Implied sex and mentions of suicide in this chapter !!
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Mike's arms were still tightly wrapped around her waist when she woke up. Sunlight pooled into the room, his room, from the window.

The first thing she noticed was her pounding head. Oh how it ached. She felt exhausted still, even after resting. Bone tired, the kind of tired that grips you and doesn't let you go for days on end. She rolled over, gently, not to wake him, and looked at Mike. Ariel bandaid still on his chin. A smile tugged at her lips as she watched him sleep.

She wondered what he was dreaming about. What does Mike dream about? Does he even dream? Some people don't, you know. Fancy never understood that. How could a person not dream? Dreams are our escape from reality, they awaken new inspirations in us and revitalize ideas we haven't thought about it who knows how long. Dreams are fundamental.

Mikes eyes fluttered open slowly. Opening, and closing as if he were fighting off the sleep that still had a hold of him. He hummed softly and rolled his shoulders back.

"Fancy?"

He groaned in that groggy morning voice. She giggled. Sleepy Mike.

"Hi."

She simply said and Mike smiled at her. "Good morning." He said. "Although it's probably nearly noon." Fancy added and Mike chuckled. "So what?" He wrapped his arms around her tighter and brought her close. "It's not like I have a job to go to today." "But I do, Mike." "What do you mean? You solved the case didn't you? Case closed. That's what you people say, isn't it? 'Case closed'? Or is that only in movies?" Fancy giggled.

"I have to go present my findings to Officer Hurst. He's supposed to be observing me, but ah- he's too busy to properly observe me so I've been working on my own. Even though I'm sure he's done nothing but sit on his ass and eat donuts at his desk." "Maybe I should be a police officer, that way I can just sit on my ass and eat donuts, that sounds kinda nice actually."

"You, Mike, should not be a police officer." "Why not?" "Tell you what, when Vanessa gets better why don't you ask her about it." "Oh come on." He persisted with a grin. Mike almost never grinned. Only when he was teasing her or messing with Abby. It looked nice on him. She liked it.

"You could finish up at Yale, come back here, Take that hurt guy-" "Hurst, Michael, Hurst." "Whatever. You could take his place and I could be your partner." His grin widened as he teased her. "In more ways than one." His eyes flicked down to another mark he had left on her shoulder the night before.

"Michael!" "What?" He said, still grinning at her. "What's that saying? Save a horse, ride a-" "Stop it." "You know I'm only teasing you." He said.

"Besides, I don't need to finish that saying anyways. You know it from experience." He muttered that last part but Fancy still glared at him. "You sir need to get your mind out of whatever gutter you left it in last night." Fancy replied as she sat up to get out of his bed. "Fine fine." He replied.

"But that's not what you said last night." "Michael!" "Fine, I'm done." He said with a chuckle.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

"Francine! Good to see you're back!"

Janet, the secretary at the police station greeted her as she walked into the empty police station. Fancy offered her a smile. She supposed the police station of a small town like this didn't get a lot of visitors. Janet probably had a pretty boring job. Janet could probably do way better.

"Good morning." "Ah- Afternoon." Janet corrected her with a smile and a nod to the clock on her desk that read 3:17pm. Well damn. Her and Mike really had slept in.

"Afternoon." Fancy said with a nod. "Is Officer Hurst in?" "He is. His office-" "No need, I remember." Fancy told her.

"Uh, Francine," Janet spoke up, "Before you head back there you may want to pull your scarf up dear." Janet said as she did a reenactment of pulling up an imaginary scarf over her own neck. Fancy looked down.

Sure enough her scarf had dipped just enough to leave Mike's mark above her collarbone visible. Honestly, she wanted it to show. A warning. Fancy was spoken for.

"Oh," Fancy said with a dry and airy laugh. "Thank you." She told Janet and pulled her scarf up only to roll her shoulder enough for it to fall back down as soon as she walked past Janet at the welcome desk and headed back to Officer Hurst's desk.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

"I solved it."

The slap of the case file reverberated around the room like a gunshot. Her gun shot? The one she had fired at William Afton herself with a shotgun? Where was the smell of gun smoke? Where was the sound of the shotgun shell clattering to the floor? Where was the muzzle flash of the gun? No no, this was not a gun. Just a case file. A case file for a case she had solved.

Hayden Hurst choked on his donut.

He coughed a few timed and slapped his chest with his fist and sat up in his chair.

"Intern don't be silly-" "And I have a name. It's not intern, even though you make think it is. It's Francine." "Yeah okay." he said dryly as he flipped the case file open with his pinky.

"What's this?" He pointed to a tape. "His confession." She told him flatly. "Who's?" "Who's do you think?" " sir." he reminded her and Fancy's jaw clenched. She stood over him as he sat at his desk. She refused to sit.

She wanted the high ground. She wanted the upper hand. That narcissism, dangerous and addictive, had a grip on her and it refused to let go.

I know something you don't know.

Rang through her head as she looked down at the man who was barely five years older than her.

"Sir." She snapped. "How would you even manage to find him? William Afton has been missing for years." "It's not hard really. There has never been a death certificate before the year 2000 issued for him so he either had to be living or murdered. His daughter was still living."

"Officer Vanessa." Hurst said, realization coming across his face. "And just by observing her you can tell that her father is not out of her life."

"Do you mean observe as in stalk? Because that is a criminal offense-" "Do you really think I solved this case by illegal means?" She was challenging him, her voice had an edge to it. Did he really think that?

"No, I didn't." She said for him. "I did research. I looked for William's car. The night he allegedly killed those kids he returned home and his car never left. His car is still there, sir. So William either never left this town or he died at home and officer Vanessa did a real good job at cleaning up after him."

"So what are you insinuating?" "William stays home for a while. Months, probably even years. He waits for the news surrounding him to die down and changes his appearance. He even gives himself a new name. If anyone asked him about it he would claim it wasn't because he was guilty, but to avoid unwanted publicity. He would claim he just wanted to live a quiet life. Which we all know isn't the case. I confronted him. I told him I had evidence that he did commit these crimes, a tactic your division never used against him back in 87."

"Did you?" Hurst asked, looking up at her. "No. but that's not illegal. That's a common police tactic used to get a confession out of someone." She reminded him. "And he confessed. And it's all right there on that tape." She told him, trying not to sound too cocky but oh it was hard.

"Well, since you seem to know so much, Barbie." "Francine." He acted like he didn't even hear her. "Where is William Afton now? You probably are assuming we will make an arrest. Well, let me remind you, Barbie, an arrest means paperwork and that means it will take time to get this all properly processed assuming you did your job correctly and-" "No."

"No?" "No." "The hell you mean no?" "There will be no arrest." "And why the hell not?" Fancy slid a sheet of paper over to him.

"Certificate of death?" He read aloud. Fancy nodded.

"After I confronted William about everything and he cracked, leaving me with a taped confession, he couldn't stand to live with himself. He knew it would only take a few days before I had everything filed away with the police and he would be indited for five charges of murder in the first degree. He knew he would be the perfect candidate for capital punishment and that the public would be in favor of that since it's been reinstated. William Afton shot himself. He's been dead for three days now."