh, yeah… I'm just… taking a… breather."

"That's totally fine. You've earned it. I'll keep an eye on the kids until you're ready."

As she stood up, one of the new girls came running over.

"Miss Ginger, Jackson won't share the kitchen."

"It sounds like Jackson and I need to have a little talk."

While they left to go solve the play kitchen fiasco, Moon stayed on the floor. It took a few minutes for him to regain his strength, then it was back to the kids.

Things calmed down a lot in the evening, when kids started going home. They all left one by one until the daycare was empty.

"Bye, Jamie!" Moon called after the last boy. He closed the door and leaned against it. "Looks like that's the last one."

"Good," Ginger sighed. "I love kids, but attempting to control a mini mob was not in my job description." Huh. A guard who loves kids. Now he'd seen everything. She started putting things away in her bag. "So, are you busy after work?"

"Kind of. Why?"

"I was just wondering if you would want to go out to eat or something. Y'know, to celebrate surviving the first day. I know we already had dinner, but there's a great ice cream place a couple blocks down the street. You could bring your brother along, too! But I understand if you're too busy. We're going to be seeing each other pretty much every day, we don't need to go out the first night."

Moon was surprised. She wanted to spend time with him after work? She really was nothing like Jeremy.

"That's very kind of you, Ginger, but we really do need to get back to Vanessa's apartment. Maybe later." Moon didn't plan on going out after work anytime soon, but it would have been rude to say that.

"Hey, if you ever find yourself free after work, just hit me up." She picked up her bag and started to leave.

"Where are you going?" Moon asked.

"To get ice cream, I just said that."

"Don't we need to clean up first?"

"The janitors can do that. It's literally their job. Besides, you cleaned so much when the kids were here that it's practically spotless already."

Moon looked over the daycare. He could see several spots he had missed: some smudged glass here, a dot of paint there. But the S.T.A.F.F. bots would probably be able to handle it, and if they couldn't, he would be back tomorrow.

"I guess you're right."

"Great. Now come on! ¡Vamanos, Gabriel!"

After one last glance, Moon followed her out the door and up the stairs.

"¿Tú hablas español?" Moon asked. He and Sun were programmed with 30 different languages, including Spanish, but they had never heard someone speak in any language except English. For a while he thought that these "other languages" were just a prank that took up space on their hard drive.

"Not really," she admitted. "I just remember a few words and phrases from Dora the Explorer."

Sun was leaning on the counter and playing with a pen. The other employee from earlier was nowhere to be found. He looked incredibly bored, but he perked up when he saw them.

"Gabe!" He ran over and gave Moon a hug. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you! I had the craziest day today and-" he noticed Ginger "-oh, who's this?"

"I'm Ginger, the new security guard! You must be Sam. Nice to meet you!"

Ginger tried to shake Sun's hand, but he pulled her into the hug instead.

"Oh! Ok then." She sounded surprised, but accepted the gesture.

"Any friend of my brother is a friend of mine!" He released them. "So, what are you doing up here?"

"The daycare is closed. We're going back to the apartment."

"Already?" Sun checked the nearest clock. "We still have three more minutes."

"Do you think someone is going to bring their kid to the daycare for three minutes?"

"…Probably not…"

"Come on, we don't know how late the buses run."

"I have a car." Ginger said. "Do you guys want a ride home?"

"That's so thoughtful of you, Ginger! We-"

"No, thank you. We're fine taking the bus."

She shrugged. "If you say so. Bye guys, see you tomorrow!"

They waited until Ginger left to start talking again.

"What was that for?" asked Sun. "She was trying to be nice."

"We're not riding home with a stranger."

"Stranger? Weren't you together all day?"

"Yes, but that was just one day. Who knows what she's really like? Besides, Gregory and Vanessa are expecting us to take the bus. What if Ginger got lost or something and we got home late? You wouldn't want them to worry, would you?"

"Of course I wouldn't!"

"Didn't think so. Let's see if we can catch the next bus."

This bus was more crowded than the one from that morning, so they had to stand. Sun almost fell over the first time they stopped, but other than that, the bus ride back was just as quiet and boring as the ride there.

When they got back to the apartment, Gregory was doing homework on the couch.

"Hey, guys. How was work?"

"We'll tell you in a minute. Where's Vanessa?"

"I'm right here," she said, coming out of her bedroom. "I thought I heard voices out here. So, was your first day everything you dreamed it would be?"

"Where do I begin?" groaned Sun, opening the kitchen cupboards. "First, we rode the bus, and everyone was so sad, but I didn't talk to any of them because I knew you told us not to. Then, when we actually got there, they took our pictures and we nearly got blinded by the flash. And they didn't even let me smile! And when we got to the daycare, it was nice for a second because we were just glad to be home, but THEN we found out that we don't even get to work together! Moon gets to go and take care of the kids, but I'm stuck upstairs at the check-in desk with Elaine. Oh boy, does she need a time out!"

He grabbed a cookie and started waving it around as he talked.

"I tried to be friendly, but she wasn't having it. She didn't even give us a proper orientation like she was supposed to, so I had to figure out the whole computer system on my own! And get this: she doesn't even like kids! But she chose to work at the daycare, a place that is filled with kids! So either she does like kids but she pretends not to, or she doesn't like them and chose a job she knew she wouldn't like! I mean, what kind of logic is-" he accidentally slammed the cupboard door on his hand "OW! Oh, shoot!" Sun's eyes widened and his hands flew over his mouth.

Moon had only been half listening until that word. "What did you just say?"

Sun slowly moved his hands and repeated the word.

"Shoot. Oh!" He covered his mouth again.

"What's the big deal?" asked Gregory. "That's not even swearing."

"Maybe not," said Moon, "but it is a banned word."

"Banned?"

Since Sun was too stunned to speak, Moon tried to explain.

"There is a list of words that you're never supposed to say in the daycare. Some of them are swear words, others are less 'intense' but still rude or offensive in some way. If a human employee said one of them, then they would get a warning, or maybe get fired if they didn't stop. If one of us tried to say a banned word, we would get a 'controlled' shock."

"That sounds horrible," said Vanessa.

"It is. Well, was. If Sun was able to say… that, then it probably doesn't affect us now."

"So you could get electrocuted for saying 'shoot?'" asked Gregory.

"Yeah, it's really…" Moon shut his eyes and braced himself, "…stupid."

He waited a second, then opened his eyes. No pain. He knew what he was doing later. After Gregory went to sleep, of course.

"I… I can't believe that worked."

"You're not allowed to say 'stupid' either?"

"It's a very rude word, Gregory!" Apparently, Sun had recovered enough to talk again. "Even though we can say those words now doesn't mean we should. I'm certainly not going anywhere near the list."

"Oh, really?" Moon smiled and leaned forward. "Gun."

Even though there was no shock, saying the banned word still felt wrong. Maybe he wouldn't be using the list, either.

"Moony, no!" Sun cried, grabbing his head. "You're going to get us in trouble!"

Gregory burst out laughing while Vanessa struggled to hold back a smile. Sun crossed his arms.

"I don't see what's so funny about deadly weapons."

"You're right, there's nothing funny about that," said Vanessa, "but that list was made with preschoolers in mind. I have a feeling a lot of those words aren't as bad as you think they are."

"Of course they are! If they weren't, why would we be punished for saying them?"

Vanessa paused.

"You know what? You didn't finish telling me about your day."

"I already told you most of it. Moon and I got separated, Elaine was rude… oh, and I got sick."

"What?" said Moon. "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?"

"I don't know. I guess I wasn't thinking about it."

"You don't look sick to me," observed Gregory.

"I'm not now. But earlier, my tummy was upset, and I was sweating, and my heart was going really really fast, and I could barely breathe. Oh, and my face was really red, too."

Vanessa brought one hand to her chin.

"By any chance, did you feel sick around a certain person?" she asked.

"Yes! Tommy's aunt Chloe!"

Vanessa smirked. "Chloe, huh? Was she… pretty?"

What did Tommy's aunt being pretty have to do with Sun getting sick? Human illnesses made no sense.

"She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, why?"

"It sounds to me like you just got your first crush."

Ok, now Vanessa must be sick. She clearly wasn't thinking straight.

"You think I like-like Tommy's aunt?" Sun laughed. "That's a good one! Fazbear animatronics aren't programmed for, for romance!"

"Just like you're not programmed to say banned words?"

Those two things were completely unrelated. But Sun stopped laughing. He wasn't seriously considering this, right?

"That's… completely different," he said. "Maybe I was overreacting. I'm sure it was the cafeteria pizza or something. Whatever it was, it's no use worrying about it tonight!"

"If you say so. What about you, Moon? How were the kids today?"

"The kids were great. We had fun."

"What about when you were standing on top of that play structure and everyone was chanting?" asked Sun.

"Connor got stuck up there and I had to bring him down."

He could still feel the pit in his stomach from when his foot had slipped. He was slipping. And he almost took Connor with him.

"Connor! That's what his name was! I couldn't remember it earlier."

"You couldn't?"

"No, and it's been bothering me ever since! But now I know why: Elaine was the one who checked him in, so I never met him in the first place! Oh! What about Ginger? What's she like?"

"Who's Ginger?" Vanessa asked.

"The new daycare guard. She's cool."

"Did she make you feel sick?" she smirked.

Moon looked her dead in the eyes.

"No."

He wasn't going to play her games.

"But she did offer to give us a ride!" Sun interjected. "Do you think we could go with her tomorrow?"

"I think you should know someone for more than a day before telling them where you live."

"That's what I was trying to say," said Moon. At least they agreed on something. He yawned. Apparently, taking care of the kids took more energy than he thought.

After a little more talking, everyone except Vanessa got ready for bed. Just as Moon was drifting off, he heard Sun whisper something.

"Shoot."