A/N: As much as I'd like to advance the plot to Security Breach, I simply have not had either the time or the mental fortitude to do so after how busy my work week was this week. So instead, it's going to be another filler chapter…but one that answers a question that I've left in the air for a very long time.

Why aren't Mike and Melody dating considering their obviously very close friendship with each other, and is it still possible that they might date in the future? This is a question that I absolutely want to make sure I answer before the story's end, and now's as good a time to answer that question as any…as well as actually have the ghost kids visit Melody's house for once, instead of the other way around.

That, and bring back 2 characters to the spotlight who, if I could rewrite this fic, I would've given more development to than I actually did.

Multiple: Thank you everyone for the kind words regarding my passing the board exam! It feels great to cross this major milestone and put it behind me, even if I have to deal with another board exam in a few years lol.

gPlasma: Ahh, shit, I didn't realize I made that mistake. I'll have to go back and fix it at some point. Thanks for pointing it out.

Chapter 216 – A Visit to Melody's House

Mike drove his car down the road, humming contentedly with his ghostly children floating around in the backseat area. With the issue of the Mega Pizzaplex effectively forced into the backburner for the time being until he received word of its Grand Opening, Mike would happily take any opportunity to let his kids enjoy himself as much as they could.

But even if that hadn't been the case, it had been far too long since he'd visited this particular location. And that was a mistake that he intended to correct now.

"I still can't believe that we're actually going to Melody's house today!" Charlie exclaimed as they drove closer to their destination. "You didn't mention anything like that at all before this morning!"

"Honestly, it wasn't something that I had planned until today," Mike admitted. "I realized this morning that even though Melody's visited our house a bunch of times since you all first showed up in my house, I haven't really brought you all with me to visit her instead. Heck, I straight-up can't remember the last time we visited her house together."

"I think I accidentally teleported into her house once?" Cassidy volunteered. "I was in Rockstar Golden Freddy while we were playing our One Night at Mike's game. That was…super awkward," she admitted sheepishly.

Fritz shook his head. "I still have no idea how the hell you pulled THAT off," he commented, sounding almost impressed as much as he was thoroughly confused.

Mike shrugged. "Weird shit happens sometimes," he replied nonchalantly, before adding, "although I think we all agree that probably doesn't count as a proper visit."

"I honestly don't remember what Melody's house looks like at all," Susie admitted with a frown. "Was it really fancy like Dad's?" she asked, directing the question a little more towards Cassidy than anyone else.

"Don't look at me!" Cassidy protested. "It was months ago, and I teleported right in the middle of her bathroom!"

"Wow, that IS awkward," Gabe acknowledged.

"Well, at least this time you'll see a lot more of her house than just the bathroom," Mike reassured her. "And to answer your question, Susie…Melody's house isn't as fancy as mine and she doesn't have a huge amount of frontyard or backyard territory like I do, but the house is certainly respectable in its own right and she lives more than comfortably."

"That's good," Jeremy commented approvingly. "She deserves a really nice house."

"You're about to see it for yourself again," Mike declared. "We're pretty much here." He turned the car into a small street lined with houses that, while not outright luxurious, were all 2 stories tall and clearly of higher quality than the average home. Melody's house had a driveway large enough to fit multiple cars and had 2 garage doors, as well as a backyard that was large enough to contain a decently sized swimming pool.

Liz's eyes lit up as they fell upon the house. "Oh, right!" she exclaimed. "I think I actually AM beginning to remember what Melody's house looks like now!"

"I hope it looks just as comfy inside as it does outside!" Gabe chimed in.

The Schmidt family got out of the car and approached the front door to Melody's house. Mike rang the doorbell, and a few seconds later Melody opened it. "Hey, Mike!" she greeted him cheerfully, before glancing around at the empty air around him that was actually filled with the invisible ghost kids. "Are they here?" the Korean woman asked quietly.

"They are," Mike confirmed, his voice equally as quiet.

"Then come on in!" she invited in her normal speaking voice, beckoning them into her house. It was only after she closed and locked the door and covered the windows that the ghost kids finally materialized in front of her.

"Hey, Melody!" Jeremy was the first to greet her with a grin on his face. "Great to see you, like always!"

Susie looked around at the inside of Melody's house admiringly. "I honestly forgot how big this house is," the former Chica inhabitant remarked. "It's so spacious in here, and so cozy too!"

"Do you really live here alone?" Fritz asked as he floated over to a green sofa large enough to fit three people. "It looks like you could fit an entire family in here!"

"I do have some family that visit every so often," Melody explained, "but for the most part I live here by myself. I think part of it is that, if I ever change my mind and decide to go for a full family, I want to make sure that I have a home large enough for a family to fit in." She grinned and gestured around her living room, which was well-furnished with high quality furniture even if it wasn't to the degree that Mike's was. "And besides, even if I don't go for a family, I can live plenty comfortably with what I already have!"

"That's a good way to look at it," Charlie complimented. "Would you mind showing us around? I think it's been so long since we last visited that most of us forgot what your house looked like."

"Yeah, no problem!" Melody readily agreed.

Melody proceeded to guide the Schmidt family around her house, more for their sake than for Mike's since he had already been to his friend's house plenty of times over the years. It soon became clear that Melody had drawn at least a bit of inspiration from Mike on how she had furnished and decorated her house, albeit with less fancier tastes. The dining room was a prime example of this, as unlike Mike's outright fancy and extravagant room that wouldn't have looked out of place in a mansion, Melody's was much simpler with a mahogany brown circular dining table and a set of four chairs spaced evenly around it. Her living room, on the other hand, was remarkably similar to Mike's own, complete with a sofa, couch, and even a large flat-screen TV with multiple modern consoles and an entire shelf dedicated to DVDs and video games located right next to it.

"Hey, I recognize a lot of these games!" Cassidy exclaimed as she looked through the catalogue. "Mario Kart and Mario Party, Spyro, Super Smash Bros., Pokémon…" She glanced back at over at Melody. "You and dad like the same kind of games, huh?"

Melody laughed. "Not just us. There's a lot of people to this day, including my coworkers from Eisensteel, who love to play the same kind of games that we do. It always feels kinda surreal whenever I play Mario Party and steal a Star from my boss."

"There goes your promotion," Mike joked, earning a giggle from his kids and a dry snicker from Melody. "But yeah, there used to be this whole idea that only kids play video games and the only thing adults do all the time is work. As you no doubt figured out by now, that idea is a load of bullshit."

"I think I'd go crazy if I had to work all the time as an adult," Charlie commented as Melody guided them through the rest of the house. Unlike Mike's house, the upstairs floor was far smaller and humbler, with only one bedroom and one room set up as a study where Melody had another desk and a computer set up. Cassidy also recognized the bathroom where she had accidentally teleported into as Rockstar Golden Freddy that one time.

"I still feel kinda bad about popping up like that," Cassidy apologized sheepishly as they went back downstairs.

Melody brushed it off with a wave of her hand. "Don't worry about it," she reassured her. "It was kinda funny more than anything else once I realized what happened." She then led them down into the basement, where a surprise was waiting for the ghost kids.

"Oh my God!" Jeremy exclaimed. "Is that Helpy and Bonnet over there?"

"Yeah, it is!" Gabe confirmed, eyes wide with disbelief. "I was wondering if we were gonna see them once Dad told us he was bringing us over to Melody's house." He waved over at the two tiny animatronics. "Hey, guys!"

The two animatronics, upon hearing the former Freddy inhabitant's voice, immediately looked up from what they were doing and waved back happily at the group. Helpy wore a huge smile on his face and Bonnet giggled cheerfully as they greeted their former owners.

"Aww, they're still just as cute as ever!" Susie cooed.

Liz, meanwhile, tried to get a closer look at what they were doing. "What are you guys doing?" she wondered. "It looked like you were trying to do something before we came down here."

"Oh, they were probably playing a board game!" Melody explained as they got closer to them. "These guys are really smart. Seriously, I've been shocked several times by how intelligent both Helpy and Bonnet are sometimes. They're smart enough to help me around with a few tasks, and they learned how to play board games after only a few rounds of me teaching them."

"Whoa, really?" Fritz asked in amazement. "What kind of games do they know how to play?"

"Chess, Checkers, LIFE, Monopoly, even Risk," Melody answered to everyone's awe. "And not just at a beginner level, too. I've been beaten by these two quite a few times because they're smart enough to figure out basic strategies to win these games."

"That's absolutely incredible," Charlie complimented the two, earning a happy giggle from Bonnet and a thumbs-up from Helpy.

"Do they know how to play video games?" Cassidy asked, eager to see just what the two animatronics they had once adopted could actually do.

"Ehhhh…" Melody flipped her right hand up and down, "…kinda but not really. A lot of that is because their hands are too physically small to pick up or play with a console. They can do things like pick Pokémon moves for me but not much more than that."

"Well, even that's a lot already," Jeremy praised, not wanting Helpy or Bonnet to feel bad about it. Thankfully, neither of them seemed at all bothered by this particular shortcoming, much to everyone's relief.

"Can we play with Helpy and Bonnet?" Susie all but begged. "Please?"

"I'm kinda curious to see this too," Mike admitted. "I knew those two were smart, but I never really got the chance to see what the upper limit of their intelligence was before I gave them to you."

Melody grinned. "Sure!" she easily agreed. "I'm sure they'll be happy to play with you. And they'll blow you away with just how good their gaming skills can actually be!"

"Thanks, Melody!" The ghost kids chorused as they flew over to join Helpy and Bonnet on the floor, where just like Melody had guessed, they had indeed been playing a game of checkers. That game was quickly abandoned, however, to allow most of the ghost kids, Bonnet, and Helpy to play a game of Risk. It was more of a way to test the animatronics' gaming intelligence rather than actually play a full game (given how such a game could easily end up taking hours), and much to everyone's surprise, both Bonnet and Helpy did indeed display an impressive level of gaming sense and strategy just as Melody had hyped up.

After only a few turns of playing, it became abundantly clear to all the ghosts that both Helpy and Bonnet demonstrated a clear understanding of how the game worked. They distributed their turn reinforcements in an intelligent manner and carefully launched their attacks in ways that would have made sense to a seasoned Risk player, instead of haphazardly and carelessly attacking territories that they would have had no chance of success. Helpy launched an attack from South Africa that destroyed Jeremy's army in the Congo, while Bonnet forced Susie out of Ontario with an attack from Quebec. After just a few turns, Helpy had effectively seized control of the entirety of Africa, and Bonnet was well on her way to conquering more than half of North America.

"Holy crap, these guys are wrecking us!" Susie exclaimed, earning a satisfied giggle from Bonnet.

"It really is a testament to the power of AI," Charlie mused. "If this is what Bonnet and Helpy can do, imagine just what the state-of-the-art new Glamrock animatronics that Fazbear Entertainment made for the Pizzaplex could be capable of!"

"True enough, but if someone messes with the systems, it could make them so much more dangerous," Gabe pointed out, conveniently not mentioning that Bonnet herself had technically been an example of this before they'd reprogrammed her to get rid of any murderous tendencies installed in her by William Afton.

They spent the next hour or so playing the Risk game, with the ghost kids more enjoying the tiny animatronics' gameplay more than actively trying to win by themselves. By the end of the hour, Bonnet had conquered the entirety of North America and much of South America, while Helpy had claimed all of Europe, Africa, and part of Asia for himself.

"That's not even the half of it," Melody remarked fondly once they decided to end the game there so that their visit didn't degenerate into a 6 hour risk game. "These guys are absolute terrors in UNO."

"After what we just saw, I believe it," Jeremy commented. "Still can't believe how quickly I got destroyed."

Susie, on the other hand, looked almost…distracted more than anything else. She had been wiped out by Bonnet fairly quickly, but it was clear to her family and Melody that she hadn't really been focused on the game to begin with. "Uhhh…are you all right there, Susie?" Melody asked, sounding just a bit concerned. "You didn't exactly look like you had your head in the game, there."

"I'm fine," the former Chica inhabitant reassured her. "I was…just thinking about something."

"What were you thinking about?" Mike wondered.

Susie didn't answer right away, instead turning to face Melody. "Hey, Melody?" she asked a bit timidly. "Is it okay if I ask you…a bit of a personal question?"

Cassidy's eyes widened as she realized what her sister wanted to ask. "Are you about to ask THE question?" she exclaimed.

"Go ahead," Melody invited. "When you say it like that, now I'm more curious than anything."

"You and dad are really close to each other," Susie proceeded, and Mike finally began to understand what his daughter was so curious about. "You worked together at that Eisensteel company for years, and you're one of the people he hangs out with the most. So…how come you guys haven't gotten together yet?" she asked with the inquisitiveness of someone who'd wanted an answer to a question for a very long time. "You guys would honestly make such a good couple!"

"I know!" Cassidy added, backing her sister up. "We were thinking about trying to get the two of you together, but then things just got so busy and we never got the chance to actually think of a plan," she admitted.

Mike and Melody both blinked, completely taken by surprise by the two youngest ghosts' question. Even some of their siblings looked visibly taken aback. "Oh, wow…" Melody whistled. "I wasn't expecting to be asked THAT out of all things today."

"Really dropping the bomb in terms of questions today, huh?" Mike replied with a sardonic chuckle.

"I'm sorry!" Susie practically squeaked in embarrassment. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to!"

"No, no, it's not that," Melody reassured her. "It's just that your question has a really complicated answer, and it's one that Mike and I took quite a while to finally get to. But just so I don't keep you waiting for the long answer, Susie, the short answer is no. Mike and I don't love each other romantically. As friends, absolutely. But in the husband-and-wife way, no."

"Awww…" Cassidy let out a groan of disappointment. "You would've made such a cute couple, though!"

Susie didn't look quite as surprised as her sister, but the disappointment was still in her face. "I had a feeling that was it for a while now, but I was really hoping I could set you two up on a date someday!" The former Chica inhabitant admitted.

"You probably wouldn't have gotten the result you would've wanted," Mike informed her, "although maybe not for the reason that you might think."

"What do you mean by that, Dad?" Liz asked.

"To answer that question, I need to go back to when we first met," Mike answered, Melody smiling faintly as she recalled the memories. "All the way back when we first met in Eisensteel. I can tell you right now that there wasn't a love-at-first-sight moment between the two of us. Actually, that thought never even remotely crossed either of our minds."

"Why not?" Fritz wondered.

"Because there was an uneven power dynamic between the two of us, and a pretty big one at that," Melody explained. "We might be close to the same age, but our standings at Eisensteel were completely different when we first met. Mike was a well-respected, veteran engineer with years of experience by that point, even if he wasn't quite the chief yet. And I was a complete newbie who only knew the basics of what it meant to build robots. Mike wasn't just some guy I could walk up to and talk to like an equal right away without looking like an arrogant jackass, especially not when I'd never met the guy before I worked at Eisensteel."

"Dad doesn't seem like the guy who'd boss you around and be a giant dick, though!" Fritz protested.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Mike was always friendly and helpful to me even back then," Melody quickly corrected his misassumption. "He's a big reason why I was able to develop my own engineering skills so well and eventually take over his spot at the company. But when we first started off," Melody trailed off for a few seconds to find the right words, "he was a teacher, a mentor, and a superior first, and a friend second. And there are boundaries that you have to respect with that kind of relationship."

"Let me put it another way," Mike added. "Would you ever want to date your school teacher?"

The response wasn't long in coming. "Ewwwwwwwwww!"

"Exactly," Melody nodded. "We were friendly and polite to each other, but our professional relationship came first. And dating someone who's way above your level in the same professional setting is generally not a good idea, especially if that person is your direct superior."

"And the reverse is generally true, too," Mike agreed. "Heck, even more so in the other direction, arguably. I've heard a disappointingly high number of horror stories before about superiors who got romantically involved with subordinate coworkers and ended up abusing that relationship in one way or another. I certainly didn't want to risk that happening with myself and Melody, even by accident, so the idea of romantic feelings never even crossed my mind at first."

"Okay, that would explain why you never dated each other at first," Gabe acknowledged. He was just as invested in this question as his sisters, even if he hadn't romantically paired Melody and Mike in the same way they had. "But that answer makes less sense the more time passes. Unless I'm not understanding things right, Melody rose her way through the ranks at your company to the point that she was able to take over Dad's position as chief engineer once he retired. The power imbalance should have gotten a lot smaller by then, and you would've gotten to know each other a lot better as friends too!" he pointed out. "I think the two of you dating each other would've been a lot more acceptable by then!"

"That's a good point," Melody acknowledged. "And you're right, Gabe. We did get a lot closer over time. Not just in terms of where we stood in the hierarchy at Eisensteel, but also as friends." She smiled fondly over at Mike. "We've drafted and worked on so many projects together, we've hung out together on our spare time and visited each other's houses so many times over the past couple of years that I've honestly lost count…I think I can safely say that Mike is my best friend at Eisensteel, and definitely a solid contender for my best friend, period."

"And you guys never thought about dating each other at any point in your life?" Susie asked incredulously. "Really?"

To her and everyone's surprise, Melody and Mike both burst into laughter. "But that's the thing, Susie!" Melody finally explained once their bout of hilarity had subsided. "We actually DID try it once."

A Few Years Ago, at a Fancy Restaurant…

"There you are, Mike!" Melody called out to her friend. They had hung out together plenty of times before, but this time was different. For the first time outside of a formal business meeting, Mike was wearing a fancy black suit complete with a blue necktie, while Melody was wearing an elegant red dress that she only saved for special and momentous occasions. "You look really handsome in that suit!"

"And you look amazing in that dress," Mike complimented smoothly. "Want to check in and head over to our table?"

"Yes please!" Melody agreed immediately. "I've been looking forward to dinner, I heard the Chinese food here is some of the best in the entire state!"

"I would never say no to some top-quality Chinese food," Mike replied with a grin.

The two friends made their way to the check-in podium, where a waitress was waiting for them. Mike and Melody checked in, and the waitress guided them over to an empty table next to a window that gave them a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. The two of them got comfortable in the table before Melody continued the conversation with a more serious, thoughtful expression.

"You know…" Melody mused, "I was really surprised when you came up to me the other day and told me about your feelings for me. I honestly thought that you were about to give me a straight-up love confession…but that wasn't quite it."

"Yeah, and I'm sorry if what I said confused you," Mike apologized. "We're really close friends, Melody. I don't think either of us would ever think otherwise after all the years we've spent working and hanging out together. But whether I think of you as something more than just a good friend…" he shrugged helplessly, "if I'm being completely honest with both you and myself…I'm not 100% sure, and I haven't been for quite a long time. Whether I was happy to just be a close friend to you or wanted to advance that relationship to the next level…it was a question I'd been wrestling with for a very long time."

Melody shook her head. "You didn't confuse me at all, Mike," she reassured him. "I actually found your honesty quite refreshing, more than anything." She smiled wryly. "Mainly because I was kinda asking myself the same question too. And I didn't have an answer for myself by the time you talked to me and asked me out today."

Mike chuckled. "Well, that's why we're here, aren't we?" he asked rhetorically. "Doing what scientists and engineers do best and experiment. One way or another, I hope we find an answer to our question by the time the day is over."

"At least we'll be doing it together, right?" Melody agreed encouragingly, before adding sardonically. "If nothing else, I don't see this date ending up in a disaster where we have a violent break-up and ruin our friendship for the rest of our lives."

"Don't jinx it," Mike joked, but he wasn't any more worried about that possibility than she was. The two of them proceeded to exchange small talk for the next few minutes as the waiters brought their meals to the table, asking each other about how their projects were going and any fun activities they'd participated in over the past few weeks.

"I've been curious, Mike…do you believe in the supernatural?" Melody wondered as they proceeded to eat their meals. "It's something I've been meaning to ask you before, I just never got around to it." She smiled wryly. "You know how it is, something always comes up and then you just forget about what you were thinking about before."

"No, I get it," Mike replied understandingly. "And to answer your question, Melody…I do think that supernatural occurrences and phenomena are, at the very least, a distinct possibility. I'm certainly willing to take them more seriously than the average person." He glanced over at Melody. "Did I ever tell you about that one time I did a night shift at Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria?"

Melody blinked. "You mean that pizzeria with the killer mascot robots?" she replied uncertainly. "Didn't you tell me that those robots were killing people due to faulty programming or something?"

"That's what the official explanation they gave me was, but I'm honestly not sure of that," Mike shook his head and frowned. "There were some really creepy things going on that couldn't be explained by just messed-up programming. Creepy hallucinations, posters and other things changing in the hallways for a few seconds only to change back the moment I looked away without any of the animatronics ever touching them, and apparently there's a really messed-up backstory with a bunch of kids going missing in the pizzeria at one point."

Melody's eyes widened. "Are you saying…?"

"All I'm saying is that if anybody ever found proof of the supernatural and showed it to me," Mike finished with a pensive look, "I'd take it seriously and I'd be more willing to believe it than most other people."

The two of them finished their meal, and Mike proceeded to pay for their dinner. He would have paid for the entire date, but Melody had insisted that she would cover the costs for at least one part of the date. Which meant that she would be covering the post-dinner movie that they would be watching together at the movie theater.

The movie that they watched together ended up being a horror movie, a new installment of the Saw franchise. It was both a fitting movie for them to watch given the fact that it was almost Halloween and they had talked about Mike's own "horror" experience at Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria, but also ironic in that Saw was one of the few horror franchises that didn't feature supernatural elements in any way. Just a creepy puppet and a wide variety of horrific and morbidly creative death traps, created by the very much human hands of Jigsaw.

"You've gotta hand it to the Jigsaw Killer," Melody remarked with reluctant respect as they left the movie theater. "He might be a deranged serial killer with a really messed up moral code, but he's definitely got the creativity to come up with all those crazy death traps and the cunning to find and trap people in them to begin with."

"He certainly does make for a great villain," Mike commented. "Especially when he doesn't rely on anything supernatural to make him scary. It really goes to show just how monstrous humans can be by themselves at their very worst."

Melody nodded in agreement, but her mind wasn't focused on the movie anymore. Something that Mike noticed. "You doing okay there, Melody?"

"Yeah…I've just been thinking about the date," Melody admitted. "There was something odd about the whole thing that kept bugging me in the back of my mind."

"Did something go wrong?" Mike asked, now sounding concerned. "Did I screw up something?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Melody immediately reassured him. "This date was a lot of fun, and I had a great time. And I think I finally figured out what's been bothering me about it."

"What's on your mind, Mel?" Mike wondered.

"I think what surprised me about this date is that it didn't feel like a romantic date at all," Melody finally answered after several seconds of careful thought. "Sure, we might be in fancier clothes, and the bill might've been a bit higher than it might normally be. But other than that, this night out felt more like two good friends who enjoyed spending time with each other without any romantic feelings involved. It really felt like the two of us hanging out like we always do every few weeks."

"…so I'm not the only one who realized it," Mike mused. "I didn't want to say anything until we were about to wrap things up, but this did feel like one of our usual outings. Just with a few extra steps and a fancier environment to make it look more romantic…but I never got that romantic feeling, or felt that spark during the night."

Melody chuckled ruefully. "I guess we found the answer to our little experiment, huh?" she realized. "I really do think we're better off as friends. Not because we don't care about each other or don't enjoy spending time with each other, but because there just isn't that romantic spark between us even after we went out of our way to set up a real date."

"I guess not," Mike agreed, before shrugging. "But is that such a bad thing? Now we know how we feel about each other, without all the mystery and doubt mudding things up. And just like we thought, this experimental date didn't damage our friendship in any way, and we still had a lot of fun tonight regardless." He grinned at his friend. "All in all, I call that a success story."

Melody smiled back at him. "I'm glad we found the answer we were looking for." The smile turned into a smirk. "So, wanna hang out again in a couple of weeks? Hopefully NOT wearing these fancy clothes that end up making things more uncomfortable than they need to be?"

Mike laughed. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Mel."

Present Day…

"No way!" Fritz breathed out in disbelief. "So you guys DID date each other at one point in the past!"

"Yeah, we did," Mike confirmed with a smirk. "We were definitely good friends, but neither of us were really sure if we felt anything more for each other beyond that. And since you always miss the shots you don't take, I figured that we might as well go for a date in the romantic sense and see if that settled our doubts one way or the other."

"And we decided that we just weren't in love with each other," Melody concluded. "Not in the way that too people get married, start a family together, and have kids, anyway. It wasn't anybody's fault, and we didn't think any less of each other for it. We were simply better off as the good friends we'd always been, and that's been our relationship ever since then."

"Awww…so I guess there really was no way we were gonna ever pair you up together to begin with, was there?" Susie asked, the disappointment clear in her voice.

"Sorry, Susie," Melody gave her a sympathetic glance, "but it was never meant to be."

"I think that's okay, though," Jeremy reassured his sister. "At least we know they tried for a romance at one point. So we don't have to wrestle with the question of whether they could fall in love and get together with each other any more than they do."

"That was a pretty cute story, too," Liz commented with a smile. "You guys sounded like you had a lot of fun even without the romantic stuff going on."

"Plus the fact that moment when you were talking about supernatural stuff was actually pretty hilarious," Gabe added with a snicker, "considering that you literally have all the proof you need that the supernatural exists right in front of you."

"Yeah, my past self would've thought you were crazy if you told him I would ever take care of an entire family of ghost kids, but here we are now," Mike deadpanned, earning a couple of giggles from said ghost kids.

"But I hope we gave you the answers you were looking for," Melody concluded with an apologetic smile, "even if they might not have been the answers that you were hoping for."

"You did," Susie reassured her, giving her a smile despite her disappointment. "And I'm happy I got AN answer at least so I don't have to keep wondering anymore." She glanced over at Charlie. "What's the word for that again?"

"Closure?" Charlie helpfully supplied.

"Yeah, that's it," the former Chica inhabitant agreed. "Closure."

"And there's a lesson to be learned from that," Mike pointed out. "The first is that if you're ever caught up in a major situation, always try to wrap it up as neatly as possible. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes it's really hard or straight-up not even possible to do this, but the sooner you can bring closure to everyone, the better off everyone will be in the long run."

"Like the Mega Pizzaplex and Glitchtrap," Gabe thought solemnly, even though he didn't say it out loud. "Until we get rid of Glitchtrap once and for all, the tragedies will never end."

"And what's the second lesson?" Cassidy asked.

"That not every relationship between two people close to each other has to be romantic in nature," Mike answered with a fond smile directed at Melody and the ghost kids alike. "Sometimes, a good and unbreakable friendship is all that you need. And in the right circumstances, it can be even just as strong as if not stronger than romance."

/

A/N: I figured this was as good of a place to stop as any. I couldn't think of any way to follow-up on Mike's last statement without seeming like dragging the chapter on or needlessly padding the ending, so I figured I should quite while I was ahead.

I've criminally underutilized Helpy and Bonnet throughout this entire fic (mainly because they fell to the backburner with everything else going on), so I figured I should at least devote part of a chapter to see how their lives are in Melody's house. As you can see, they're having a great time and they're pretty happy to be part of Melody's family.

And speaking of addressing things that I've delayed for way too long, this chapter also answers a question that I probably should've answered a long time ago. Will Mike and Melody end up in a romantic relationship? The answer is no…because they already tried to go on a date once and decided that their relationship was better defined by friendship rather than trying to force romance into the equation and making everything messier. I think they made the right decision, all things considered.

I will probably direct the story back to the Mega Pizzaplex next chapter so we can get started on Security Breach and the upcoming confrontation with Glitchtrap, but I make no guarantees.

Hope you guys enjoyed!