Chapter Text
Elizabeth wakes to a loud clattering noise in the kitchen and knows right away that it’s Michael. It always is. He’d probably been trying to pull off some stupid stunt or sneak more food into his room and managed to drop something.
She rolls over to check the clock on her desk. The short hand was between six and seven, so she knows it’s after six, but she’s too tired to remember how to read the long hand. She can tell that it’s too early for him to be getting ready for school, though. And while she contemplates rolling over and getting some more sleep, the idea of seeing what Michael is doing is more compelling. If he’s breaking the rules, she can use it as blackmail or just snitch on him when Dad gets up. If he’s not, maybe she can get him to make her breakfast.
She creeps down the stairs and towards the kitchen and peaks her head around the corner to spy on her brother. He’s not doing much, just brewing a pot of coffee, and Elizabeth is initially pretty disappointed. Sure, it’s not like Michael to drink coffee, but other than that, it’s a relatively normal thing to do. Then she notices how he opens several cabinets, looking for the mugs, finding the plates and the canned food before eventually getting to them. It’s not like they’d been moved; It’s strange that he couldn’t find them.
On second thought, since when does Michael know how to use the coffee pot? Six months ago, he, along with Elizabeth and Evan, tried to make coffee on Christmas morning and failed spectacularly. The original goal was to not need to wait for their dad to slowly make his way through his morning routine before they could open gifts, but it ended up taking a half hour longer for them to clean up all the grounds and make a pot that wasn’t so weak. Elizabeth reasons that Michael must be practicing for next Christmas.
Elizabeth spies on Michael for a while longer, but eventually gets bored watching him do almost nothing and decides to reveal herself. Obviously, she’s going to have to go with Plan B, getting Michael to make her breakfast. Sometimes he’ll make her Special Toast; maybe she can get some now? She backs up, then walks casually into the kitchen, like she wasn’t just peeking around the wall five seconds ago. Michael is climbing on the counter to put the coffee grounds back on the top shelf, talking quietly to himself.
“You’re up early,” Elizabeth states, rubbing her eyes like she just woke up.
Michael gasps and tumbles off the counter, smacking his head on the floor when he lands. Elizabeth freezes, waiting for him to do something to indicate how much he hurt himself (laughing is the best-case scenario; crying is bad; silence is probably the worst) before reacting. When she hears him groan and start to sit up, Elizabeth laughs.
“Nice one, dork.” She giggles as Michael picks himself up from the floor. “Didn’t think I’d scare you that bad.”
Michael doesn’t respond but turns to look at her with an expression she can’t begin to read. It’s like he’s scanning her face for something, or like he’s the one trying to read her expression. But it’s not that, not exactly.
“Are you alright?” Elizabeth asks genuinely.
Michael gives a short nod but still doesn’t say anything; He just continues staring at Elizabeth intently with the same unreadable expression.
He’s being weird. Weirder than normal-older-brother weird, even. Elizabeth isn’t sure if it’s because he just hit his head pretty hard, if he is being strange on purpose, or what his deal is, but she resolves to ignore it. It’s not really her problem.
“Okay, make me breakfast then. I’m starving.” She demands.
Michael shakes his head and scowls slightly.
“Please! Can you please make the Special Toast?”
Michael looks confused for a second, then mutters, “Go back to bed, Elizabeth.”
“Quit being like that!” Elizabeth orders, but seeing the displeased look on Michael’s face, she decides to shift to a softer tone: “I wanna watch cartoons before school, and I’m too hungry to sleep.” She throws in a look that shows off her sad, green eyes. Usually, trying to be cute didn’t work on her family, especially her brothers, but it never hurt to try.
Michael sighs. “Okay.”
Elizabeth cheers and rushes to the living room before he can change his mind. She flicks on the TV, finds a rerun episode of Strawberry Shortcake playing, and watches in peace for all of thirty seconds before Michael walks into the living room.
“What’s Special Toast?” He asks sheepishly. He’s talking quieter than he usually does.
“How hard did you hit your head?” Elizabeth’s tone is light, but she’s starting to get a little worried. “It’s with the jelly heart, remember?”
Michael thinks about it for a second before nodding and walking back to the kitchen.
Elizabeth wonders what his problem is. He’s making coffee, letting her pick what’s on TV, and talking so quietly she can hardly hear him. But Elizabeth, again, just chooses to ignore it. Knowing Michael, it’s probably some stupid scheme that will end in him laughing hysterically while Evan cries or she screams at him. He’s not worth getting worked up over.
A couple minutes later, Michael brings out toast on a plate. The heart is a different shape than it usually is, it isn’t cut properly, and it’s a little burnt. Elizabeth points these things out to him, but he just shrugs and walks away without saying anything. She sighs and eats it anyway; it’s better than the off-brand cereal she usually has.
Dad finally comes down the stairs about a half-hour later and he immediately remarks on how early Michael and Elizabeth were up. Michael just stares at him with the same unreadable expression, not saying a word, but Elizabeth knows that she talks enough for the both of them, she’s always been told that she could talk the ears off anyone.
Dad seems to notice that Michael’s being strange, but assumes that he’s just being more polite than usual. He even makes a lighthearted remark about Michael clearly wanting something. It is a good explanation for the fact that Michael gets the paper without any argument and pours a cup of coffee for Dad without being asked; he even had a mug laid out for him already.
Finally, Evan enters the kitchen. He’s clutching Fredbear in his arms, like he usually is. He’s already dressed for school, which reminds Elizabeth that she’s not yet, despite it being almost seven thirty. She’d apparently become so consumed by the television that she’d forgotten it was a school day. She quickly gets up to go change so she doesn't have to be asked. As she’s hurrying back to her bedroom, she glances at Michael and notices him staring Evan down just like he’d looked at her and Dad, if not even more intensely. He’s definitely planning something.
Dad seems a little out of it as he ushers the three of them out of the door. He mutters about being dizzy and having a headache. He also tells them to be quiet when they come home, in case he’s sleeping, and that he might not go to work today. This strikes Elizabeth as odd, she’s never heard of him missing work for something trivial, so obviously he feels pretty bad. But ultimately it’s not the end of the world, people get sick all the time. Elizabeth hadn’t caught it, though, so she and her brothers still had to go to school.
The walk to school is oddly quiet. Michael trails several feet behind Evan and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is sure to look back at him repeatedly and make sure he doesn’t try anything, but he never does. There’s got to be something going on, though. He’s too quiet, he doesn’t walk with the same confident saunter he usually does and he hasn’t made a single snide remark to either of them. She decides to inform Evan of her observations, mostly just to affirm that she isn’t losing her mind in thinking he’s being weird.
“Evan,” Elizabeth whispers so Michael can’t hear her, “Is Michael being weird?”
Evan looks (not discretely) over his shoulder at Michael, then shrugs his shoulders, “A bit.”
“I think something’s up,” she says.
Evan just shrugs again, which bothers Elizabeth slightly. Why didn’t anybody care? Michael was never like this, even when he wanted something or was planning something, so something was obviously wrong. He had hit his head pretty hard that morning, which could be the issue, but if it was that then it seems like it would be a bigger deal than it was. Of course, nobody caring could also mean that she was exaggerating Michael’s behavior in her head. That didn’t seem right either, though.
This continued to bother Elizabeth at random points throughout the school day. When she spaced out she often found her thoughts wandering back to Michael’s (and Dad’s for that matter) strange behavior that morning. Michael was just being weird, and Dad had randomly gotten such a bad headache that he considered missing work; he never missed work. This continued to bug her, even when Michael came to pick them up. He was already there when Elizabeth and Evan came out of school, while he usually took forever walking from the middle school building to theirs. Elizabeth kind of wonders if he'd even gone to school that day at all, but quickly dismisses that thought entirely. Even Michael wasn’t stupid enough to ditch school for no reason, their dad would be so mad it wasn't worth it. He must have just hurried that day.
When they got back to the house the door was unlocked, which probably meant that their dad was still home; he would have locked the door when he left for the diner.
“Do you think he’s sleeping?” Elizabeth says in a whisper, “How quiet should we be?”
“I’ll check.” Michael turns to go upstairs and Elizabeth and Evan both follow him. When he’s at the door of Dad’s bedroom, he puts his hand out motioning for them to wait outside.
Michael spends about a minute in the room, Evan looks at Elizabeth with his head tilted to the side, and is about to say something, but Elizabeth sticks her finger in front of her mouth and tells him to shush. They have to be quiet, they’re right outside Dad’s bedroom door and he was very clear that they shouldn’t bother him.
When Michael walks out of their dad’s room he closes the door behind him.
Elizabeth looks up at him expantly and Evan mimics her. Michael looks directly at Elizabeth and says, in that same almost-whisper that he’d spoken in all day, “Call Henry at the diner. Tell him there’s an emergency.” He doesn’t really sound worried, but he speaks with a worrying amount of urgency.
“What? What’s going on?” She asks. “Is Dad okay?”
Michael doesn’t respond at all, not even a change in facial expression, but the lack of reassurance is enough for Evan to start crying immediately and grab the back of Elizabeth’s shirt.
Elizabeth understands that she’s not old enough to know everything, but she’s smart enough to tell when something is seriously wrong. Evan’s only six, but he must be smart enough too. This time, unlike most times, she doesn’t tell him to stop crying or let go of her. It seems like this time he might actually have something to cry about.
Evan ends up letting go pretty quickly anyway when Elizabeth runs for the phone in the kitchen. He follows after her. The diner’s phone number was one of three that Elizabeth knew by heart, along with Uncle Henry’s landline and her own home phone.
It only rings twice before an employee answers with the traditional, “Fredbear’s Family Diner, my name is-”
Elizabeth cuts him off, “I need to talk to Uncle Henry, now!” She says with obvious urgency in her voice.
“Henry Emily? He’s pretty busy, I don’t know if-”
“Please!” Elizabeth is desperate, and slightly annoyed that whoever this is doesn’t get that there’s clearly something wrong. “Tell him that it’s me and it’s an emergency.”
“Uh, right, and who are you?” The guy asks, bemused.
“Elizabeth Afton. Please hurry!”
“Right, I’ll go get him.”
There’s an agonizing minute or so where Elizabeth is just listening to Evan cry at the kitchen table and the muffled sounds of the diner through the phone.
After what seems like forever, Uncle Henry’s voice comes from the speaker, “Lizzie? Is everything okay?”
Elizabeth lets out a frustrated noise and cries, “No! Michael says to tell you there’s an emergency! Something about Dad, he won’t tell us. We need you to come and help.”
Evan lets out a sob from where he’s sitting. It covers the first part of what Uncle Henry says, but Elizabeth hears, “…ten minutes if I hurry. Sit tight.” And there’s a click signifying that Uncle
Henry hung up. At least he seemed to understand the urgency of the situation.
Elizabeth stands dumbfounded for a second, only breaking from her stupor when she remembers Evan sniffling from the table. The only real difference between the two of them right now is that Elizabeth has never been a crier. She likes to think of herself as more of a doer, a fixer even. There’s no use crying about things when you can always try and fix them, or at the very least stop them from doing too much damage. Right now the best way to do that is to help Evan, and to do that it’s probably easiest to just distract him.
Elizabeth puts her hand on Evan’s shoulder and asks, “Should we watch the TV until Uncle Henry gets here?” She asks with as much enthusiasm as she can muster. Maybe if she sounds excited Evan will match her energy? “Isn’t that show you like on about now? With the buff guy?”
“He-Man?” Evan asks, a little giggle mixed in with his tears.
“Yeah, let’s see what he’s up to.”
Evan shakes his head, “No, Michael’s-”
“Since when do we care about Michael?” Elizabeth keeps her tone light and joke-y at first, but seeing how it isn’t really helping decides to change her strategy. She bends down a little so she’s eye level with Evan and says, “Look, there’s really nothing we can do. Michael and Uncle Henry are going to handle it.”
Evan starts crying again, “What’s ‘it’? I want to know what’s wrong,” he sobs.
“Me too, but we don’t know. Let’s go watch TV.”
The cartoon flashes on screen, but Elizabeth isn’t paying much attention. It feels like it’s been over ten minutes since they turned it on, Uncle Henry should be here by now. He told Elizabeth that he was going to hurry, why wasn’t he? Why hadn’t Michael come downstairs yet? What was wrong? Elizabeth was trying not to imagine the worst-case-scenario, but it was getting hard not too. Seriously, why else would Michael react like that? Then again, he was being weird all day…
Elizabeth’s train of thought is interrupted by the sound of Michael rushing down the stairs. She turns to look at him and is about to ask him what’s going on but is stopped by the front door flying open.
Uncle Henry hurries inside and slams the door behind him, obviously panicked. Michael runs up to him and pulls him down by his shirt to whisper something in his ear before Uncle Henry can even ask what’s going on. His eyes get really wide and his mouth falls open as he’s listening to Michael speak. Once Michael finishes talking and steps back, Uncle Henry nods quickly.
“Elizabeth, Evan, go sit in my car.” He orders, speaking more sternly than Elizabeth’s ever heard him speak before.
“But I want to-” She starts to object, but Henry cuts her off.
“No. Listen to me. You and Evan both go, now. Charlie’s in there, she’ll unlock it for you.”
Elizabeth swears she sees Michael mouth ‘Charlie’ to himself, which is definitely weird but so not important right now she hardly even thinks about it. She does what Uncle Henry said to do, gets up, grabs Evan’s hand and takes him to Uncle Henry’s car. It’s in the street (not very well parked - Uncle Henry really was in a hurry), and Charlie is indeed sitting inside. She looks confused to see them, but opens the door for them anyway.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asks.
Evan clutches Fredbear tighter and burying his face in the plush’s head.
“We don’t know.” Elizabeth sighs. “Michael won’t tell us.” She slides into the car, taking the middle seat and letting Evan have the end. “Can’t be good, though.”
Charlie nods, a little disappointed, “Dad told me it was an emergency.”
“That’s all Michael told me, too.”
Elizabeth really wants to tell Charlie what she thinks is happening. Of course it’s worst-case-scenario but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s right. She doesn’t want to start a panic, especially because she couldn’t stand to listen to Evan’s inevitable wailing if she told him what she thought was going on. Honestly, she didn’t know how to feel about the situation herself.
There was no use in getting emotional over a theory, obviously, but if she was correct… It’s best not to think about it too much.
Maybe it would be better just to tell someone what she thought, though. Selfishly, she didn’t like being the only one thinking about it.
Elizabeth leans into Charlie’s ear and whispers quietly enough so Evan can’t hear, “Charlie, can I tell you something?”
Charlie nods.
“I think…” Elizabeth hesitates, maybe this isn’t a good idea. But Charlie’s not going to overreact, she’s old enough to know better. Elizabeth lowers her voice even further and whispers, “I think my dad might be dead.”