The next day, Moon had already regained some of his strength. Sure, the cafeteria pizza was awful, but it was better than no food at all. And, in hindsight, it didn't take that long to walk to the cafeteria. He was willing to fill himself with greasy cheese product if it gave him enough energy to help the kids.

"Morning, Gabe!"

"Good morning, Ginger."

Despite his history with previous daycare guards, he enjoyed working with Ginger. Unlike them, she actually cared about the kids. While most guards were content to glance at the monitor between naps or episodes of their favorite shows, Ginger actively watched over the children in her care. If he was busy in the back, she would tend to the kids in the front, from scolding the troublemakers to bandaging boo-boos. She even helped him clean up! Her table-wiping form was flawless.

"We're not going to starve ourselves today, are we?"

"No," he said, avoiding eye contact.

"Good. You were seriously hangry yesterday."

"I guess I was. That's probably not fair to the kids."

"Not really, but they'll forgive you. Anyway, you know how I showed you some old security footage last week?"

"What about it?"

"Would you like to see some more? I've been looking through it before opening, and there are a few clips I think you'll like."

"Sure."

"Great! Ok, I'll pull up the first one."

Moon had mixed feelings about watching the security footage. It was surreal to watch Sun do things he had experienced a million times, then pretend that it was new and interesting. But it helped him keep his cover, and Ginger seemed to enjoy it. He sat down in the chair next to her, waiting for the show to start.

"Ok, last time we only looked at the Sun side, so I thought we could look at the Moon side today. There isn't nearly as much footage of this one, so these took a while to find. Apparently, the daycare didn't have a proper 'naptime' for weeks before the storm, at least as far as I saw. Sometimes you can see a kid or two sleeping in the corner, but the lights are never off during the day. It seems kinda weird that they would design an animatronic to have a naptime mode that never gets used."

"Yeah, that would be… weird."

They were looking at clips of him today. Ok. This is fine. Nothing is wrong here. Why was he nervous? She had already seen the footage, and she liked what she saw. Even if she didn't, her opinion of him didn't matter. She was only the daycare guard.

"Right? It makes no sense. If the kids are gonna nap anyway, why not turn the lights off?"

"Maybe they kept the lights on for the kids."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've seen those designs, right? They don't exactly match the cute and cuddly characters advertised in the gift shops. These kids are separated from their parents and forced into a new place, and the first face they see belongs to this big, loud machine. Now, he tries to be nice, he really does, but the kids don't always understand. They were probably scared enough when the lights were on. When the lights turned off…"

"Mm, I see what you mean. That would explain why they brought naptime back recently."

"Yep."

After the first month or so of parents complaining about their kids getting nightmares, Fazbear had wiped naptime off the schedule. They tried to bring it back every so often, including right after reopening. They would usually advertise "new and improved Sweet Dreams software" or some other nonsense, which in reality was little more than a day or two of basic maintenance. Why they did this was a mystery, but the outcome was always the same. More scared kids, more complaining parents, then bye-bye naptime.

"You ready to start?"

"Um, yeah, sure."

She pressed play. It showed Sun standing near the security desk.

"Ok, so I know what you're thinking, and yes, I did pull up the right video. It starts with Sun, but then look at that. He walks over to the light switch and turns it off, switching into the Moon side! They're taking turns! Isn't that cute?"

"Cute? For turning off the lights?"

"I just think it's nice that they care about each other. It makes them feel more… alive, y'know?"

"I guess."

"Besides that, did you see that transition? Now that's a marvel of engineering! How do you think they get the clothes and everything to change color? I'm sorry, I gotta rewind that."

Ginger watched the lights turn off a few more times before resuming the video. The first thing Moon did in the video was twist his torso around, and go into a modified backbend… frontbend, maybe? He wasn't sure what to call it, but he loved doing that. It was much more fun and efficient than "normal" crawling. Sun always complained that it "scared the kids" (as if they were fine before), but how else would he make his way through the tubes?

"Wha-what is that?" Ginger laughed. "This is why the Moon one is my favorite. That's too funny, bro! I mean, again, a marvel of engineering, but why he movin' like that?"

"Maybe he likes it," said Moon. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed that she found it so ridiculous, or flattered that it didn't creep her out. Wait, did she say he was her favorite?

"Maybe, but then why didn't the Sun one do it? They have the same body."

"Maybe the Sun side and the Moon side have different ideas of fun."

He was her favorite.

"That's possible. It makes sense that their personalities would be as different as… night and day." Ginger smirked, clearly pleased with her pun.

"Good one," Moon smiled.

Not just part of her favorite animatronic, which would have been amazing, but actually her favorite character.

"Thanks. Oh, this next part's good, too."

They looked at many more clips, mostly of Moon. They showed him doing all kinds of things, from drawing to gymnastics. Ginger loved all of them. She was especially impressed by his abilities as a contortionist.

"Whoa. It must be pretty cool to be able to do moves like that. Of course, you can probably do a lot of things when you don't feel pain."

"What makes you think he can't?"

"Why would he? I could understand why they might have some kind of damage warning system, but an accurate simulation of pain wouldn't make much sense."

"This is Fazbear Entertainment we're talking about. Doing things that don't make sense is their specialty."

"I'll admit, Fazbear's made some questionable decisions, but even if he does feel anything close to pain, those joints are incredibly flexible. I know I would be feeling it the next day if I tried that."

"You really think it's that hard?"

"You wanna prove me wrong?"

Yes, yes he did. But he couldn't. He knew from experience that most of those tricks were physically impossible for humans to do, and the ones that weren't took lots of time and training to learn. If he showed her, he couldn't explain why he was able to do them.

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Aw, I'll be looking forward to that," Ginger smirked. "That's the last clip I have for now. Thanks for letting me show you my nerd stuff again."

"Thank you for showing me."

"I'm her favorite."

It kept echoing in Moon's mind all day. Every time he looked at her, he remembered how she smiled at those recordings. He wanted to tell her that her favorite character would be coming back very soon. He wanted to show her how effortlessly he could perform every trick she had already seen him do, and every one she hadn't. He wanted to finally earn the admiration that all of the others had from the beginning.

But he couldn't. Not yet.

That didn't stop him from thinking about it, though. Now he had another reason to get things back to normal as soon as possible. He wanted to show Ginger his real self before she left. After all, she was nice, and the nice ones never lasted long. But why did she like him? Most employees treated him like the mistake that he was, if they acknowledged him at all. He spent days trying to figure it out, and before he knew it, it was Friday again, their last day together before the weekend.

"Bye, Brooklyn!" Ginger waved to the girl and her father as Moon shut the door behind them. "Welp, looks like it's closing time! This week sure has flown by."

"No kidding. Do you have any big plans this weekend?"

"Kind of. My birthday is tomorrow, so I'm going out to dinner with some friends. No huge party or anything, but it'll be fun."

"I'm surprised you don't want to spend it here."

Ginger laughed. "I would, but I think I may be slightly outside of the target demographic. I almost had my sweet 16 here, but my parents wanted me to have a more 'grown-up' party. I do kind of wish this place was open when I was little. Lazer tag, mini golf, and arcade games as far as the eye can see, not to mention friendly robo-mascots utilizing state-of-the-art AI. And apparently in, like, the first year they were open, they gave you a free sweatshirt with your favorite character on it."

She pulled out her phone and showed him a picture of children wearing sweatshirts with all of their Glamrock pals on them.

"I mean, come on bro, just look at these! What kid wouldn't want to spend their b-day here? But my favorite is this Chica one. Look how cute and glittery it is!"

She zoomed in on the pink sweatshirt. It had a picture of Chica holding a slice of pizza, and it was quite glittery. It also looked very familiar…

"Huh. Cute."

"I know, right? But, even though I won't be here, I'm going to have some delicious food with my friends, and it's going to be great." She paused and wrung her hands. "I know you're going to be working tomorrow, and you probably want to go home like you usually do, but we're going to Las Lupitas in case you wanted to swing by for a minute. I could save you a slice of cake. But I totally get it if you don't want to come."

Moon was speechless. Ginger wanted him to come to her birthday party? He could understand if he wanted her favorite animatronic to be there (despite still not understanding why he was her favorite), but she didn't know that he was him. As far as she knew, he was some random guy she had only met a couple weeks ago, yet she wanted to share the most important day of her year with him.

"I… would, but I don't think Vanessa would be willing to drive me. Plus, you would probably be done by the time I got there."

"That's fine!" It definitely wasn't fine. The first birthday party he had ever been invited to, and he couldn't even go. He was devastated. Ginger tried to hold her smile, but she was clearly disappointed, too. "You have some good points. Even if you didn't it would still be fine, but obviously I don't expect you to come if you don't even have a way to get there."

"You sure?"

"Oh, pfft yeah, of course! See you tomorrow! MONDAY! I meant Monday. Not tomorrow. Sorry."

They stared at each other for a moment.

"Bye."

She left before Moon could say anything else. Not that there was anything he could say. He wanted to go to her party more than anything, but of course he couldn't. Sure, it wasn't the same as a kid's birthday, but it would have been interesting, maybe even fun. It was probably for the best, though. Sun hadn't been invited, and it would be unfair to go without him. Even if they were both invited, they didn't know how to act at parties. They did have some birthday party protocols, but those were for entertainers, not guests.

If he did go, he might do something so obviously wrong that he could blow his cover, and then… something. At best, people would freak out, and according to Vanessa, they would all be arrested. At this point, Moon wasn't sure why he and Sun would be arrested, but she was keeping secrets from them (one of them possibly being possessed), so she might be lying about that part. Either way, it was clearly a good thing that he couldn't go.

That didn't make him feel better. He was still letting Ginger down. What if she never forgave him? Would she started treating him like the other guards? She was too nice for that, right?

"Moon? Moon!"

Moon snapped out of his trance. He was sitting on Vanessa's couch, and Gregory was leaning on the armrest.

"Hm?"

"I said," Gregory repeated, "what's wrong?" With every word, his face drew closer until it was all Moon could see, with his two blurry eyes seemingly morphed into one. Moon gently pushed his face to a safe distance.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then why haven't you said anything since we got off work?" asked Sun. "Did something happen with the kids?"

"No, the kids are fine."

"You and Ginger didn't come upstairs together. Did something happen with her?"

"Um… kind of. Her birthday is tomorrow."

"Really? That's wonderful!"

"Why are you sad about her birthday?" asked Gregory.

"Her party is during work hours. She doesn't work then, obviously."

"Why would that matter?"

"I… she… kind of… invited me."

"WHAT?!" Sun yelled. "YOU GOT INVITED TO A BIRTHDAY PARTY?!"

"Yeah, but-"

"THAT'S AMAZING!" He was bouncing up and down, a huge smile spread across his face.

Vanessa came out of her bedroom to investigate the noise. "What's amazing?"

"Moon got invited to a birthday party!"

"Really? Whose birthday is it?"

"Ginger's, but I can't go."

"But you got invited! That's farther than either of us have gotten before!" Sun practically jumped on him and squeezed him tightly. "I'm so proud of you!"

"Ginger? She's the new daycare guard, right?"

"Mm-hm. I didn't even know grownups had birthday parties."

"Not good ones," claimed Gregory. "All they do is stand around and talk about their jobs or how young they think they look. Sometimes they don't even have real cake. Trust me, you wouldn't wanna go anyway."

"And how many grownup parties have you been to?" Vanessa asked, resting a hand on her hip.

"Too many."

"Well, I think it's very nice of her to invite you," she said, turning back to Moon. "People typically don't invite random coworkers to these things."

"I know. She seems to think we're friends or something."

"Definitely something," Vanessa mumbled. Moon knew what she meant. She was trying to distract him, give him a reason to stay like this, so that he wouldn't find out whatever she was hiding under the raceway. It wouldn't work. Not on him. He pretended not to hear her and continued.

"Obviously I'm not going, but I wish there was some way I could make it up to her."

"Maybe get her a present," suggested Gregory.

"But how?" Sun asked. "All of our craft supplies belong to the daycare, so we can't make a present, and we don't have nearly enough money to buy one."

Suddenly, Moon had an idea.

"Actually, I know exactly what to get her."