Chapter Text
The last thing he remembered before he woke up was the feeling of his body fading. He had reached out and tried to tell Sun that he loved him one last time, but he didn’t know if he had been able to finish the sentence. Now as he reached out he felt glass under his fingers, and he pushed the glass door of the tube open. Solar fell to his hands and knees with a grunt before he started to cough.
It felt like his internal fans were struggling to operate and his systems were running hot. He desperately needed to take in air to cool his systems before he fried them. Thankfully after a moment his fans managed to finally kick on and get to work. With that out of the way, he looked around.
It wasn’t home. Far from it actually. The room he woke up in seemed to be some sort of abandoned lab where most of the tech probably didn’t even work and things were piled around haphazardly. The only lights were dim, causing the room to look even worse. Where was he? Where was Sun? Moon? What had happened with Ruin?
He coughed again and tried to work things out. His arms looked different, meaning his body probably did as well. Had someone managed to bring him back from the dimensional collapse? It shouldn’t have been possible, but if it was the case then how much time had passed? He ignored the warning signs that popped up on his HUD and forced himself up. He couldn’t fix anything if he stayed on the ground. He had to figure out where he was and get home.
As he managed to get up, Solar noticed that he was for some reason wearing socks. He quickly pushed that to the back of his mind as things to question later as he looked around again. Surely if he was there, then whoever brought him back would be alerted, right? And if anyone had managed to do it, it would have to have been his best friend.
“Moon?” He called out as he continued to look around. “Moon!”
Solar stumbled and put a hand to his head as another warning popped up. His head was killing him, and his voice hadn’t drawn anyone out from behind anything. He was alone, and he didn’t like it one bit. The abandoned lab was rather creepy.
No, he had to keep looking around to find a way out. Maybe the random tech had information on where exactly he was? Maybe he could find some boots to go along with his new socks? That would be more comfortable than having the fabric catch on the metal flooring. He didn’t find anything of the sort, but he did find a computer that worked. Sitting down in the chair he tried to recall his friend’s phone number so he could be picked up.
“Please pick up…” He whispered to himself as he closed yet another warning. His mouth felt unbearably dry for some reason.
“Hello?” Moon’s voice sounded a bit annoyed on the other end, like he had been interrupted in the middle of something. Still, it was good to hear.
“Moon?”
The voice of his friend instantly turned annoyed and hostile. “What do you want, Eclipse?”
Eclipse? “What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean what am I on about? I thought you left, finally.”
He held his head as he tried to focus on what to say. “I-I think there’s some confusion here right now? I’m not exactly Eclipse… Well I guess I am…”
It was probably the voice that confused the scientist. Since he had died, they probably hadn’t been expecting a phone call. But if that was the case, then was Moon not the one who brought him back?
Solar heard the phone hang up which confused him even further. “Hello?” Moon usually wouldn’t hang up on him. Did he think it was a prank or something? Guess it didn’t matter. If he wasn’t going to get help he would need to find a new way to get home.
As he started to search for anything he could use again he heard familiar grumbling and looked over some boxes just in time to see the night themed animatronic making his way over. “Moon?”
When the other looked up he froze in shock, mouth open in disbelief. “Uhhhhhhh.”
He sighed and moved to step around the boxes. “Relax, it’s me. Solar.”
“Oh. Ohhhhhh.” Moon clasped his hands together, his face twisted in an expression like he was about to have one of the most awkward experiences in their lives.
“Oh?” He questioned before gesturing towards the pod he had woken up in and the computers. “I mean, I figured you were doing this. Well, maybe not this exactly..”
“Ummm… How do I start this?” Moon asked himself as he looked around the lab. “Ummm..”
He didn’t care about the awkwardness, he just wanted to get home and maybe proper coverage. “Do you have any boots by the way? I’m just wearing, like, a bunch of socks.” He looked down at his exposed feet with confusion before he looked back up to the other animatronic.
“You’re wearing a shirt.” The scientist oh so helpfully pointed out.
He sighed, not in the mood for the other’s playfulness. “Yeah. Do you have something for feet?” Solar asked more pointedly.
“Why would I have shoes?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what this place is.” The eclipsed model complained as he looked around again. Another error message ignored.
Moon clapped his hands together again. “Um, well, hm.”
“Where is everyone else?” Solar asked as he finally made his way over. He was really worried but also couldn’t understand why he was even there. “I’m confused. I-I thought I was dead.”
“You were.” Moon said, holding out an arm to try to help the unsteady animatronic.
“Were?” If he was dead, then how did he come back?
Moon started to whisper to himself as he looked Solar over. “So I’m assuming this is what Eclipse did…”
“What are you talking about right now?” The last thing he could recall about Eclipse was that the bastard was ready to sit back and enjoy as Ruin possibly killed Sun, laughing maniacally at the thought of it. “How long have I-”
“First of all,” Moon interrupted him. “I don’t know you. I’m not the Moon you knew.”
“What do you mean by that?” Had he woken up in a different dimension? Did something go wrong?
“I’m the one who got put into deep storage when stuff happened.”
“What? What are you talking about” Solar’s head hurt too much to try to think about what he meant.
“I’m the original Moon.”
“Oh, I see…” He looked down, holding his head. If that was the original Moon, then where was his friend?
“The Moon you knew goes by Nexus now.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Solar looked back up, squinting to see if he could tell if the night themed animatronic was joking. Sure it would only make sense for his friend to get a name change if the old version came back, but Nexus? “I’m sorry, but what exactly happened since I’ve been gone?”
This different Moon started to count on his fingers as he started to list things off. “You’ve been dead for several months,”
He instantly had to stop him there. “How long is several months?” How had Sun been through those months? Earth? Lunar? Nexus?
Moon shook his head. “I don’t know specifics. I didn’t come back until like a month or two ago.” He went back to his finger counting. “In summary, I, the one you knew, Nexus, uhh went bonkers crazy trying to bring you back. Then stopped trying to do that, nearly killed Earth, uhhh.”
Solar scoffed at that. Right, clearly this had to be a prank of some sort. Moon was messing with him while he was still recovering. “Okay. you know this is real funny.” He said sarcastically.
“Funny?” Moon asked, now confused.
“Yeah. I don’t believe any of that.”
The lunar animatronic stared at him. “Give me a reason why the other me that you knew would lie about this. Or why I would lie about this.”
The eclipsed model looked down. He couldn’t think of any reason, it just couldn’t be the truth. He just knew that Mo-... Nexus would never hurt his family.
“From what I heard, you died in his arms.”
Solar let out a stressed sigh. Everything was too much. Everything hurt, it felt like he was still overheating, and he just wanted to see someone he actually knew. “I want to go home.”
“Well we moved.”
He snapped back to looking at the other. “Moved?!”
Moon shrugged. “Yeah. Things happened. A lot of things happened.”
He was just so tired and didn’t want to hear any more. “Can you just get me out of this hole then?” He growled out.
The other sighed and nodded, messing with something on his arm. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Soon enough a miniature portal was set down, showing a house he didn’t recognize on the other side. The home Sun, Moon, and hopefully Nexus moved into. Walking through it made him feel uneasy and uncomfortable, but it was better than being stuck in that lab. The cool night air even felt good against his burning casing and insides as he breathed in. The house was big. If he had to guess, it looked bigger than the island home.
“New home!” Moon declared proudly. “Uhhh, Lunar lives here, Jack lives here, me and Sun, and Dazzle.”
“Dazzle?” He didn’t expect to hear that the security bot he made lived there, and he was upset that he didn’t hear the new name of his best friend, but he hadn’t expected a completely new name.
“Yeah, I don’t think you know who that is.” The nighttime animatronic said as he turned and started to lead the way inside. “Come on. SUN!!!”
Solar covered his audio receptors as the other called out, wincing. Though the sound of his partner making startled sounds in return caused relief to flood his systems. Even though it only felt like he had been gone for a few minutes, it still felt like it had been an eternity since he had seen his lover.
“I’m home! I got a guest!”
“A guest? b-But the place isn’t cleaned up at all!” Sun yelled from somewhere deeper in the house. Funnily enough, the house looked spotless.
“You’re gonna wanna see the guest first!” Moon continued to yell.
Solar tried to ignore how much the loud voice hurt by taking in his surroundings. “This is a nice place.”
“Give me a second!” Sun yelled back at his brother.
The scientist walked further inside and looked around. “Anyone else home?!” When the eclipsed model tried to follow he lowered his voice and gently pushed him back to the front door. “Wait there… I wouldn’t… I don’t want to overwhelm too much” He said before he continued to walk deeper into the house and through a hallway.
Solar sighed and waited by the door, holding his head again. The pain still wasn’t going away, and he didn’t know if it was because of the yelling or stress of everything else. He was still getting errors but now he had the time to actually look at what they said other than just being about his systems overheating. Apparently it was telling him that he needed water and food to combat the heat and to allow the nano machines to create coolant? That was… new. He had never needed food in the past.
He was brought out of his thoughts at the sound of bells approaching, and he looked up in time to see Sun walk around the corner and freeze. The eclipsed model smiled as he looked over his beautiful Sunshine who was wearing a comfortable looking t-shirt under an orange apron. “Hey.”
The sunny animatronic covered his mouth as tears fell from his eyes, and Moon walked behind him to place a comforting hand on his twin’s shoulder. He brushed it off and slowly walked forward. “s-Solar?”
“y-Yeah, I uh…” He looked over himself before he looked back to his partner and held out his arms, both to show off his new appearance and to open himself up if the other wanted a hug. “Look a little different than I thought I would.”
Sun looked between his brother and Solar, clearly in shock as he didn’t move closer to the open arms. “Why is he- why- You’re back?”
“I got a phone call.” Moon said, a little unhelpfully.
“You got a phone call?”
“Yeah, he called me. I thought it was Eclipse.”
He put his arms down and nodded. “I had to go to somebody. I was stuck somewhere. I thought I could contact somebody and I-”
Moon interrupted him again. “He was stuck in Eclipse’s old lab in front of the sun.”
That made Solar stop his entire thought process, like a record scratching to a halt. “I’m sorry, what?”
Moon shrugged. “Stupid Eclipse things!”
That dumb information seemed to be enough to snap Sun back into fully processing what he was seeing as he stared at the eclipsed model again. His voice sounded like he was desperately trying not to cry. “You’re back? h-Hey, w-welcome back!”
Solar tried to speak, but once again the night themed animatronic spoke over him as he tried to talk to his boyfriend! “Oh he also didn’t believe me about the fact that I’m not the one that he knew, so if you wanna run that by him.”
That caused Sun’s happy smile to fade and become troubled. He didn’t like such a look on the other and had been hoping the conversation could come later. But he supposed it was too important.
“Oh.. oh… You uh.. You’ll want to sit down for this.”