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It was something Scott found himself doing more often once he recognized the young man working the night shift. The freckles on his face, the bright hazel eyes, the fearful but determined gaze peeking out from under the brim of his cap; he was definitely his father’s son. The name just clinched it. And Scott found himself thinking of 1987 more and more, wishing to see his old friend again.
But it was one that would never be granted. Scott gathered his courage to approach the newbie, introduced himself, and asked how his father fared. Maybe he could stop by to chat?
The fallen expression on the boy’s face told him everything. No second chances, no restoring lost friendships.
He asked for a photo, something to refresh his memory of his old friend. The kid gave him an odd look but eventually fished out a creased photo from his wallet and handed it over.
Jeremy Jr. told him to keep it -a faintly bitter tone in his voice-, then walked away.
Scott would take the night shift every once in a while, on the easy nights the kid had off, and between flicks of light and winds of the music box, he would study the photo and compare it to his memories.
They didn’t match up. His friend had changed so much. It wasn’t too far off the mark to think the events of those days had affected the once shining day guard of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, but this much? This was a complete fall.
Where once there had been a near perpetual smile of good cheer, the man’s face was neutral at best, a dead look of hopelessness staring out from under a creased brow and sunken cheeks. Once upon a time he’d been a beautiful man to look at; the photo showed him with the appearance of someone gaunt and wasting away. Scott shook his head sadly. As badly as he had taken the murders of those children, his friend had shattered, breaking down into screams of anguish and rage before rushing to save what he could of Mike’s condition.
And then the scandal of the days after…. He regretted not stepping forward now. If he had come forth, explained the situation the elder Jeremy had been in, maybe he would still be alive today….
But he didn’t. Hurt by Lucian’s betrayal and suspicious of everyone else, Scott remained silent as accusations flew and stood by as Jeremy fled Freddy’s Pizza, taking only a few minutes to see the creepy little Marionette before rushing out the doors, a look of fury on his face. He was never seen again.
Boss had all traces of him pulled from the pizzeria. Awards, plaques, children’s drawings, photos; anything that was connected to Jeremy J. Fitzgerald Sr. was yanked down and destroyed. The Toys were scrapped for possessing his software and the originals given a dusting to take their place once more, save Foxy, of course. They smelled horribly, but there was nothing else. The Spring suits would have been used in a pinch, but Golden Freddy had been damaged by Lucian and Jeremy had gotten Spring Bonnie sealed away in the boarded up safe room the second he got back from a corporate-mandated visit to a sister location, fuming about 'Afton meddling' under his breath.
They got rid of everything touched by the day guard, but Jeremy got the last dig in anyway. His last set of security software that was installed to the server and the old Fazband was buried deep, resisting every attempt to remove it. The man was a genius with code.
Scott spent years since 1987 wondering what things would have been like now if only they had given Jeremy more trust, had listened when he raised the alarm that something wasn’t right with his software, that it had been tampered with and the pizzeria needed to be locked down until he could trace the problem. Would Freddy’s still be flourishing? Would there still be bright and happy children that came to visit?
And then he remembered the night he was attacked by Golden Freddy, during the first week Mike took the night shift. Scott genuinely thought he would die, battered and beaten as he was from trying to get out of the Fazband’s grips, and to find they fled from him only because Golden Freddy appeared to finish him personally had left him too stunned to speak past the numb ‘Oh no’ of recognition. He was going to die, he’d been fully aware of it.
But he didn’t. There was a flash of gold and movement, something diving from a corner with a scream of rage, and then darkness.
Scott woke up in a hospital bed, boss Byron standing by with a grim look on his face. There was no sign of Golden Freddy, no recording of what had happened beyond the audio captured in his training tapes. Even that didn’t fully take, and the rest of the tape was garbled noise, distorted words and sneers and snarls.
He spent months in that hospital room, his thoughts still going back to that night, replaying it over and over. Gold and gold, one dingy, one bright. Gold came to kill him. Gold came to save him.
Now Scott has the picture of his old friend, looking over the withered man that seemed like a shell of who he used to be. Hair unkempt, scraggly beard, the overall sense of disregard for himself; how could this still be the same guard that took joy in protecting everyone who walked into the pizzeria? The man who vowed to be their shield?
He sighed. Didn’t matter now. Jeremy Sr. had died a broken man. The shield was gone.
…
The shield was gone?
Scott peered more closely at the crinkled photo. Something wasn’t right.
In 1987, Scott often grinned and rolled his eyes when the elder Jeremy walked the floor with a wide smile. He was easy to spot despite his relatively short stature. All Scott had to do was look for the sparkle of gold from the shield he always wore. It was the silliest thing. He’d been wearing it on his jacket when he was being interviewed for the job, and promptly placed it on his cap when he was issued his uniform. Wherever Jeremy came from, that shield had been held as a point of pride and he displayed it every day.
Jeremy in the photo, his wife looking displeased and his son looking miserable, didn’t have that shield. Had he gotten rid of it for some reason? Maybe ditched it since he failed to be the shield for the children? Such a shame.
Scott kept the photo in his wallet. Every now and then, mostly when he was on night shift and the animatronics seemed more.. disciplined.. than usual, he would pull it out and just look at it.
He would look and remember those wonderful days when the air of Freddy’s was light and full of joy, and a gold shield promised that no one would die on his watch. A promise forcefully broken by a monster with a wide, wide smile and a gold badge of his own…
END