Of Headaches and Heartaches

Chapter Eight: Hi, I'd Like to File a Missing Person's Report!

See, another key thing they didn't tell you about working here was the animatronics. If they didn't like you (and how a robot can like or not like someone is beyond her), you wouldn't last long. The programmers took notes from the past lines of Fazbear robots, tweaked them and made them the closest thing to sentient.

Some of the new hires didn't believe this. They took it upon themselves to mess with the animatronics.

Those people never lasted long.

But Vanessa has the special circumstance of seeing the animatronics after everyone else had gone home.

Sometimes it was special for all the wrong reasons.

Creepy as that could be, it meant she'd built up a repertoire with the band.

"Officer Vanessa!" Freddy greeted, throwing a comically large paw out for her to shake. "Long time, no see."

John remained frozen. It was not often the leader of the Fazband and mascot of the entire company randomly talked to the workers.

"How's it going, Freddy?"

"Busy. I've hardly had time to use a charging station."

Vanessa shook her head, tsking sympathetically at the large bear's plight. "Try not to work so hard."

"Will do," he laughed.

She laughed as well, turning to leave. "Well, I'll just be going then."

"Okay, nice seeing you."

-x-x-x-

"I need to file a missing person's case," a man said, voice trembling.

The receptionist took in the man's distressed demeanor, rumpled clothes, and untidy hair, and was instantly reminded of all the crazies that waltzed through the police station's doors. Occasionally one of them would try to report a family member missing that either; A, wanted nothing to do with them, or B, never existed in the first place. It was not common but it did happen.

She should have felt bad, but she didn't.

The man leaned on the desk. He had to be in his early to mid forties with chocolate brown hair and bright blue eyes. Not exactly a sight for sore eyes, and she was kind of bored. May as well hear him out.

"What's your relation to the missing person?"

"I'm his father."

She opened up the necessary program, typing up the report for an officer to look over. "Okay, you're his..." her nails tapped against the keyboard, "...father. Great! I'm going to give you this to fill out." Rifling through the contents of her desk drawer, she pulled out a small packet.

She handed it over, along with a pen and a clipboard. "Fill this out and bring it back when you're done. We also require a birth certificate from the missing person and an ID from the person filing the report. And a current photo of the missing person."

Dejectedly, the man reached for the paperwork. "Okay," he said, turning from the desk.

Looking back over the report, the receptionist almost slapped herself. How had she forgotten?

"Sir?" She calls.

"Yes?"

"Ah, name of the missing person?"

The man stared down at the paperwork. He made no move to answer the question.

"Sir-"

"Gregory," he finally answered, obviously on the verge of tears. "My son's name is Gregory."

"Okay...Gregory. Last name?" She asked, annoyed.

The man didn't answer her, choosing instead to focus on the paperwork.

God, she hated customer service.

-x-x-x-

Completely oblivious to all of this, stuck in the daycare, Gregory babbled happily to his new friends. More kids came in, filling the daycare. They screamed and screeched, hurting his ears.

"They're loud," Xander said, pressing his paint-covered fingers against the construction paper.

Sarah nodded. "Yeah."

"I wish they'd shut up," Makayla remarked, pouring a healthy amount of glitter onto her own paper.

Xander gasped, as did Sarah. Gregory copied them. They're older and seem to know everything.

"'Kayla! Bad word!" Sarah shouted.

"Agh! Sorry! Don't tell Mister Sun, please," she begged. "I won't get a sticker, and I'm so close to getting a prize from the toybox."

Gregory focused on his own craft, using his friends' arguing as background noise. It was a coloring page of the Fazband. They all seem so cool. He hoped Momma Nessa and Papa Luis let him see them. All the other kids have.

He scribbled in the image with a dull, blue crayon. A shrill bell rang out, signaling the main door being opened. According to his friends, that really only happens when someone's getting picked up or dropped off.

Gregory looked up from his coloring page. Near the door, a brown-haired man is kneeling down, arms out. A little boy, a little older than Gregory himself, runs to him. They embraced, and the man stood up, whirling the little boy around.

"Gregory," a deep voice crooned, fondly.

His eyes fluttered open. Standing over his crib is-

"Da," Gregory babbled. A warm sort of feeling flooded his tiny chest. He couldn't do more than smile and babble up at the man, but that always seemed to be more than enough.

Large hands-warm hands-scoop him up. He's held against his father's chest. His dad turned in a slow circle. Gregory loves when his dad does that-loves the weightless feeling that follows.

His dad laughed. It's a nice sound, and it made Gregory feel safe and loved. "I love you so much. I hope you always remember that."

A sharp pain in his side had Gregory turning back towards the group. Sarah poked him again. "You okay?"

Hearing the door close, he nodded. "Mhm, now I am."

-x-x-x-

A perk of working behind the scenes was that Luis was granted a little more freedom than other workers. Exhibit a: currently, he's scrolling through the nearby towns' missing persons cases.

There are countless. Kidnapped children, runaways, and everything in between.

But none of them matched Gregory's description.

He refreshed the page once more, trying to see if anything would change. The internet was slow, especially during peak hours. "C'mon, c'mon," he urged his laptop.

"Luis?" His manager asked, voice still sounding faraway. "Luis!"

Panic seized him. Luis looked between the door to the I.T. office and his laptop and back again. Doing the most normal thing he can think to do, Luis closed his laptop and shoved it in his bag. Just in time too, because not a second later his manager burst through the door like a less cool version of the Kool-Aid man.

"Aha! Caught ya!"

Luis stared up at his manager, face impassive. He's slouched over, elbow propped up by the computer desk.

They stared at each other for a solid minute before his manager started cracking up. "Aha! You should have seen your face." He mimicked a stunned expression. Wiping a tear from his eye, he continues on, "Anyways, you can go home. You're already at forty hours, and you know how corporate is about giving overtime."

Slowly, Luis felt himself calm down. Vanessa and Gregory were still safe.

He forced a laugh. "I sure do. Thank you, Paul. I'll start packing up."

His manager grunted, leaving the tiny office.

Packing up his supplies and shutting down any other equipment he had been using, Luis can't help but feel grateful for the shortened day.

More time for research.